- Hello Jeff - It appears that the heavy metals in the
toxic sludge are DANGEROUS and the entire villages will have to be abandoned.
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- More than 50 TONS of arsenic alone has been released
and spread as a result of the catastrophic burst dam deluge.
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- I cannot understand why the tailings pond was so close
to the town. Many people were exposed to the cancer causing sludge, many
will come down with lung cancer and leukemia and autoimmune diseases and,
on top of this, the towns people will have to leave their homes and belongings
behind. Another Love Canal.
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- Patty
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- Report Controversy - Unexpected Levels Of Toxic Heavy
Metals
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- By Quirin Schiermeier and Yana Balling
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- Nature News
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- 10-11-10
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- A week after around one million cubic metres of red sludge
escaped from a Hungarian alumina factory, an analysis commissioned
by the environmental group Greenpeace has revealed that more than
50 tonnes of arsenic may have been released as a result of the spill.
The sludge, a by-product of alumina (aluminium oxide) production,
has killed at least 7 people and contaminated several thousand hectares
of land north of Hungary's Lake Balaton on 4 Oct 2010, which escaped
contamination. The village of Kolontar and 2 smaller villages may
have to be abandoned completely, and scientists predict that the
environment will take years to recover.
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- The Greenpeace analysis, by Austria's Federal Environment
Agency in Vienna, examined the heavy metal content of mud samples
collected by campaigners last Tuesday [5 Oct 2010].
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- In addition to containing almost twice as much arsenic
(110 milligrams per kilogram dry mass) as expected for the red mud
resulting from aluminium oxide production, the concentrations of
mercury and chromium are also relatively high, says chemist Herwig
Schuster, chief Greenpeace campaigner for Central and Eastern Europe.
"Because arsenic is readily soluble we might be in for a major
groundwater problem," he adds.
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- Work in progress
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- The study has met with scepticism from Hungarian chemists,
partly because bauxite, the ore from which most aluminium oxide (and
ultimately aluminium) is derived, contains neither mercury nor much
arsenic. However, Greenpeace says that the findings have been confirmed
by an independent laboratory in Hungary. The Hungarian government's
own figures -- based on samples taken by scientists last week [week
of 4 Oct 2010] at 2 sites in the area -- are yet to be published.
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- "It's hard to say what needs to be done as long
as we don't know exactly which and how much toxic substances have
been released," says Gergely Simon, an environmental chemist
for the Hungarian arm of the Clean Air Action Group. He has asked
the Hungarian home office to reveal all of the information collected
so far on the mud's chemical composition.
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- Janos Szepvolgyi, director of the Hungarian Academy of
Science's Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry in Budapest,
is heading up the government effort to analyse soil and water in
the area. "All life is dead," he says. "A 2 to 5 centimetre
[0.8-2 in] thick layer of caustic mud is covering the soil. The mud
needs to be physically collected and removed -- this will take a
long time."
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- On the basis of a preliminary analysis, Janos Szepvolgyi
says, "We know that the mud contains some 2 per cent titanium
and 0.5 per cent vanadium oxide. But the real problem is dissolved
heavy metals, which might enter surface waters and will be taken
up by plants."
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- But preliminary analysis of their samples, he adds, suggests
that the content of dissolved arsenic and chromium is manageable.
The most contaminated surface water flows are a small creek called
Torma and the Marcal river. The Raba river, a tributary of the Danube,
is less affected, and contamination in the Danube is almost negligible,
says Szepvolgyi.
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- But he stresses that the findings are preliminary, and
that the water quality of all creeks and rivers in the area must
be checked regularly.
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- The analysis, which includes the results of a laboratory
analysis of samples taken on Friday [8 Oct 2010] by scientists at
the Academy's Research Institute for Soils Science and Agricultural
Chemistry in Budapest, will be released later this week, says Szepvolgyi.
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- Water hazard
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- Schuster says that Greenpeace's figures suggest that
the drinking water supplies of at least 100 000 people could be affected
by potentially toxic levels, including inhabitants of the city of
Gyor downstream of the contaminated rivers. Exactly how fast and
far the contamination will spread depends on the permeability of
local soils -- which scientists have not yet assessed.
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- The Greenpeace findings are surprising, says Tamas Weiszburg,
a mineralogist at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, who was
not involved in either analysis.
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- Although small amounts of arsenic in bauxite sludge might
have accumulated over time, "If that [Greenpeace] sample is
representative there is no question that industrial wastes have been
mixed in the basin," says Weiszburg.
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- Greenpeace also suspects that the leaked basin may have
contained toxic waste besides the sludge from aluminium oxide production.
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- "Environmental standards for old plants in Hungary
are lagging far behind the European rules for newly built production
facilities," says Schuster. "We don't even know in which
year the dam was built and how often it was modified."
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- Meanwhile, the Hungarian government has warned that there
is a real danger of a 2nd toxic spill from the same site. Another
dam on the site looks weak, and if it breaks several hundred thousand
tonnes of sludge could flood the surrounding land and rivers.
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- The government said last week [week of 4 Oct 20100] that
it will have experts from the Geological Institute of Hungary in
Budapest re-assess the safety of 3 more storage sites that together
hold about 50 million tonnes of red mud. Some 30 million tonnes are
held at Ajka, 12 million tonnes at Almasfuzito, and 8 million tones
at Mosonmagyarovar. The Almasfuzito and the Mosonmagyarovar are situated
in the immediate vicinity of the river Danube.
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- http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101011/full/news.2010.531.html
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- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website:http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health
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