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Fallout over Esmeralda cyanide spill


AM Archive - Thursday, 20 April , 2000  00:00:00

Reporter: Rachel Mealey

COMPERE: Back home, and the Minerals Policy Institute says that an Australian mining company is getting off lightly over a cyanide spill in Romania, even though a UN report says it isn't entirely responsible. The report prepared by the United Nations Environmental Program says that four rivers in Europe were contaminated when the walls of a dam containing cyanide were breached, but the report's author, Fritz Schlingerman [phonetic], says that other factors such as local environmental standards were to blame.

FRITZ SCHLINGERMAN: The mining company was working within the context of the permits by the government, and so - and this mission really was not mandated to look at pointing the finger to anybody. The basic issue that this mission has been doing is trying to establish facts which might assist, and so I cannot point the finger either to the mine or to the government or to the bad weather.

COMPERE: Well, the Minerals Policy Institute of Australia says that stringent international mining standards need to be established to prevent similar disasters. The Executive Director, Geoff Evans, told Rachel Mealey that Esmeralda exploited the local environmental laws.

GEOFF EVANS: The report highlights that the cyanide operation is highly risky and that there was a rudimentary emergency preparedness and response procedures, considering the large quantities of hazardous materials close to human populations and the river system.

RACHEL MEALEY: But the report's author says that the breach of the cyanide-containing dam can't be looked at in isolation, that there are a number of factors, including the fact that environmental standards in the region are quite poor by international standards.

GEOFF EVANS: Well, that's exactly the point that we're making, that trans-national mining companies like Esmeralda are exploiting the situation where standards in some countries like Romania are much lower than they are in Australia, and - but this is not good enough that companies can do things in countries like Romania or Papua New Guinea that they wouldn't be allowed to do in Australia, because the risks are there and the evidence is really clear that serious economic and cultural damage has been done by the cyanide spill to the people in Romania and Hungary.

RACHEL MEALEY: Esmeralda would argue that it wasn't there to exploit the environmental standards in the region, indeed the original agreement between the government and the company was meant to solve an environmental problem rather than cause one, so they entered the region in good faith.

GEOFF EVANS: Well, that's all very well, but there was mining operation in the middle of this city that has had serious environmental disaster effects on many people, including fishing families and farming folk, through a stretch of river right through central Europe, crossing several national boundaries. So you've got to look at the risks and benefits of this gold mining operation, using this highly risky technology in such a location.

RACHEL MEALEY: Shouldn't you be pushing for improved environmental standards in general instead of trying to convict one company in particular?

GEOFF EVANS: Well, we're not trying to convict anybody. What we're saying is there needs to be universal mandatory standards for the operations of trans-national mining companies wherever they're operating in the world so that they're not doing one thing in one part of the world that they wouldn't be able to do in another part of the world.

COMPERE: Geoff Evans from the Minerals Policy Institute.