GREENPEACE SEALS OFF ENTRANCE OF AURAL GOLD MINE IN ROMANIA AND CALLS FOR THE REGION TO BE FULLY COMPENSATED

22 March 2000

BAIA MARE, ROMANIA -- Greenpeace today sealed off the Aurul SA mining site in Romania, source of the January 30 cyanide-contaminated waste-water spill which devastated the Lapus-Somes-Tisza river system in the region, and demanded the closure of the mine. Greenpeace also urged environment ministers, gathered at the World Water Conference in The Hague, to take action to prevent toxic contaminations of water.

25 Greenpeace activists from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands sealed off the entrance to the Aurul site and unfurled a banner reading "Stop Cyanide". "The use of cyanide in mining poses an unacceptable risk to human health and the environment," said Herwig Schuster of Greenpeace. "Unless Aurul is willing to phase out cyanide, this plant should be closed. There is still a risk of another catastrophe as long as cyanide is being kept behind a dam, which according to the Romanian authorities was too weak to begin with. and as long as there is no secondary dam as a safety measure", Schuster added.

Greenpeace demands that the owners of Aurul, Esmeralda Exploration Ltd. from Australia and the Romanian state-owned company Remin, accept full financial responsibility for the cyanide disaster. Esmeralda has recently placed itself in voluntary administration, placing the management of the company into hands of a third party.

"People in the villages of Zazar and Bozinta Mare have lost their clean drinking water and their livelihood as they can no longer sell their agricultural produce," said Schuster. "Esmeralda and its investors should not hide from their responsibility for damages in Romania, Hungary and Serbia."

Today, on World Water Day, ministers dealing with water issues from 115 countries meet in The Hague, at the second World Water Conference, an international conference dealing with water issues organised by the World Bank. Greenpeace calls on the ministers to agree on minimum international standards for mining operations, to stop mining in areas with high conservation values and to enhance the liability of mining companies. "The ministers gathering at the Second World Water Conference must protect water from polluting industrial processes such as mining," said Juan Lopez de Uralde of Greenpeace in The Hague. "The first step is to ban the entrance of hazardous substances such as cyanide into the environment."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- In Romania: Herwig Schuster, Greenpeace Austria, Toxics Campaigner, +43 66 44 31 92 14.
- Eco Matser, Greenpeace Netherlands, Toxics Campaigner + 31 6 212 969 19
- In The Hague: Juan Lopez de Uralde, Greenpeace International Toxics campaign coordinator +34 609 468 954
- Mika Railo, Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 20 5249 548

A report and images from Greenpeace’s fact finding mission to Baia Mare, and a list of mining accidents in recent mining history are available from our Toxics campaign website: www.greenpeace.org/~toxics/toxic_action.html

A map of potentially dangerous mines and industrial installations in the Carpathian Mountains are also available on request.

Interviews in Hungarian and in Romanian also available.