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The Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

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The Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

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    1. The Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

    2. Baia Mare

    3. Change for the Better? Growing population & urban development Expansion restricted in some areas by the presence of old tailing ponds Residents live within 50m of highly toxic, potentially chronically leaking, waste sites Early 1990s: Plans to clean three tailing ponds in order to allow further development of the city Creation of the Baia Mare Aural gold mine - a joint venture with Australian and Romanian partners Goal: transport waste away from the city where the remaining gold and silver in the tailings waste could be recovered using new technology unavailable when the original ponds were established

    4. Idealistic Goal The company described the process as follows: "after removal of the precious metals, the tailings will be redeposited in a plastic lined dam which will provide a totally closed water circuit with zero discharge to the surrounding environment"

    5. Operational Plans Target pond = old Meda pond in Baia Mare 4.43 million tons of flotation solid wastes – water added to wastes to form slurry, which is pumped into a pipeline to the processing plant where cyanide is added to extract gold and silver Post extraction, the remaining tailing fluid is pumped to a new pond, lined with plastic, 65 km away from the city “Construction by Operation" dam wall Coarse solids from the tailing fluid (separated by hydrocyclones) are used to progressively build up the wall Decanted water from the pond was re-used in the remining of the old Meda deposits to reduce the need of fresh cyanide

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