[CTRL] Romanians poison Tisa and Danube

[Mrs. Jela Jovanovic, Secretary General]

-Caveat Lector-   <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-

===========================
The Committee for National Solidarity
Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU


Date: Sunday, February 13, 2000 7:37 PM
Subject: SN346:Afp - Romanians poison Tisa and Danube

>
>   BELGRADE, Feb 13 (AFP) - Fears that cyanide pumped out of a
>Romanian mine two weeks ago might have gravely contaminated two
>Yugoslav rivers -- the Tisa and the Danube -- remained high Sunday,
>despite government claims that poison levels in the water were
>falling.
>   No new data on cyanide levels were released Sunday morning by
>the Serb ministry in charge of agriculture, water and forestry,
>though measures taken the day before had indicated that levels were
>falling in the Tisa.
>   The ministry said 0.13 milligrammes of cyanide had been measured
>per litre of water in the Tisa early Saturday, but it had fallen to
>0.07 milligrammes two hours later.
>   Around 600 kilogrammes of dead fish have so far been swept up
>from the Tisa, close to the towns of Senta, Kanjiza and Adad, after
>the cyanide entered Yugoslav waters, the ministry reported.
>   In what some environmental experts have branded Europe's worst
>ecological accident since the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear
>plant in Ukraine, an estimated 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide --
>used to extract gold from waste -- were released from the Aurul gold
>mine in northern Romania on February 1 after a reservoir wall
>collapsed.
>   The cyanide first entered the Somes river in Romania, before
>passing into Hungary's Tisza river (the Magyar verson of Tisa),
>where the poison reached a density of 800 times its accepted maximum
>level.
>   Hungary's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabor Horvath reported last
>week that the cyanide had devastated the water's fish stocks,
>leaving a "five-kilometre long carpet of dead fish floating along
>the river."
>   Mine authorities and Romanian officials, however, have
>downplayed the effects of the leak, accusing Hungary of gross
>exaggeration.
>   On Friday, the poison entered Yugoslav waters, and was expected
>to have reached the level of Stari Slankamen on the Danube river,
>some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Belgrade, by Sunday morning.
>   The Yugoslav government has banned the use of the Tisa's waters,
>and temporarily outlawed fishing on the river and on a portion of
>the Danube.


Associated Press Writer
Sunday, Feb. 13, 2000; 2:29 p.m. EST

BECEJ, Yugoslavia –– Serbia on Sunday announced it will demand compensation
at an international court from those responsible for a cyanide spill that
has contaminated a major river, destroying most aquatic life.

Serbian Environment Minister Branislav Blazic said it would take at least
five years for life in the Tisa River to recover.

"The Tisa has been killed. Not even bacteria have survived," Blazic said as
he toured the area along the river in northern Serbia. "This is a total
catastrophe."

"We will demand an estimation of the damage and we will demand that the
culprits for this tragedy be punished," he said.

Romania, where the pollution originated, played down the environmental
damage. But people – not just aquatic life – are at risk because of the
spill, said Predrag Prolic, a professor of chemistry and toxicology at
Belgrade University.

He said those with wells close to the riverbed are in danger. Birds feeding
off fish could die, he said. The poisoned water also can filter into the
soil and then contaminate grass, grain, and livestock, Prolic said.

In Bucharest, Romania, Anton Vlad, an environmental official, suggested the
spill's effects had been overstated.

"I have the impression that it is exaggerated," Vlad told national radio.

The cyanide spill originated in northwest Romania, near the border town of
Oradea, where a dam at the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed Jan. 30, causing
cyanide to pour into streams. At the mine, a cyanide solution is used to
separate gold ore from surrounding rock.

>From there, the polluted water flowed west into the Tisa in neighboring
Hungary, killing large numbers of fish there, and then into Yugoslavia.

The spill was expected to reach the Danube River sometime Sunday. There was
no official word of that happening, but the Beta news agency cited
eyewitnesses late in the day who said the Danube was "all white with the
bellies of dead fish" between the area where it is joined by the Tisa, and
Belgrade, about 50 miles to the southeast.

Vlad said that once the cyanide had reached the Danube, the pollution would
"disappear because the water levels in the Danube are tens of times higher
than the Tisa."

Prolic said the Danube could dilute the spill enough to reduce its dangers,
but the spill still "destroyed life in the Tisa for years to come."

He said the peak concentration of cyanide in the river was 20 times the
permissible level. Poisonous heavy metals such as lead can be left behind
after the cyanide dissipates and can also leech into the soil, Prolic said.

In Serbia, dozens of volunteers and fisherman, wearing protective rubber
gloves, removed hundreds of dead fish from the Tisa to bury them. Heaps of
them littered the river bank.

"Everything's dead, cyanide destroyed the entire food chain," said local
fisherman Slobodan Krkljes, 43. "Fishing was my job, I don't know what I'm
going to do now."

In Becej, a town on the Tisa about 55 miles north of Belgrade, police were
making sure no contaminated fish were brought to the town's market for sale.
Restaurants in the region have removed fish from their menus.

Experts and officials estimate that some 80 percent of the fish in the Tisa
have died since the contamination entered the country Friday.

The fertile plains of Serbia's north are also the country's breadbasket.
Water from the Tisa is traditionally used for irrigation.

Serbia's environment minister accused Romania of covering up the real
dimensions of the poisoning, which some environmentalists say could be the
biggest ecological catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor
catastrophe in 1986. Blazic claimed the initial concentration of the cyanide
in Romania must have been enormous if the effects remained so deadly in
Yugoslavia, about 300-400 miles down the river.

"Had we from Yugoslavia done something like this, we probably would have
been bombed," he said.

Blazic was referring to that NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year over its
actions in Kosovo – and a widespread belief here that the West is anti-Serb.
The cyanide spill adds to the ecological damage caused by NATO's bombing of
oil refineries and factories here.


Secretary General
Mrs. Jela Jovanovic
Art  historian
===========================

<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing!  These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om