Brussels, 18/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The "Baia Mare Task Force" set up in March this year by the European Commission in the aftermath of the accidental spill of cyanide from a gold mine in Baia Mare in Romania in January, causing serious pollution to the Tisa and Danube rivers - has forwarded its final report to Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström. The task force, chaired by Irish national Tom Garvey, examined how the accident was caused and how similar accidents could be avoided in future. On the subject of the causes, the report concludes that the Baia Mare accident was mainly possible because of the use of storage tanks (for waste water and cyanide) which did not have any emergency evacuation system allowing controlled evacuation of additional water volume caused by severe but "unforeseeable" rainfall. The Romanian authorities should never have allowed such installations.
As for the direct consequences of the disaster, the task force concludes that the worst was avoided (although the immediate ecological damage was extremely severe). There were no fatal victims and the Tisa and Danube rivers are already beginning to live "normally" again after all plant and animal life had been completely destroyed by the cyanide. "We were lucky this time, but if we do not take rapid measures to strengthen the rules governing such activities, we might not be so lucky next time", said Mr Garvey. In addition, the task force makes several recommendations concerning the criteria for authorising gold mines. The "most radical" of these recommendations aims to ban the storage of cyanide in tanks outside the gold mines. The cyanide should be extracted from the water inside the site.
Another recommendation aims to ensure that, in future, any person or company wishing to obtain authorisation to operate a gold mine of this kind should guarantee they have the technical and financial means to do so, as well as an operational plan for eventual closure of the site and the appropriate treatment of toxic materials.
Commissioner Margot Wallström recalled that, following the accident in January, the Commission undertook a detailed examination of Community regulations in the field of the environment and in relation to mining activities. This immediately resulted in the establishment of an action programme presented in a communication on the safety of mining activities (October). In this context, the Commission plans to take measures in three priority fields: the management of industrial risk, the management of mining waste, and the prevention and reduction of pollution. The conclusions and recommendations of the Baia Mare task force will help the Commission to move forward in these fields and the Commission will be able to include the conclusions and recommendations of the group in the future Community regime for the management of mining waters. At the present time, the EU has no direct influence on the environmental legislation in Central and Eastern European candidate countries, but these countries should take on board and apply all the EU environmental body of law by the time they join the EU. Ms Wallström stressed that it is for this that she keeps on repeating that, contrary to what some people believe, EU enlargement will not lead to a lower level of environmental protection but to a higher level throughout Europe.