BAIA MARE CYANIDE SPILL BY MUHAMMAD HAZIQ

Occur in January 2000,the Baia Mare cyanide spill was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania into the Somes river by the gold mining company, Aurul, a joint venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian goverment.The polluted waters eventually spread and reached the Tisza, poisoning the river of Tisza and then the Danube, killing a large number of fish in Hungary and Yugoslavia. the spill has been called the worst environmental disaster in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster, Russia in 1986.

Sasar river in Baia Mare

Background

Aurul company claimed that it had the ability to clean up a by-product of gold mining, the toxic tailings which began to be spread as toxic dust by the wind. Promising to deal with them and to extract remaining gold from them via gold cyanidation, the company shipped its waste product  to a dam near Bozinta Mare, Maramures county. if you wonder about gold cyanidation, gold cyanidation is a technique of extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting a gold into water soluble complex and what happened next triggered the beginning of disaster. on the night of January 30, 2000, a dam holding contaminated waters burst and 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide-contaminated waters spilled over some farmland and then into  the Somes river. Esmeralda Exploration blamed excessive snowfall for the dam failure as the spill was actually the result of poor dam design and unusual weather conditions.

Tisza river in Hungary

Effects

After the spill, The Somes had cyanide concentrations of 700 times above the permitted levels. The Somes flows into the Tisza, Hungary's second largest river, which then flows into the Danube, Europe's second longest river, located in Central and Eastern Europe. After the cyanide entered the Danube, the large volume of river's water diluted the cyanide but in some sections it still remain as high as 20 to 50 times the maximum permitted concentration. In addition to cyanide, heavy metals were also washed  into the river and had a long-lasting  negative impact  on the environment. The spill contaminated  the drinking supplies of over 2.5 million  Hungarians. More than 1,400 tons of fish have died as a result of this devastating environmental accident that destroyed the life basis and necessity for hundred of fishermen along the Tisza  in Hungary. Large quantities of fish died  due to  the toxicity of cyanide in the waters of the river. Living organisms such as foxes and osprey also need to pay the price as they died after eating contaminated fish.

Recovery

Two years after the spill, the ecosystem began to recover, but it was still far from better at that  time  as the fishermen  of Hungary claimed that their catches in 2002  were only  at a fifth of their original levels. The Aurul company, now known as Transgold restarted the operation some month after the accident. Though Transgold has improved its safety standard and precautions, it still under heavy criticism  of environmentalists because  the company  still choose cyanide in its gold mining operation. As there have been no additional accident in recent years, the river of Tisza could slowly recover back to its initial state.Today, the number of fish is close  to the number before the accident, but there are still fewer species in Tisza river. 

The legacy of the Baia Mare cyanide spill is a strong reminder on the importance of environmentally safe gold mining techniques environmental care, for sure.We hope this post can enlighten all of you about the importance of environmental care.