Tisza cyanide spill must not recur
Date: 18-Feb-00
Country: HUNGARY
"We have to learn a lesson from this and we have to act," Wallstrom said
as she stood on the chilly banks of the Tisza in this central Hungarian
city, where a faint smell of almond still wafted from the water.
"I will start work on a plan to prevent such accidents in the future and
to cover gaps in the legislation," she said, adding she would set to
work next week.
She added the EU could send experts to help Hungary and Romania, where
the spill occurred, and might allocate some financial resources to help.
Speaking at a news conference, she said the international task force
would look into what has happened, what the damages are, and how such
things can be prevented in the future.
Wallstrom is the first high-ranking European Union official to tour the
scene of what has been called the worst ecological disaster to hit
Eastern Europe since the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear plant
disaster in the Ukraine in 1986.
She toured the river with Hungarian Environment Minister Pal Pepo and
Romica Tomescu, minister of water, forestry and environment from
Romania, where the gold smelter blamed for the cyanide spill is located.
YOU CAN SEE DEAD FISH FLOATING
"..the most important thing here is the concern and the worry and fear
of the people living by these rivers because they can see that something
is wrong, they know that cyanide is out there in the water, they can see
dead fish floating.
"You cannot deny that something...serious has happened and you have to
respect those concerns of people dependent on these rivers - and this is
the water for all of us," Wallstrom said.
Hungary and neighbouring countries have pulled tonnes of dead fish from
the Tisza and the Danube as a wave of cyanide-laced water which
allegedly escaped from a dam at a half-Australian owned gold smelter in
northwest Romania fllowed down the river.
At a water monitoring laboratory on the banks of the Tisza, laboratory
director Istvan Hafra told Wallstrom that some 70 to 80 tonnes of dead
fish had been trawled from the river and that the intake of riverwater
from the Tisza for Szolnok's 120,000 residents had to be closed for 11
hours as the toxic wave passed by.
"I would say that the Tisza is not dead, but it is severely damaged,"
Hafra told her.
Wallstrom, who will later travel to the site of the Romanian gold
smelter in Baia Mare where the spill of cyanide occurred at the end of
January, said the EU would not get involved in efforts by Hungary,
Romania and other countries to recover damages.
But she said the EU was supportive of the efforts to obtain
compensation, which could run into millions of dollars.
"Whoever is responsible for the pollution should pay - that is our
starting point," she said.
Esmeralda Explorations Ltd, the Australian firm involved in the Baia
Mare smelting plant, has until very recently said the damage claims by
Hungary were grossly exaggerated.
But the company in its most recent statement appeared to moderate its
position, while still maintaining that much study remained to be done
before it could be proven that its smelter caused a disaster.
"Quite clearly there has been contamination of parts of the river system
in the region and my heart goes out to those who may be suffering,"
Esmeralda chairman Brett Montgomery said in a statement.
"I stress however that there is no evidence to confirm that the
contamination and the damage said to have been caused is as a result of
the tailings dam overflow," he added.
