Lessons for the Sperrins in Romanian goldmine disaster
(an edited version of this was published in the Sunday World October 21st 2018)
A Romanian woman who left her home area
after an environmental disaster when there was a massive cyanide
leak from a gold mine says people here should learn from what
happened and oppose proposed gold mining in the Sperrins. Erika Szasz
said companies similar promises of jobs and community benefits were
made in Romania as are being made here. “When the catastrophe
happened, the owners ran away,” she said. Her home area is a gold
mining area, but the people are poor.
The Baia Mare disaster happened after a
mining company said it could safely clean up toxic tailings left from
gold mining. It moved all the toxic tailings to a reservoir. The dam
burst in 2000 and spilled 3.5million cubic feet of
cyanide-contaminated water into rivers, hitting Romania, Hungary,
Serbia and Bulgaria.
Erika even before that mining was
causing pollution. This has hit Erika's family.
“My mum became sick very young, at
the age of thirty-nine, and she passed away at the age of forty-six,”
Erika said. “She was ill for over six years. My grandmother, when
she was sixty-six, she had buried three of her four children.” All
died of cancer.
Before Erika's mother died, she began
researching what caused her illness. She started looking at her
family and work colleagues. “Most of them, they had cancer or they
had passed away, killed with cancer,” Erika said. “And most of
them at young ages.”
Unlike previous incidents, Baia Mare
was too big to hide. But Erika warns companies will use their wealth
to frustrate justice. “Hungary is prosecuting the owner of the
mine,” she said. “Even after eighteen years, it is still not
finished.”
The mine's Australian owner sold to a
Canadian company, and went bankrupt. “So they all washed their
hands of it,” Erika said.
While the owners left, the locals hadto
live in the middle of the pollution. “There was no more fishing in
the river,” Erika said. “Plants were dying. About twenty species
of fish have disappeared from the local river.”
Like in the Sperrins, the mining
companies made great promises. “When the owners took over the mine,
they promised many jobs,” she said. “When the mine was opened,
they promised so many things to the people, there would be charities,
they were really helpful with the people, they were very nice. At the
end of the day, when the catastrophe happened, they just ran away.”
Erika says that Romania proves that
having mineral wealth mined in your country doesn't make it rich.
“It's really sad, most people know
Romania as a poor country. Excuse me, the poorest areas, they are
full of gold, full of minerals. Where is the profit? The companies
take out the profit.
“That is more than a warning for
people here. The people here, they should go over themselves to see
what the mining companies left behind. It's very sad to see families
where there is only half a family because the others have passed away
due to cancer. It's unbelievable.
“Everybody is asking me why I came to
Northern Ireland. I am happy to tell you. Because here everything is
green. Here there is always fresh air, we can drink the water from
the tap, and I think we are so, so blessed here. They shouldn't throw
that out.”
Another result of the Baia Mare
disaster is that young people have left. “There are no more jobs
there,” Erika said. “Nobody wants to stay there who doesn't have
to. Nobody. Listen, I have two kids myself. I never, ever, think of
moving back.
“It's not for the good of an area, a
gold mine, definitely. If you write this down, I hope the people
think about it.”
end
