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.”

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