Toxic Waste in Eastern Europe: Yesterday’s Byproduct, Today’s Nightmare
DEVELOPMENTS
Aging chemical waste management facilities are found across Europe, relics of the Soviet era. Many have been decommissioned since the communist era, abandoned years ago with their toxins buried deep in the ground. Others, however, transitioned into the private sector during the 1990s, but are not operating under modern safety guidelines. In 2004, the EU ordered a study on toxic waste sites and found over two hundred were of concern, and many that were in operation were operating under sub-standard safety protocols. As a result, there have been chemical waste spills over the last decade, causing millions of euros in damage, devastating wildlife and ecologies, and causing countless illnesses among populations. These facilities have become a danger to local populations, environments, and economies, and without stricter regulation, will become a greater problem.
The current EU laws governing safety at sites containing large quantities of dangerous substances, known as The Seveso II Directive, and in December 2010, the EU adopted a proposal to update the laws by 2015. The new laws would create greater consistency of the program throughout the EU member states and increase the standards of inspection, as well as crack down on operations that operate below safety standards. Currently, some privatized plants allegedly often set aside funds to cover the fines from inspections, as it is more cost effective to pay rather than upgrade their reservoirs to polyethylene membranes, the current standard for waste containment.
BACKGROUND
Nearly six months after the town of Ajka, Hungary, was literally flooded with alumina, a toxic byproduct of the production of aluminum, after a dam broke. Recovery efforts have nearly tailed off entirely, even though the village and surrounding areas have been abandoned, the land poisoned. The biggest soil replacement project is on the Marcal and Torna rivers, tributaries to the Danube, the largest waterway in the region. The banks of both rivers are still stained red, contaminated from the sludge, with waters still devoid of wildlife. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Hungarian government has run out of funds to continue a full cleanup. A biomass plantation has been proposed to help alleviate the farmland in the area, which would in turn create biogas and green electricity, however investors are nowhere to be found.
Initially, the Hungarian prime minister announced that the breach in the dam was due to human error, however many scientists believe the walls became compromised after a wet summer in 2010. In a report released in April 2011 by the Hungarian Politics Can Be Different (LMP) party, had the plant owners, the mining authorities, the Hungarian Parliament, and the EU could have prevented the disaster by properly adhering to their obligations; had the waste been properly classified as toxic, the reservoir been properly maintained, the parliament passed specific legislation about hazardous material, and the EU sufficiently improved their inspection and enforcement in member states.
Many of these recommendations echo those of a report released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2000. WWF officials also claim reservoir walls were damaged three months before the major break, and images from Google Earth from 2008 show small leaks in the walls.
The spill at Ajka is only the latest disaster to come from Eastern Europe, and one of many known sites that are at risk for disaster. In February of 2000, a cyanide-holding dam in Baia Mare, Romania, overflowed into the Danube. The cyanide leak, a byproduct of the extraction of gold, sparked an international health crisis and became known as an aquatic version of Chernobyl. The dam, built in the 1960s, reported problems one year earlier, citing equipment failures and operating at double the intended capacity.
As the cyanide flowed toward the Danube, it destroyed the fishing industries in Yugoslavia and contaminated the drinking water of millions of Hungarians. Six weeks after the incident, another dam broke at the Baia Borsa facility, dumping zinc and lead tainted waters into the Vaser River, which also feeds into the Danube. The effects also spread across the food chain in the region as other animals ate the poisoned fish. Two years later, Hungarian fishermen were reporting catches of only 20 percent of pre-spill levels.
ANALYSIS
There is no easy answer to hazardous waste disposal and no region in the world is fully protected. In 1992, an abandoned gold mine in Colorado began leaking up to 85,000 gallons of cyanide-laced water into nearby creeks that fed into the Alamosa River. The EPA estimated it would cost $120 million to rehabilitate the most contaminated areas. Although aquatic life in the river was nearly exterminated, the concentration of dangers chemicals dissipated further downstream, locations of large alfalfa and barley farming operations. As of 2007, there were 240 gold mines in operation in the United States.
There are three alumina plants in the United States, and while a release of toxic sludge engulfing a town is unlikely, the industry faces their own problems. Rather than having a liquid byproduct, plants dry out the mud, creating a chemical red dust that blows across the landscape. The full effect of the dust is unknown; while in small most of the dust is benign, prolonged exposure is detrimental to those with respiratory problems.
The problem of hazardous waste disposal in Eastern Europe is exacerbated by sub-par facilities and poor environmental decisions from the Soviet era. After private investment firms took over many facilities during the 1990s, safety and modernization of the plants fell by the wayside, leaving the region with a number of potential disaster spots. As countries began ascension into the EU, many facilities were cleaned up, however many sites still remain untouched or even unknown.
The difficulties in recovering from these types of disasters have become apparent as well. So far, roughly $20 million has been spent on recovery efforts in Hungary, but officials believe the total cost will exceed $500 million. The local economy has collapsed because of uninhabitable land and the long-term health effects on the exposed population are debatable. Officials have also been revisiting waste sites to review their conditions as well as make the necessary repairs and the Hungarian government has pledged to rebuild the homes destroyed during the incident.
The attention to these issues will likely be diverted to the safety of nuclear plants in the area in light of the Fukishima disaster in Japan. Shortly after the earthquake, debates rose about the safety of nuclear power plants in Europe should a similar disaster occur. Eastern Europe, however, has not swayed from their plans to expand plants, and hopefully can fully focus on the exponentially greater dangers that unsafe and outdated chemical containment facilities pose to them.
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Daniel Pechtol holds a B.A. from The School of International Service at American University and is currently interning with The International Peace and Security Institute.
