Red Tide on the Danube

Update: Aerial photos of the Kolontar waste dam show evidence of leaks three months before the dam broke. Six villages were inundated by a tide of toxic red sludge that reached the Danube and destroyed a tributary. Seven people were killed and one is still missing. The photos made by Interspect in June 2010 show red sludge visible in channels surrounding the alumina factory. According to WWF-Hungary the aerial survey shows the weakened state of the reservoir walls, although the collapse took place in another location from the one in the photo above. The organization is particularly concerned about the state of waste ponds located close to housing and the Danube river.

{8.10.10}No doubt readers of this blog have seen the story of the toxic red sludge spilling into the Danube River in Hungary. The highly alkaline waste from a alumina plant waste pond breached a corner of the dyke on Monday. It is yet another major environmental catastrophe. But the back story is the breach was an accident waiting to happen. This spill is the second major disaster to hit the Danube once famously described as blue. Now, the middle Danube basin is heavily industrialized and the river is polluted. The Danube river flows through 19 countries. Hungary alone has two other sludge ponds storing toxic industrial waste in close proximity to it. One is 80kms upstream and stores about 12 million tons of sludge in seven pools near the river bank.

In Serbia numerous heavy industries as well as the Pancevo complex of oil refineries are located on the river. After the NATO air war, surveys showed the presence of mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, ethylene dichloride and dioxins in the soil. Romania was the site of a massive  spill of cyanide waste from gold processing in 2000. In 2009 an industrial plant was discovered to be illegally storing thousands of tons of waste in an old dump covering a million square meters (247 acres) with peaks over 100 meters in height. Equally notorious is the Alum Tulcea plant that has a 20 hectare landfill of red sludge linked to fish and bird kills in a protected river delta. Bulgaria is littered with abandoned tailing ponds where heavy metals are buried. The EU issued a Mining Waste Directive after the major cyanide spill in Romania, but the regulation was significantly weakened by industry lobbying.

UK First Post: clean up in Kolontar

In one tributary of the Danube, the Marcal River, all the fish were killed as alkalinity levels hit 13 (as caustic as lye) on the pH scale. The Marcal has been declared dead by government officials. The survival of another connected river, the Raba which flows into the Danube, is threatened. Acid dumps have reduced the alkaline levels somewhat to around 9. Ground water readings are near normal around the village of Kolontar, the worst affected community, but percolation of toxic substances may take more time. There is concern that when the sludge dries out, the heavy metal dust could become airborne. The heavy metal content of the sludge which also contains industrial chemicals, communal wastes, and oil, is estimated at 120,000 tons. An estimated twenty thousand people in the region still depend on river water for drinking.