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Heavy Metal Pollution on the Tisza River
hd: Budapest, 15 March (MTI) - Polluted water is now flowing along a major
portion of the Hungarian section of the Tisza river following a heavy
metal spill that entered the waterway when a retaining wall broke in
Borsa, Romania.
The first wave of contamination entered the Hungarian section of the river
on 10 March, and a second wave crossed Hungary's borders on Wednesday
morning.
UN experts are working alongside Hungarian specialists in investigating
both contaminated river sections.
Tens of thousands of tons of polluted water spilled into Novac creek from
sump tanks in Borsa, Romania, and from there it flowed into the Viso, a
tributary of the Tisza,.
A month and a half ago a retaining wall broke at another Romanian
industrial reservoir, and 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide-laced water
spilled into the Szamos and Tisza rivers. The ecosystems of the two
waterways were almost totally destroyed.
Following a proposal from Hungary, tri-partite talks between environmental
ministries from Hungary, Romania and Ukraine began on Wednesday in
Debrecen (200 km east of Budapest), where pollution issues are being
discussed.
The head of the Hungarian delegation to the talks, deputy state secretary
at the Ministry of Transport, Telecommunications and Water Management Bela
Hajos told MTI that one goal of the exchange is to clarify exactly want
did happen, in other words, to determine exactly how much of what kind of
pollutant spilled into the Tisza, and precisely where it came from. +++
Heavy Metals in the Tisza - One Break, Three Waves of Pollution
hd: Budapest, 15 March (MTI) - Polluted water flowing down the Tisza river
reached the town of Szolnok (population: 80,000) on Wednesday afternoon,
and high levels of heavy metal continue to contaminate the upper section
of the waterway in a pollution back-up many kilometres in length.
The first wave of heavy metal pollution crossed the Hungarian border on 10
March, the second came through at dawn on Wednesday and a third hit the
Hungarian section of the Tisza river sometime before noon on Wednesday.
All three waves of poisonous heavy metals entered the waterway following a
break in a retaining wall at Borsa, Romania. Initial reports spoke of two
separate breaks, but it was learned at Hungarian-Romanian-Ukrainian water
management talks in Debrecen, Hungary (200 km east of Budapest) on
Wednesday that there was only one rupture in the sump tank wall in Borsa.
During a recess in the talks, Deputy State Secretary for Water Management
Bela Hajos, who is heading the Hungarian delegation, reported that he had
been told by the Romanian delegation that the gap in the retaining wall
had been closed off on 13 March. Currently the pollutants within Hungary
are stretched out over a 25 km length of the river.
The lead level of the first wave, measured at Tiszafured, which is about
midpoint on the Hungarian section, was five times over the maximum
permissible level. Below the reservoir at Kiskore, also about midpoint,
the polluted water spread over a larger area, which diluted the
concentration of contaminants.
Foreign specialists are onsite, observing the pollution. UN and EU experts
have been sampling the water.
Tests on samples from the first wave of pollution have been completed.
Analysts found copper, lead and zinc.
Another retaining wall breach in Romania a month and a half ago let
100,000 cubic meters of cyanide-laced water into the Szamos and Tisza,
effectively killing off almost all the marine life of the two rivers. +++
Romanian mine again responsible for river pollution
Hong Kong - NewsWorld
Wednesday, March 15 9:22 PM SGT
BAIA-MARE, Romania, March 15 (AFP) -
A Romanian mine admitted responsibility Wednesday for a new pollution
spill in the River Tisza, but insisted it was only of "low intensity."
The pollution, the third from Romanian mines in a month, reached the Tisza
-- the Danube's largest tributary -- early Wednesday and turned the water
dark along a 40-kilometre (25-mile) section, water management officials
said in neighbouring Hungary.
"About 150 cubic metres (5,250 cubic feet) of water mixed with metal waste
escaped on Wednesday from a settling reservoir at Novat belonging to the
mine at Baia Borsa," said Augustin Spataru, the mine's commercial
director.
A torrent of water and ice had formed upstream, causing the spillage of
contaminated water from the reservoir into a river connecting with the
Tisza.
The metal waste, including zinc, lead, and brass formed a dark film on the
surface of the water, he explained.
The Baia Borsa mine was earlier responsible for a pollution spillage into
several Romanian rivers when 20,000 tonnes of sludge laced with metal
waste escaped through a breach at Novat.
Hungary had been pre-warned about Wednesday's new wave by Ukrainian
authorities, who so far could not tell what the spill contained, said
chief engineer Gaspar Bodnar of the Upper Tisza Region water management
authority.
The new pollution was clearly visible since springtime flooding had
already diluted the 20,000 tonnes of mud laced with heavy metals that
entered Hungary Monday after the dyke burst at Baia Borsa.
Hungary maintained a ban on the use of water and was taking samples every
hour Wednesday.
The metal spills came after another mine in Romania spilt 100,000 cubic
metres of cyanide-laced sludge at the end of January. That pollution
flowed downstream into the Danube in Serbia and on into the Black Sea,
after killing some 200 tonnes of fish in Hungary.
Hungary summoned Romania's ambassador after the first two spills to insist
Bucharest take immediate action to improve security at its industrial
facilities close to the tributaries of the Tisza to avoid further
pollution.
The Third Spill: Baia Borsa Again
15 March, 16:15 CET
Last night a third wave of pollution reached the Hungarian section of
river Tisza. Ukrainian authorities notified Hungary in advance and
according to their information the source of third pollution is the same
Romanian mine, the Novat settling pond of the Baia Borsa heavy metal mine.
The dam failure happed on 14 March around 15:00 p.m. and lasted for 2-3
hours. Hungary did not receive any advance notification from Romania.
According to visual observation the pollution seems smaller than the
previous one as it does not cover the whole surface of river Tisza.
However, it length is reported as 30 kms. As the source of pollution is
the same as before, it is anticipated that the main pollutants are the
same: lead, zinc, copper, aluminium.
The lower water level in the water system indicates that the weater
conditions and melting does not cause as severe circumstances in Romania
as it was in the case of previous incident. However, the spill happened.
Hungarian authorities ordered disaster defence alert along the upper part
of river Tisza. All water usage of the river is forbidden. It impacts the
population around 25 thousand at the moment.
The UNEP experts taking samples in order to document the previous spill
downstream will move up to document this spill on site.
At 10 am the pollution was in the segment of the river Tisza between
Tiszabesz and Vasarosnameny.
Hungary, Ukraine and Romania will establish
a triangular commission
BUDAPEST (March 15) XINHUA - Hungary, Ukraine and Romania will establish
a triangular commission to deal with pollution spills from Romanian gold
mines in the upper reaches of the Tisza river, a key tributary of the
Danube, according to a protocol signed here Wednesday.
The commission, to be made up of nine experts from the three countries,
will monitor the water pollution in each country's Tisza river section.
The accord said each country should inform the other two of its own
candidates to the commission through the diplomatic channel on April 3,
adding that the commission will hold its first meeting in Romania
sometime next month.
The first heavy metal spill occurred on January 30 as a result of the
breach of a dyke of a reservoir at the Romanian Novac mine at Baia Borsa.
Heavy Metal Pollution - Romanian Minister Finds Reports
"Bewildering"
hd: Bucharest, 16 March (MTI) - The busy schedule of the Romanian
environment minister is making it difficult for him to immediately meet
with his Hungarian counterpart Pal Pepo, but Romania hopes that bilateral
talks can take place at the international water management meeting due
soon in the Hague. This was stated by Gheorghe Lazea, general secretary of
the Romanian ministry of water management, forestry and the environment,
to MTI on Thursday. Lazea said the ministry had sent a letter to the
Hungarian Ministry for the Environment, voicing bewilderment over
statements from Hungary on a "third break in the retaining wall" (in
connection with the current heavy metal contamination of Hungarian
waterways).
(News of a "third break in the retaining wall," in other words, of
multiple appearances of heavy metals in the Tisza river after the initial
spill on 10 March did not originate in Hungary. It was reported by the AFP
French News Agency, which was quoting the business manager of the Borsa
mining company where the spill occurred, while Thursday's Romania media
carried the same report citing other local sources).
Lazea stressed that Bucharest was ready to cooperate with Hungary and
other countries in protecting the environment. +++
Mining Company Out Maneuvering Responbility
BUCHAREST, Romania, March 16 (UPI) -- The Australian company that caused
the cyanide poisoning of rivers in Romania may have deliberately gone
into receivership to avoid paying compensation, a Romanian official said
Thursday.
Gabriel Dumitrascu of the Environment Ministry told reporters her
government is concerned, as Romania "suffered more than any other
country" from the spill. She asked Esmeralda Exploration officials to
clarify their motives.
The head of the Hungarian Parliament's environmental protection committee
backed the demand. Zoltan Illes said the company -- which owns 50 percent
of the Baia Mare gold tailings mine, along with Romanian state firm Remin
-- went into what is known as "voluntary administration" this week, a
first step toward bankruptcy.
The Sidney Morning Herald in Australia reported Thursday that the
Perth-based company went into receivership because they were unclear on
the company's liability exposure as a result of the Jan. 30 spill. The
disaster affected rivers across large sections of the Danube water system
in Eastern Europe.
Officials speculated that Esmeralda might be trying to avoid paying
multimillion-dollar compensation claims. Illes said, "This is just a
trick on their side to not pay compensation." He said that if the company
refuses to pay up, Hungary will pursue the company's financial backers
through the international courts.
A spokesman for Esmeralda's receivership administrators, Hall Chadwick,
told the BBC on Thursday that no compensation claims have been filed,
although several have been threatened
Administrator Kim Strickland told the BBC the company was not attempting
to avoid paying compensation. "Some people have said the company is
trying to hide from its responsibility, but it's the opposite -- we're
trying to bring it to a head," Strickland said.
Esmeralda Exploration has repeatedly denied responsibility for the spill.
The company has also claimed that reports on the extent of the damage
were "grossly exaggerated" and "defied scientific logic."
A spill from a Romanian mine last month disgorged cyanide-contaminated
water into the rivers of central Europe, triggering a massive fish kill.
Since then, there have been two other toxic spills into Romanian river
waters, with an impact on Ukraine, Hungary and other nations of Eastern
Europe.
Romanian authorities on Wednesday acknowledged a fresh toxic spill into
rivers leading to the Danube, notably, the Tisza.
Romania's Novat mine, in Baia-Borsa, admitted responsibility for spilling
zinc, lead and copper into the Tisza this week.
A Ukrainian emergency services official, Olexandre Gontcharenko, alleged
that "the level of pollution is four times higher than it should be."
A Hungarian government spokesman said Thursday, "We would not be
exaggerating if we said part of the water plants and animals are facing a
slow death."
Hungarian-Romanian Prime Ministerial Meeting
hd: Budapest, 18 March (MTI) - The pollution caused on the Tisza river by
a Romanian cyanide spill stood in the focus of talks between prime
ministers Viktor Orban of Hungary and Mugur Isarescu of Romania in
Budapest on Saturday.
The Romanian premier attended the Budapest meeting of the prime ministers
of the countries surrounding Yugoslavia.
Orban told a press conference that he had obtained profound information
from Isarescu about the background of the spill, adding that the problems
have still to be solved.
"Hungary has suffered grave losses through no fault of its own and is
therefore eligible for compensation," he said.
The prime minister said lawyers are still examining whether Hungary should
sue not only the firm that caused the spill and its Australian parent
company but even the Romanian state.
"To date, we have not made that step, we are still negotiating with the
Romanian prime minister," Orban said.
"The case is unambiguous for Hungary: as the party suffering a damage it
is eligible for collecting the money but it is still not clear from whom
it may collect it."
Isarescu added that Romania would make every possible effort to prevent
similar affairs in the future. It will strictly observe the laws and ask
support from Brussels for implementing its strategy for environmental
protection.
The prime ministerial talks will be resumed this spring during Orban's
official visit to Bucharest. +++
HUNGARIAN PREMIER WANTS 'DEEDS, NOT WORDS' ON TISZA RIVER
POLLUTION
Viktor Orban told journalists on 18 March after meeting with his Romanian
counterpart, Mugur Isarescu, in Budapest that while he has received "all
possible explanations" about the causes of the Tisza River pollution,
"Hungary has suffered damages caused by others and those others must pay
compensation." He said Hungarian legal advisers will soon decide whether
to seek that compensation from the Romanian government, Romanian Radio
reported. Isarescu said he will ask the EU to help Romania introduce
European environmental standards. On 17 March, Hungarian officials said
heavy metals pollution was again spotted in the river, but they added that
such pollution is less concentrated than earlier. Isarescu was attending a
Budapest conference on the Balkan Stability Pact. MS RFE
Heavy Metal Pollution on Tisza Leaves Hungary
hd: Budapest, 19 March (MTI) - The heavy metal pollution which originated
from Romania and reached the Hungarian section of the Tisza river on 11
March left Hungary on Sunday morning, an official of the Lower Tisza
Regional Water Authority told MTI.
The concentration of heavy metals remained below the hazard limit on the
lower section of the river.
The pollutants escaped from a mine of the REMIN company at Borsa, 184 km
east of the Hungarian border, on 10 March. After the tailings dam of the
mine had been broken, tens of thousand tonnes of water and slurry laden
with heavy metals reached the Viseu creek and then the Tisza. The Romanian
authorities reported that the amount of solid pollutants increased 50
times in the river.
Water quality tests carried out last Sunday registered 0.2 milligrams of
lead, which was double the admissible level, while other pollutants were
below the hazard limit.
Government commissioner Janos Gonczy recalled that heavy metals are
particularly hazardous pollutants as they contaminate the environment for
several decades.
The Hungarian, Romanian and Ukrainian water authorities signed a protocol
on common tasks in preventing environmental pollution in Debrecen (E
Hungary) on 15 March.
The same day another wave of pollution arrived in Hungary from the Borsa
mine. The concentration of heavy metals was smaller than in the first
case. +++
HUNGARY RAISES TISZA POLLUTION ISSUE IN BRUSSELS
TALKS. The repeated contamination of the Tisza River raises the issue of
Romania's liability, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told reporters in
Brussels on 21 March. Romanian Foreign Minister Petre Roman, who is also
in Brussels, admitted that the recent cyanide spill along the Tisza could
have been prevented if greater attention had been paid to the potential
risks when planning and building the reservoir near Baia Mare. EU
Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen said "the polluter pays"
principle must be applied in the dispute. MSZ
Greenpeace protests over Romania cyanide spill
Wednesday March 22, 9:06 am Eastern Time
BUCHAREST, March 22 (Reuters) - Greenpeace activists on Wednesday demanded
the closure of a gold plant in northern Romania that was the scene of a
major cyanide spill this year.
``Stop cyanide'' and ``Esmeralda pay!'' read a banner hung on a crane near
the mine headquarters. Australian gold miner Esmeralda Exploration Ltd
(Australia:ESE.AX - news) is half owner of the Romanian firm that owns the
facility.
More than 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide-tainted water leaked in late
January from a tailings dam of the Aurul gold mine in Baia Mare. The spill
caused widespread fish death in the Tisza and Danube rivers, which flow
through Romania, Hungary and Serbia.
The protest was staged by 25 Greenpeace activists from the Czech Republic,
Poland, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Austria and Slovakia.
``We want the cyanide-leaking plant to be shut down because cyanide
technology cannot be controlled,'' Greenpeace campaigner Herwig Schuster
told Reuters by telephone from Baia Mare, some 650 km (410 miles)
northwest of Bucharest.
``Our second demand is that Esmeralda pays immediately compensation to the
people living near the dam,'' he added.
Esmeralda earlier this month placed itself in voluntary administration, a
form of bankruptcy under which a company or its creditor appoints
administrators to establish whether a company should be liquidated.
Esmeralda owns 50 percent of the shares of the Romanian company Aural SA,
which owns the Aural SA Tailings Retreatment Project at Baia Mare.
World Water Forum - Hungarian and Romanian Ministers Meet
hd: Brussels, 22 March (MTI) - The Romanian Ministry of Water Management,
Forestry and Environmental Protection will order the closure of plants
failing to meet environmental regulations within two weeks. This was
stated by Romanian Minister Romica Tomescu at a meeting with Kalman
Katona, Hungarian Minister of Transport, Telecommunications and Water
Management, in the Hague on Wednesday.
Katona described the talks, which tackled the cyanide and heavy metal
pollutions entering the Tisza River from Romania in February and March, as
"successful and constructive," partly because the topics discussed
included several preventive measures from protection against further
damage to permanent monitoring.
The two ministers agreed that the trilateral agreement between Romania,
Ukraine and Hungary on the exploration of pollution sources should be
extended to cover Slovakia as well. Katona, earlier, discussed the issue
separately with Slovak Environment Minister Laszlo Miklos in the Hague.
The bilateral meetings took place on the sidelines of the five-day world
water forum, which ended with the adoption of a closing statement on
Wednesday.
Katona noted that the Hague forum was successful because the closing
document, at Hungary's initiative, declared pollution to be an area,
alongside flood and drought, in which international agreements need to be
worked out. This means that the next world forum, due in Bonn in 2002,
will pay special consideration to this issue, the minister added.
The Hungarian delegation issued a communique, which outlines the proposal
on the anti-pollution protection of countries lying at the lower reaches
of the rivers and also raises the question of responsibility. +++
Government Meeting on Responsibility for Trans-Boundary Pollution
hd: Budapest, 24 March (MTI) - The cyanide pollution of the River Tisza
and its tributaries caused a near ecological disaster in the flood plains
of the rivers, directly threatening the homes and livelihoods of hundreds
of thousands of people, said Jozsef Szajer, head of the Fidesz Hungarian
Civic Party's parliamentary group. He was speaking at a meeting of
government party MPs in Budapest on Friday.
Szajer described the Tisza as one of the unique natural resources in the
country. He noted that most of the living organisms and river life in the
Tisza and the Szamos rivers (a tributary directly affected by the cyanide)
has been wiped out by the poison, which entered the rivers from Romania.
"The Tisza is both a national and an international matter," he stressed.
Governments have an obligation to watch over the activities taking place
within their borders. This means that neither government nor private
projects can be allowed to pollute neighbouring countries, said
international lawyer Alexander Kiss, chair of the European Environment
Council, quoting one of the basic tenets of the 1972 Stockholm
Declaration.
In connection with the pollution of the Tisza, he mentioned the 1992 Rio
accord on protection of bio-diversity and the 1992 Helsinki agreement on
the trans-boundary affects of industrial accidents. Both of these
agreements specify that governments are required to keep an eye out for
problems, to require permits, and to monitor activity. Romania's
responsibility is clear, but just how much responsibility Hungary will
insist that it should take is partly a political decision, said Kiss.
Laszlo Miklos, Slovakia's Minister for the Environment and chairman of the
governing council of the UN Environment program, warned that by the time
an international agreement with a text acceptable to all nations is
reached, there will be a significant weakening in the initially stringent
principles that make it possible to effectively call polluters to account
for their responsibility. +++
HUNGARY RELEASES CYANIDE DAMAGE DATA
BUDAPEST, Hungary, March 24 (UPI) -- The Hungarian government has released
the first official data quantifying environmental damage from a deadly
cyanide spill in January at a Romanian gold mine.
According to government researchers, the toxic spill killed at least 1,240
metric tons of fish in the Tisza River and all life in the Szamos River.
Additionally, researchers counted only three pounds of surviving fish per
acre of water on the hard-hit upper Tisza. Before the spill that area
teemed with up to 200 pounds of fish per acre. The survival rate for fish
in the middle and lower Tisza -- hundreds of miles from the spill site --
was only slightly higher.
"Figures like these show that (the spill) did an enormous amount of damage
to the rivers," said Philip Weller, a World Wide Fund for Nature
representative on a European Union task force investigating the
catastrophe, which affected more than 500 river miles in four countries.
But Weller told United Press International Friday that the fish-kill
figure "is probably an underestimate" based on the amount of bloated fish
scooped from the river in the days after the cyanide-heavy metal mixture
flowed downstream. And so far officials have not given death counts for
birds, otters and other animals wiped out by the toxic soup that entered
the rivers when a waste-pond dam burst at the Aurul mine in Baia Mare on
the night of January 30. It has been called Europe's worst environmental
crisis since the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The only bright spot in the report is that researchers think the Tisza
might recover more quickly than previously feared. Instead of 10-30 years
for full recovery as initially thought, the report says 95 percent of
wildlife should return in four years, and the river should be back to
normal in five years.
The Hungarian government's report comes one week before a United Nations
Environment Program task force is scheduled to release its assessment of
the spill's damage. The EU and the WWF are conducting studies, too.
The Hungarians are threatening to sue the Romanian government and a mining
company for monetary damages. Romania co-owns the now-shut mine with an
Australian company, Esmeralda Exploration.
Compounding the harm to the Tisza -- Hungary's second largest river and
formerly one of Europe's cleanest waterways -- were two smaller toxic
spills this month at another Romanian mine, at Baia Borsa. As in January,
sludge flowed into small rivers and then into the Tisza.
In addition to the environment, the spills have damaged tourism,
commercial fishing and resort communities along the river. Fishing has
been banned, and recreational use of the upper river is expected to be
prohibited this summer. People who live in riverside cities worry that the
cyanide may affect their health. The cyanide has contaminated drinking
water and in some areas it has created a toxic fog over the river.
Furthermore, in Romania about 2,400 miners could lose their jobs if the
Aurul mine closes for good.
Initially, Romanian authorities downplayed the effects of the Baia Mare
spill, even blaming some of the fish kill on nature. But the story changed
when cyanide spikes were detected in water samples days later and far from
the spill site.
Authorities now estimate more than 100,000 cubic meters of wastewater
spilled and, in diluted form, eventually reached the Danube River and the
Black Sea.
At first, Romanian officials also said the fish kill affected only a few
common species of fish. Now, however, it is believed some rare and
threatened species may have been exterminated.
In recent days relations between Hungary and Romania have improved, with
the latter promising April shutdowns for mines that fail to meet
environmental standards. So far, Hungary has not decided whether to sue
the Romanian government directly or just Esmeralda.
The Romanian pledge for mine shutdowns emerged from a meeting in The
Hague, The Netherlands, between the Hungarian minister of water
management, Kalman Katona, and the Romanian environment minister, Romica
Tomescu. Katona called the meeting, held in conjunction with a world
conference on water use, "successful and constructive."
EU commissioner for environmental affairs, Margot Wallstrom, is using the
Baia Mare incident to call for tighter European regulations that force
polluters to pay for damages caused by negligence.
Weller said the EU taskforce will study the Hungarian government's report
while trying to mediate a settlement between Hungary and Romania.
Meanwhile, environmental groups are blaming Romania for lax oversight of
its mines. This week, Greenpeace protesters from across Europe rallied at
the Baia Mare site. And in Washington, environmentalists plan to protest
April 1 outside the Romanian embassy. -- Copyright 2000 by United Press
International.
hd: Budapest, 25 March (MTI9 - The Chairman of Hungarian Parliament's
Environmental Committee, Zoltan Illes of the ruling Fidesz-Hungarian Civic
Party, on Saturday said the issue of environment protection should be made
a pan-European cause.
Speaking at a Budapest conference held to examine the effects of the
cyanide and heavy metal pollution which originated from Romania and caused
serious damage to the east Hungarian Tisza river, Illes said the most
important element for the regeneration of the Tisza and the Szamos rivers
is for sufficient funds to be available for research, for the comparison
of these results, and for the programmes aimed at restoring ecological
balance.
Illes said that in the case of several countries submitting a joint
competition for surveying and eliminating trans-border pollution, euro 1m
could be received from the European Union, and this amount could increase
in the future.
The politician announced that an international environmental conference is
to be held in Hungary this autumn about the experiences of the spills that
flowed down the Hungarian rivers, and on ways to avoid similar
catastrophes in the future. +++
Cleanup of Cyanide Spill Questioned
World Headlines Tuesday March 28 10:46 AM ET
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Environmental activists who have tested toxin
levels around a cyanide spill in Papua New Guinea said Tuesday the site
had not been cleaned up as extensively as the company responsible for the
spill has claimed.
A one-ton box of cyanide accidentally dropped from a helicopter a week ago
about 55 miles north of the Papua New Guinea capital, Port Moresby,
sparking fears it would poison local rivers.
The chemical was being transported to the Tolukuma gold mine run by
Sydney-based Dome Resources NL, which immediately launched a cleanup
operation and on Saturday claimed it had removed all cyanide from the
site.
``Preliminary inspection of the recovered chemical indicates that close to
95 percent of the cyanide has been recovered in solid form,'' the company
said in a statement Saturday.
The company also removed topsoil it feared may have been exposed to
contamination.
``Testing both at the site and downstream has now shown that, contrary to
early information, only a negligible amount of cyanide reached the local
stream,'' the company said.
But Greenpeace researchers who visited the site Monday to sample water and
soil for toxins said Dome had not cleared topsoil as extensively as
reported and claimed the cyanide landed closer to a local stream than the
company had admitted.
``We are hoping for a clean bill of health but fear that the river may be
more polluted than the company and government are admitting,'' Greenpeace
toxics campaigner Mark Oakwood said.
Oakwood said Greenpeace would release further findings as soon as
possible.
Dome managing director Michael Silver accused Greenpeace of getting in the
way of the company's monitoring activities Monday and said water in the
area was safe.
``We are getting absolutely no cyanide contamination from the water we
check every day,'' he insisted.
``There's no cyanide in the water - that's a fact.''
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Unfolding environmental disasters: 
