The Baia Borsa-Novat tailing pond is located in a remote mountain valley in Northern Romania.

The tailings, loaded with lead, zinc, copper and cadmium, spilled into the nature-protected Vaser Valley. The total investment of 280,000 Euro will manage the water balanceof the tailings deposit even after the mine closesin 2007.

The Novat tailing pond is one of the riskiest industrial installations in the Tisza basin. Thanks to Austrian support funds, long needed rehabilitation work was completed last autumn and a major pollution risk spot is safe again.

On March 10, 2000, the dam of the Novat tailing pond broke after excessive rainfall in the Northern Romanian mountains. Over 100,000 tons of tailings loaded with lead, zinc, copper and cadmium spilled into the nature-protected Vaser Valley, and travelled downstream via the Viseu Valley into the Upper Tisza. It was the second major environmental disaster after the cyanide spill from the Aurul tailing pond at Baia Mare only a few weeks before.

The Novat spill, however, did not immediately kill all living organisms. Most of the tailings settled just downstream but they contained loads of heavy metals.Together with many other pollution sources from mining, they accumulate over time and then can affect the health of man and nature. As a response to the incident, in July 2000 ICPDR published an inventory of 42 potential high accident risk spots in the Upper Tisza region, including the Novat deposit.

Finding partners for change.
The state mining company REMIN owns several risky installations needing urgent repairs, including the Novat pond, but lacks proper funds and support. In 2001, Zinke Environment Consulting advised Greenpeace to contact REMIN in its campaign on industrial water pollution. After discussions with local environment and water authorities, Greenpeace and Zinke presented international donors with an Investment Portfolio for seven pollution reduction projects in October 2002.

Now after the repair work, the Novat tailing dam has much better drainage and a gentler slope.

Small action – big effect.
The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose the Novat project and signed contracts with the Romanian Ministry of Economy and Trade and REMIN in December 2003. Karin Holzer of the Austrian Cooperation with Eastern Europe was pleased to see that the combination of local technical capacity with an international supervising team allowed for an efficient and low-cost project. “We wanted to make the step from assessing to solving this environment problem,” she said.

Gheorghe Mois, head of the REMIN environment department in Baia Mare, stressed: “The Austrian support allowed us to complete our works and triggered almost 30% in-kind contribution we would not have invested otherwise.”

The works included the upgrading of the pumps and drainage, evacuating water from the tailings and see-page water ponds in a closed circuit to the plant. To-gether with a new generator as independent energy source, this will allow managing the water balance of the deposit even after the mine closes in 2007.

As a result of this support, ICPDR and Greenpeace can delete the first major risk spot from their international inventories and concentrate on securing funding to reduce the threat of pollution from other accident risk spots in the region.

Alexander Zinke
is a management consultant for environment, based in Vienna,
and is involved in water management and nature protection projects
in the Danube basin. www.Zinke.at