Sprol

photo credit: Bálint Fejér, via Creative Commons

On January 30, 2000, a toxic chemical spill destroyed wildlife, devastated fish stocks and threatened the water supplies of nearly 2.5 million people in central Eastern Europe.

Romania’s Somes River, Hungary’s Tisza River and Yugoslavia’s Danube River, which is Europe’s largest waterway, were each catastrophically polluted. The toxic spill eventually reached the Black Sea and affected Romania, Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Serbia and Montenegro.

The spill began when the dam containing toxic waste material from the Baia Mare Aurul gold mine in North Western Romania burst and released roughly 3.5 million cubic feet (100,000 cubic metres) of waste water, heavily contaminated with cyanide, into the Lapus and Somes tributaries of the river Tisza, which is a tributary of the great Danube River.

Cyanide is extremely toxic and lethal to humans and animals, even in very small doses. It works by making the body unable to use life-sustaining oxygen. The cyanide-laced water continued to flow and soon reached the Danube, which flows through Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.

At this point, the cyanide reached a deadly density of 800 times the accepted maximum safe level. The situation was going from bad to worse because Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania all get drinking water from the Danube. (As a point of reference, the American standard as regulated by the Environmenal Protection Agency allows 0.2 parts cyanide per 1 million parts water (0.2 ppm) in U.S. drinking water.)

Loyola de Palacio, the European Union Commissioner for Transport and Energy, called the cyanide spill “a catastrophe of European dimensions.”

Officials from Hungary called the spill Europe’s worst ecological disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant calamity in the Ukraine. Shortly after this disaster, Hungary’s Tisza River was officially declared a dead river.

In fact, Hungarian towns along the Tisza were forced to ban the use of water, fishing and the selling of fish. While this move seriously threatened the livelihoods of many fishermen, authorities appeared to have no other choice. For the townspeople who lived along the Tisza, large amounts of emergency water had to be brought in because of the deadly contamination.

At the time of the spill, Serbia’s Environment Minister Blazic was quoted as saying, “The Tisza has been killed. Not even bacteria have survived.” Although the chemical was gradually being diluted by the river water and was beginning to lose some of its lethal effect, over the next weekend hundreds of dead and dying fish were reported collecting at the junction of the Danube and Tisza. This is an area just 50 kilometres upstream from the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.

The allowable maximum of cyanide per liter of water is 0.1 milligram. By this time, at the Hungarian town of Szeged, which borders Yugoslavia, the cyanide level was 1.1 milligrams per liter. Roughly 300 tons of dead and dying fish were removed from the river and disposed of.

However, Hungary estimates that the overall fish kill throughout Hungary was 1,240 tons. Other wildlife, including Mute Swans, Black Cormorant, horses, foxes and various other carnivores as well as other domesticated animals were also affected by this toxic spill.

Following the Baia Mare cyanide spill, various environmental assessments were carried out by several international organizations to determine the affect this spill had on the Tisza River and its tributaries.

According to these reports, acute effects were noted wherever the cyanide plume passed along the Tisza river system. Along with the dead fish, plankton and macrozoobenthos were also discovered.

The spill also drastically increased the existing heavy metal contamination of soil sediment, especially including copper, lead and zinc.

Despite the increased heavy metal pollution, it does appear that the Tisza River Basin’s ecosystem is trying to regenerate itself, and much of the wildlife is also recovering along the Tisza and its tributaries.

According to a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), more dedicated action is necessary in addressing the environmental “insecurities” and threats to the region, which includes Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro.

The report also points specifically at the mining industry. In the wake of the Baia Mare cyanide spill, the mines, both active and inactive, are still considered sources of potential accidental pollution. They are singled out by the new UNEP report for special and close monitoring and attention.

Despite a recovering ecosystem, some of the pollution and heavy metal contamination along the Tisza River still remain and more needs to be done to clean up the water as much as possible.

International experts indicated that the main cause of the Baia Mare cyanide spill is a combination of design defects in the facilities, unexpected operating conditions and bad weather. Whatever the cause, this toxic spill certainly exacerbated the serious pollution problems this region has been facing for years.