Huge toxic flood in Hungary

[Serafina]

Shit - some of that stuff just reached the Danube. If that's not stopped (no idea how likely that is), it will ruin the ecosystem of one of the greatest rives in Europe and it's banks in several other countries - and will eventually reach the black sea.
This is already the greatest ecological disaster in the history of Europe - but if it get's into the Danube, it will get much, much worse.

[Temujin]

Wave of toxic sludge reaches the Danube River
Spill is 'one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years,' activist says

Toxic red sludge that burst out of a metals plant reservoir — killing at least four people and causing serious burns to others — reached the mighty River Danube Thursday.

The European Union and environmental officials had feared an environmental catastrophe affecting half a dozen nations if the red sludge, a waste product of making aluminum, contaminated the 1,775-mile Danube, the second longest in Europe.

However an Hungarian emergency official said Thursday that no immediate damage to the river was evident.

The reservoir break Monday disgorged a toxic torrent into local creeks that flow into waterways connected to the Danube.

Creeks in Kolontar, the closest town to the spill site and about 45 miles south of the Danube, were swollen ochre red Wednesday and villagers said they were devoid of fish.

The red sludge reached the western branch of the Danube early Thursday, Hungarian rescue agency spokesman Tibor Dobson told the state MTI news agency.

He did not address concerns that the caustic slurry might contain toxic metals, but said its pH content had been reduced to the point where it was unlikely to cause further damage to the environment.

Dobson said the pH content, which officials earlier said was at a highly alkaline 13 on a scale of zero to 14, was now under 10 and no dead fish had been spotted where the slurry was entering the Danube.

The National Disaster Management Directorate, in a separate statement, said the pH value was at 9.3 and constantly decreasing. Normal ph levels for surface water range from 6.5 to 8.5.

South of Hungary, the Danube flows through Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova before emptying into the Black Sea.

Daily water tests

At the Croatian village of Batina, the first site after the Danube leaves Hungary, experts were taking water samples Thursday which they will repeat daily for the next week, the state-run news agency HINAS reported.

In Romania, water levels were reported safe Thursday, with testing being carried out every three hours, said Romanian Waters spokeswoman Ana Maria Tanase.

She said the Danube water had a pH of 8.5, which was within normal levels, but tests were being done to check for heavy metals.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited the three villages coated by the red sludge Thursday and declared the worst-hit area a write-off, saying he sees "no sense" in rebuilding in the same location.

"It is difficult to find the words. Had this happened at night, everybody would be dead," Orban told reporters.

He reiterated that the disaster could not have been due to natural causes.

"This is an unprecedented ecological catastrophe in Hungary. Human error is more than likely. The wall (of the reservoir) did not disintegrate in a minute. This should have been detected."

Local officials said 34 homes in Kolontar were unlivable. However, furious residents said the disaster had destroyed the whole community of 800 by making their land valueless.

'A dead town'

Angry villagers gathered outside the mayor's office late Wednesday and berated a senior official of MAL Rt., the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company that owns the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant, demanding compensation.

"The whole settlement should be bulldozed into the ground," bellowed Janos Potza. "There's no point for anyone to go back home."

"Those who can, will move out of Kolontar. From now on, this is a dead town," fumed Beata Gasko Monek.

Others relived their experience in the deluge.

"I hung in the sludge for 45 minutes... It had a strong current that almost swept me away but I managed to hang on to a strong piece of wood of the pigsty," another Kolontor resident, Etelka Stump, said. "But I could hardly breathe because that air, that smell, that froth really hit me."

Disaster crews, military personnel and villagers continued to clear away rubble and search for the missing people.

It is still not known why part of the reservoir collapsed. Authorities have ordered a criminal inquiry into the accident, which injured 120 and left three people missing in addition to the four known to have died. It is estimated the torrent included 35 million cubic feet of toxic waste.

A spokeswoman for the National Police said investigators would look into whether on-the-job carelessness was a factor.

The huge reservoir, more than 1,000 feet by 1,500 feet, was no longer leaking and a triple-tiered protective wall was being built around its damaged section. Guards have been posted at the breach to give an early warning in case of any new emergency.

Water supplies may be affected

The sludge spill is "one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years," said Herwit Schuster, a spokesman for Greenpeace International.

The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube, which manages the river and its tributaries, said the sludge spill could trigger long-term damaging effects for both wildlife and humans.

"It is a very serious accident and has potential implications for other countries," Philip Weller, the group's executive secretary, said from Brussels.

Weller said factories and towns along the Danube may have to shut down their water intake systems. He said large fish in the Danube could ingest any heavy metals carried downstream, potentially endangering people who eat them.

Red sludge is a byproduct of the refining of bauxite into alumina, the basic material for manufacturing aluminum.

Treated sludge is often stored in ponds where the water eventually evaporates, leaving behind a dried red clay-like soil.

Hungarian company officials have insisted the sludge is not considered hazardous waste, according to EU standards. The company has also rejected criticism that it should have taken more precautions at the reservoir.

Alumina plants are scattered around the world, with the 12 largest concentrated in Australia, Brazil and China. The plant in Hungary ranks 53rd in the world in production, according to industry statistics.

It's another ecological nightmare.

[Twoyboy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know all that.

However, I still do not find it acceptable. The idealist in me (still not dead yet) would like to think of a way so that the most responsible thing to do is also the economically most sensible thing to do. Companies in the US recycle because either regulation has made the cost of NOT recycling prohibitive or else someone has found a way to profit off it.

Saying that it is uneconomical to recycle the waste now does not mean it would be impossible in the future. The iron and aluminum oxide are both useful resources for industry. A lot of the alkalinity in the sludge is due to sodium hydroxide or lye - another useful industrial chemical. Find a reasonable way to recover any 1 of those 3 you've gone a long way to improving the situation, find a way to recover all 3 and the resulting residue will be much lower in volume and easier to dispose of.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that recycling the sludge has even been looked at - if they've been getting away with just dumping it in the backyard, so to speak, why would they even look for a way to make money off it? People are lazy. Someone might be missing out on a profitable enterprise here.

It's not even necessarily that it's not profitable. Simply that it's less profitable than other ways of getting those same metals. If you've got $100million to spend and that can make you a processing plant for this stuff to extract x amount of iron, or a new mine in Brazil or China that extracts 10x amount of iron, it's an easy choice for the company.

Also, iirc the presence of Al and Ti makes iron difficult to extract.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know all that.

However, I still do not find it acceptable.

Nobody except the Shareholders do.

The idealist in me (still not dead yet) would like to think of a way so that the most responsible thing to do is also the economically most sensible thing to do. Companies in the US recycle because either regulation has made the cost of NOT recycling prohibitive or else someone has found a way to profit off it.

Saying that it is uneconomical to recycle the waste now does not mean it would be impossible in the future.

Unfortunately, the fact is that for most things like this, the only way to make it economical is to levy such steep and severe fines that the company would find it more profitable to recycle at a loss - or at least sequester somewhere much more secure, like some kind of Yucca Mountain equivalent - than to just let it sit there. In other words, you need to tax the cocks off of the chumps for insecure disposal, and it needs to be both heavy-handed and repeated.

That'll never happen as long as a company has the clout to buy politicians, and when they lose that clout they're as likely to up stakes and wash their hands of the affair as they are to toe the line; and if they up stakes, they can just leave the government of whatever unfortunate place they're in holding the bill.

Honestly, multinationalism is the problem here. When a company is so large or so distributed that no one government can hold the sword over their head, they stop fucking caring. It's like BP - what're we gonna do? If we actually try to bill them enough to pay for the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, they'll laugh and say good luck collecting, pull their people and sod off. Even if we seize their U.S. based holdings it won't be much, and then they'll swiftly turn their bought and paid for EU and especially UK politicians on us, souring our relationships with our erstwhile allies.

The iron and aluminum oxide are both useful resources for industry. A lot of the alkalinity in the sludge is due to sodium hydroxide or lye - another useful industrial chemical. Find a reasonable way to recover any 1 of those 3 you've gone a long way to improving the situation, find a way to recover all 3 and the resulting residue will be much lower in volume and easier to dispose of.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that recycling the sludge has even been looked at - if they've been getting away with just dumping it in the backyard, so to speak, why would they even look for a way to make money off it? People are lazy. Someone might be missing out on a profitable enterprise here.

Holding out for a free market solution to companies being environmentally unconscionable dickwads is like seeing the light of the oncoming train and falling to your knees to pray the train away. It's utterly futile; companies do not, by nature, innovate. They find something that makes their shareholders a boatload of cash and keep doing it. They only innovate if they have to, like if advancing technology is part of their corporate schtick.

This sort of problem requires the high-held, heavy-mailed hand of government. Unfortunately, I think that the companies that are the worst offenders have grown too large to be brought to heel by the high-handed treatment.

[folti78]

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know all that.

However, I still do not find it acceptable. The idealist in me (still not dead yet) would like to think of a way so that the most responsible thing to do is also the economically most sensible thing to do. Companies in the US recycle because either regulation has made the cost of NOT recycling prohibitive or else someone has found a way to profit off it.

Saying that it is uneconomical to recycle the waste now does not mean it would be impossible in the future. The iron and aluminum oxide are both useful resources for industry. A lot of the alkalinity in the sludge is due to sodium hydroxide or lye - another useful industrial chemical. Find a reasonable way to recover any 1 of those 3 you've gone a long way to improving the situation, find a way to recover all 3 and the resulting residue will be much lower in volume and easier to dispose of.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that recycling the sludge has even been looked at - if they've been getting away with just dumping it in the backyard, so to speak, why would they even look for a way to make money off it? People are lazy. Someone might be missing out on a profitable enterprise here.

It's not even necessarily that it's not profitable. Simply that it's less profitable than other ways of getting those same metals. If you've got $100million to spend and that can make you a processing plant for this stuff to extract x amount of iron, or a new mine in Brazil or China that extracts 10x amount of iron, it's an easy choice for the company.

Also, iirc the presence of Al and Ti makes iron difficult to extract.

Heh, 100 million USD konverts to ~19.5 billion HUF, which is more than twice the company's reported equity for 2009. Also the company admittedly had liquidity problems last year and according to the table in the middle of this* article (search for "Mal Zrt. (ezer forintban, forrás: Opten.hu)") posted losses in every year since 2007. There are some rumor level info around the news that they had liquidity problems recently too.

* some legend:
"Saját tőke": equity
"Értékesítés nettó árbevétele": net sales revenue
"... eredménye": various profit or net income values.

[Zixinus]

Hungarian company officials have insisted the sludge is not considered hazardous waste, according to EU standards. The company has also rejected criticism that it should have taken more precautions at the reservoir.

You know, I really would like to know what the fuck are these people thinking when they see the photos of the red sludge sweeping away and poisoning an entire community. Did Mother Nature make an earthquake? Did it send Tornadoes? Did it inverse entropy, just to fuck with you?

Or is it more likely that you skimped on the cost?

Perhaps my head leaps to this conclusion too fast, but what am I supposed to think? How can they honestly think that this is somehow, a building owned and maintained by them, not their responsibility?

[Darth Yan]

damn it i'm going to hungary in two weeks. well this sucks.

[folti78]

Hungarian company officials have insisted the sludge is not considered hazardous waste, according to EU standards. The company has also rejected criticism that it should have taken more precautions at the reservoir.

You know, I really would like to know what the fuck are these people thinking when they see the photos of the red sludge sweeping away and poisoning an entire community. Did Mother Nature make an earthquake? Did it send Tornadoes? Did it inverse entropy, just to fuck with you?

Or is it more likely that you skimped on the cost?

Perhaps my head leaps to this conclusion too fast, but what am I supposed to think? How can they honestly think that this is somehow, a building owned and maintained by them, not their responsibility?

No, they just dance the standard dance of companies trying to avoid taking any responsibility (and open themselves for more lawsuits). Some of the more "funny" excuses from the top of my head for everybody's entertainment:
- the breaching of the reservoir wall defies the laws of physics. (yeah seriously, MAL's CEO claimed it at the breach two days ago ...)
- before ~2 hours of the disaster, the reservoir guards hadn't detected any problems on their routine patrols. It was happened suddenly.
- everything was in pristine condition around the reservoir.
- we are not in any way responsible but here's 100000 HUF (~500USD) quick aid for everyone involved(At this point they have been laughed out of the room. At least it's the official version.).

In other news, pollution of rivers seems to be contained for now, the highest pH level in the Danube at Győr was 9.65 at 15:00 CET. To compare the original alkaline solution's pH was 13. Currently the stream Torna's and the river Marcal's ecosystem has been killed off in the affected region, although the experts hope that, both of them could restore themselves within 3-5 years from their not affected parts. Some 800 acres of farmland had to be removed from the cultivation and turned into forests for the foreseeable future.

[CaptainChewbacca]

It sounds like the ecology is rebounding rather quickly. 800 acres isn't THAT bad, especially if you can clear 800 acres of forest somewhere else.

[Phantasee]

How is the ecology recovering? I'm pretty sure that's just the plans, they've barely stopped it from getting into the Danube.

[folti78]

How is the ecology recovering? I'm pretty sure that's just the plans, they've barely stopped it from getting into the Danube.

It will recover after the cleanup finished and the alkaline in the water diluted/neutralized enough. They talked about the time frame of 3-5 years, not tomorrow. Currently the Disaster Management people still pouring gypsum and vinegar into the Marcal to neutralize more of the stuff. The expectations are based on the aftermath of the Tisza cyanide poisoning mentioned earlier, where they talked about a decade or more the river needs to recover from the disaster, but it's ecosystem recovered within 5 years.

It sounds like the ecology is rebounding rather quickly. 800 acres isn't THAT bad, especially if you can clear 800 acres of forest somewhere else.

Depends, people who lost their plots (which might be one of their only worthwhile property next to their house) won't think about it that way.

damn it i'm going to hungary in two weeks. well this sucks.

Depends where you will spend your time. Unless you go to the immediate region, or travel on route 8, you'll only see it in the news.

[LaCroix]

How is the ecology recovering? I'm pretty sure that's just the plans, they've barely stopped it from getting into the Danube.

As long as you have an untouched upstream, nature will recover quickly. This sludge won't leave much toxic residue in the streams involved, so it basically just sterilized the beds. Everything living upstream will colonize the free space rather quickly. It will happen within minutes after containment of the sludge, but it will take 3-5 years for algae and stuff to regrow to make the area more habitable for other species.

On a side note - I am happy as hell that I didn't buy the OTHER plot available to me when I moved to Hungary - it was halfway between the plant and the Danube, and the Raba flows through it....

[Broomstick]

The European Union and environmental officials had feared an environmental catastrophe affecting half a dozen nations if the red sludge, a waste product of making aluminum, contaminated the 1,775-mile Danube, the second longest in Europe.

However an Hungarian emergency official said Thursday that no immediate damage to the river was evident.

Oh, really?. Does this remind anyone else of "Baghdad Bob" or "you're doing a Heck of a job, Brownie!"

He did not address concerns that the caustic slurry might contain toxic metals, but said its pH content had been reduced to the point where it was unlikely to cause further damage to the environment.

Nice dodge - as if pH was the only factor involved in ecological damage

[folti78]

The European Union and environmental officials had feared an environmental catastrophe affecting half a dozen nations if the red sludge, a waste product of making aluminum, contaminated the 1,775-mile Danube, the second longest in Europe.

However an Hungarian emergency official said Thursday that no immediate damage to the river was evident.

Oh, really?. Does this remind anyone else of "Baghdad Bob" or "you're doing a Heck of a job, Brownie!"

He did not address concerns that the caustic slurry might contain toxic metals, but said its pH content had been reduced to the point where it was unlikely to cause further damage to the environment.

Nice dodge - as if pH was the only factor involved in ecological damage

Nope, the main polluter of the rivers was the lye contaminated water, originally sitting on top of the sludge in the reservoir. It got into the rivers faster and propagates in them faster, than the heavy sludge on the bottom of the riverbeds. Reports mentioned building multiple underwater dams(don't know the proper name) in the riverbed of Marcal to prevent the sludge to reach the Danube(and accumulate it for easier collection).

As I understand, most of the sludge hadn't reached the rivers and stuck on land, where it's easier to collect, granted they don't get heavy rains in the future. Nor weather that helps it dry out and became dust.

Official word from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is that the sludge in question doesn't contain heavy metals in mentionable quantities. It's main hazard is the lye leaching into water, salinization of the soils if the contaminated water gets into the ground and the alkaline contaminated dust if it's allowed to dry out. The Hungarian FAQ like article is here. It starts with list of main compounds.

Funny enough, your usual suspects (Greenpeace et all) doesn't question the HAS' word and they collected their own samples everywhere.

Sadder news, one of the victims, a 81 year old man has been succumbed to his injuries this morning, raising the death toll to 5.

[Broomstick]

It's not even necessarily that it's not profitable. Simply that it's less profitable than other ways of getting those same metals. If you've got $100million to spend and that can make you a processing plant for this stuff to extract x amount of iron, or a new mine in Brazil or China that extracts 10x amount of iron, it's an easy choice for the company.

Also, iirc the presence of Al and Ti makes iron difficult to extract.

I am aware of the economic arguments. Even if it's not the most profitable means of obtaining the items being able to sell the repocessing products can offset costs of running the operation. It's no different than how many silver mines will also extract lead and tin and such from their ores - not the most profitable way of mining those secondary items, but some money can be made by rocovering them, so they do it.

This is especially true in areas where regulations require clean up of mining waste. Anything you can recover from the waste will tend to reduce the amount of waste as well as offset costs, perhaps even make a small profit on the side.

Unfortunately, the fact is that for most things like this, the only way to make it economical is to levy such steep and severe fines that the company would find it more profitable to recycle at a loss - or at least sequester somewhere much more secure, like some kind of Yucca Mountain equivalent - than to just let it sit there. In other words, you need to tax the cocks off of the chumps for insecure disposal, and it needs to be both heavy-handed and repeated.

I am soooo totally OK with that....

Though you don't levy "severe and steep fines" unless they DON'T clean up their mess.

In the US, we got the Superfund as a direct charge to businesses so even if they go under their messes can still be cleaned up later.

That'll never happen as long as a company has the clout to buy politicians, and when they lose that clout they're as likely to up stakes and wash their hands of the affair as they are to toe the line; and if they up stakes, they can just leave the government of whatever unfortunate place they're in holding the bill.

Well, see, that's the thing... you can't move a mine. You can open a mine elsewhere, but the ore is where the ore is. If they want to mine they have to do it in a specific location. Much harder to "pull up stakes" and go elsewhere (although there are a few shady dodges for that, too).

The iron and aluminum oxide are both useful resources for industry. A lot of the alkalinity in the sludge is due to sodium hydroxide or lye - another useful industrial chemical. Find a reasonable way to recover any 1 of those 3 you've gone a long way to improving the situation, find a way to recover all 3 and the resulting residue will be much lower in volume and easier to dispose of.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that recycling the sludge has even been looked at - if they've been getting away with just dumping it in the backyard, so to speak, why would they even look for a way to make money off it? People are lazy. Someone might be missing out on a profitable enterprise here.

Holding out for a free market solution to companies being environmentally unconscionable dickwads is like seeing the light of the oncoming train and falling to your knees to pray the train away. It's utterly futile; companies do not, by nature, innovate. They find something that makes their shareholders a boatload of cash and keep doing it. They only innovate if they have to, like if advancing technology is part of their corporate schtick.

This sort of problem requires the high-held, heavy-mailed hand of government. Unfortunately, I think that the companies that are the worst offenders have grown too large to be brought to heel by the high-handed treatment.

It's a carrot and stick problem - use the threat of real penalities if they don't comply with clean up regulations, and then point out that if they do the clean-up disposal properly they might actually make some additional money off it. It can work, at least in some circumstances. It's already done with some industries now.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Unfortunately, the fact is that for most things like this, the only way to make it economical is to levy such steep and severe fines that the company would find it more profitable to recycle at a loss - or at least sequester somewhere much more secure, like some kind of Yucca Mountain equivalent - than to just let it sit there. In other words, you need to tax the cocks off of the chumps for insecure disposal, and it needs to be both heavy-handed and repeated.

I am soooo totally OK with that....

Though you don't levy "severe and steep fines" unless they DON'T clean up their mess.

In the US, we got the Superfund as a direct charge to businesses so even if they go under their messes can still be cleaned up later.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the point of calling something a 'fine'. You don't do it until after the problem has happened. Unfortunately, in some cases, that may be too damn late to do anything. And worse is when shitheaded stuff keeps happening - place a regulation that the output coming out of the pipe, or measured a few hundred yards away from the pipe, has to be at least X clean? No problem - they just pump in cleaner stuff from further upstream to mix it up and make the aggregate as clean as you demanded, instead of actually reducing the amount of pollutants coming out of the pipe.

That's a free-market solution. Fuck the system any way they can if it's cheaper than actually cleaning up their act. If you want to fix that, you appoint regulators with a zeal for what they do, and give them the power to lay down nearly arbitrary penalties for doing shit. If the continuing set figure fines for flagrant and egregious violation of the environmental codes is less than the cost of cleaning up their act, they'll choose to just flagrantly violate the law, saying "fine us, we don't care."

That'll never happen as long as a company has the clout to buy politicians, and when they lose that clout they're as likely to up stakes and wash their hands of the affair as they are to toe the line; and if they up stakes, they can just leave the government of whatever unfortunate place they're in holding the bill.

Well, see, that's the thing... you can't move a mine. You can open a mine elsewhere, but the ore is where the ore is. If they want to mine they have to do it in a specific location. Much harder to "pull up stakes" and go elsewhere (although there are a few shady dodges for that, too).

No, granted, but if they reckon the cost of keeping their noses clean is more than it's worth, they'll up stakes, unemploy a lot of miners and bugger off with the money they've made so far, leaving you holding a bill and them drinking vodka martinis on a beach somewhere that doesn't know the meaning of the word 'extradition'.

The iron and aluminum oxide are both useful resources for industry. A lot of the alkalinity in the sludge is due to sodium hydroxide or lye - another useful industrial chemical. Find a reasonable way to recover any 1 of those 3 you've gone a long way to improving the situation, find a way to recover all 3 and the resulting residue will be much lower in volume and easier to dispose of.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that recycling the sludge has even been looked at - if they've been getting away with just dumping it in the backyard, so to speak, why would they even look for a way to make money off it? People are lazy. Someone might be missing out on a profitable enterprise here.

Holding out for a free market solution to companies being environmentally unconscionable dickwads is like seeing the light of the oncoming train and falling to your knees to pray the train away. It's utterly futile; companies do not, by nature, innovate. They find something that makes their shareholders a boatload of cash and keep doing it. They only innovate if they have to, like if advancing technology is part of their corporate schtick.

This sort of problem requires the high-held, heavy-mailed hand of government. Unfortunately, I think that the companies that are the worst offenders have grown too large to be brought to heel by the high-handed treatment.

It's a carrot and stick problem - use the threat of real penalities if they don't comply with clean up regulations, and then point out that if they do the clean-up disposal properly they might actually make some additional money off it. It can work, at least in some circumstances. It's already done with some industries now.

To do that, first you need to assume the power to actually levy real penalties, not wrist-slaps. For the carrot-and-stick to work, the stick needs to have more heft than your average wiffle ball bat, otherwise they'll just ignore the stick and can't be assed to move towards the carrot.

[folti78]

The "good" news just keeps coming ...

9 October 2010 Last updated at 07:38 GMT
Hungary evacuates village near toxic sludge reservoir

The Hungarian village of Kolontar has been evacuated after new damage was discovered at a burst reservoir that spilled toxic sludge on Monday.

Kolontar is one of the villages most affected by the spill from the reservoir of an alumina plant in Ajka.

The authorities say the damage to the northern wall of the reservoir is minor, but 800 villagers were evacuated early Saturday as a precaution.

At least seven people have died as a result of the accident.

Around 150 people were injured when up to 700,000 cubic metres (24.7m cu ft) of red toxic sludge flooded from the burst reservoir and hit villages in western Hungary.

Kolontar is the village closest to the reservoir. Residents were taken to a sports hall and two schools in Ajka, 8km (five miles) away.

In the last few days, residents and emergency workers have worked round-the-clock to remove the worst of the toxic red sludge which damaged houses, streets and farmland and polluted waterways.

An activist from the environmental group Greenpeace said he felt "like I had arrived on planet Mars".

All life in the Marcal river, which feeds the Danube, is said to have been extinguished.

On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oben said the River Danube was no longer under threat of widespread pollution, easing fears that Europe's second longest river would be significantly polluted.

Mr Orban said the situation had been brought "under control".

The sludge reached the Danube on Thursday, but Hungarian officials said on Friday that the pH level in the Danube was "normal".

Emergency crews have been working to dilute the alkaline content of the spill, adding huge quantities of gypsum and chemical fertilisers to the waters of the Marcal and Raba rivers.
Dust concerns

Officials fear that warmer and sunnier weather will create dust that could spread toxins - and possibly low-level radioactive materials - into the atmosphere.

Local people and emergency teams are being urged to wear masks.

Environment Minister Zoltan Illes confirmed that the sludge - which now covers a 41 sq km (16 sq mile) area - had a "high content of heavy metals", including carcinogens.

"If that [were to] dry out then the wind can blow that heavy metal contamination through the respiratory system," he said.

Greenpeace said samples of the sludge it took on Tuesday contained "surprisingly high" levels of arsenic and mercury. It said the detected arsenic concentration was twice the amount normally found in sludge.

"We are afraid that the arsenic might go into the groundwater and pollute the drinking water in the area. This is a serious problem when we are thinking about the long term effects," one of Greenpeace's scientists, Herwig Schuster, told the BBC.

"We fear the mercury will go down the rivers and enter the foodchain."

The disaster's confirmed death toll rose to seven on Friday, after an 81-year-old man died from injuries sustained in the torrent and two bodies were found on the outskirts of Devecser.

The victims were likely to be two of three Kolontar residents still missing, disaster unit chief Tibor Dobson said.

The company responsible for the alumina plant, MAL Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company, has offered its condolences to the families of the bereaved but insists it did nothing wrong.

It said it was devoting "all its energies and efforts" to tackling the spill, and had released 110,000 euros ($150,000) so far to help with the clean-up.

I spoke too soon yesterday, Greenpeace's finding has been announced yesterday afternoon. Turns out the original HAS samples has been taken from the sludge remaining in the reservoir, not from the fields. If it's true, then it's possible that the reservoir has been used to to store other hazmats similarly to the red sludge reservoirs at Almásfüzitő. Those are located right next to the Danube too and even their red sludge had higher heavy metal content too.

The Hungarian government started the official websites to disseminate information, the English one located here.

[folti78]

Evening everyone (at the CET time zone).
The following happened in the last days:
- the government asked the EU to send experts, to help with clearing the sludge and advise the building of the new defense dams.

- northern wall of the reservoir developed some larger cracks and experts feared that it would fall down in during the weekend.

- old survey reports have been publicized, made before the construction of the broken reservoir. These stated, that the reservoir has been built on two different soil. Most of the reservoir built on silt deposited by the floods of the Torna stream, while the northern wall built on clay. The breach happened at the border of the two different soils. MAL's management denied any knowledge of the reports, which has been disputed by almost everyone else. Especially because they just got the permit for building another reservoir nearby, for which they had to make new surveys.

- the bodies of two missing persons found in the weekend and the last one found today, raising the death toll to 8.

- MAL's CEO has been arrested on "criminal charges of public endangerment causing multiple deaths and harming the environment."

- the Parliament passed the highly controversial "lex MAL" amendment of the national defense law this evening, which allows the government to nationalize private companies in emergency situations.

"lex MAL"
It's main intent is to prevent the the owners of the companies to use creative methods of avoiding paying reparations by moving assets to uninvolved corporations and in MAL's case keep the company afloat as it's the biggest employer in the region. The problem as far as lawyers explained that it's too vaguely worded and allows for too much unchecked government intervention. Not to mention that it's been drafted quite hastily and thus full of loopholes. They say it's nearly sure that the Constitutional Court will find it unconstitutional and strikes it down, if it's been brought to them.

Another problem, that it's another self empowering law by the PM whose main effort since taking seat, is to put his lackeys into every possible position, grabbing as much power as the laws and the constitution allows. For changing those laws, his party has supermajority in the Parliament, turning it more or less to a rubber stamp organization. Interesting times ...

Article

11 October 2010 Last updated at 19:14 GMT
Hungary: Toxic spill factory chief executive arrested
The chief executive of the industrial plant at the centre of the toxic sludge spill in Hungary has been taken in for questioning by police.

The arrest of Zoltan Bakonyi was announced by the PM Viktor Orban.

Mr Orban also said the company would be temporarily nationalised and that those responsible for the disaster should bear the financial consequences.

Eight people have so far died from the 4 October spill near Ajka in the west of the country.

About 150 people were also injured after up to 700,000 cubic metres (24.7m cu ft) of toxic by-product from the production of alumina burst from a storage reservoir.

The residue has covered an area of 40 sq km (15.6 sq miles) and the contamination has spread into the region's waterways.
EU help

Engineers and disaster relief workers, aided by volunteers, have been racing to finish an emergency dam to contain an expected second spill from the reservoir.

EU experts are helping the Hungarians with the emergency dam, as well as assessing the longer-term impact of the spill on the ground water and the soil.

They are also examining the potential airborne health hazard posed by the mud drying out.

Speaking to parliament, Prime Minister Orban blamed "human negligence" for the spill.

"Since this is not a natural catastrophe but the damage was brought about by people, the damages must be paid first and foremost not by taxpayers but by those who caused the damage," he said.

"We have well-founded reasons to believe that there were people who knew about the dangerous weakening of the reservoir wall, but for personal reasons they thought it wasn't worth repairing and hoped there would be no trouble," he added.

Mr Bakonyi said last week that the reservoir had been inspected daily and no signs of weakness had been spotted.

The prime minister said that to preserve the jobs of the alumina plant's workers, the company owning it - MAL Hungarian Aluminium - would be brought under state control until those affected had been compensated and the damage cleaned up.

Environment State Secretary Zoltan Illes said the company could face damage claims amounting to 73m euros ($102m; £64m).

"We still don't know for now whether the company overloaded the reservoirs or not," he told journalists in Ajka.

"But if that is the case, it's illegal storage of waste and that constitutes a crime."
Torrent of sludge

The plant, located about 160km (100 miles) from Budapest, produced alumina - or aluminium oxide - from bauxite ore. Alumina is used to make aluminium metal as well as advanced ceramics.

The by-product of the alumina production is stored in a reservoir near the plant.

The toxic sludge escaped from a breach in the corner of the reservoir on 4 October, sending a torrent as high as 2m (6.5ft) through Kolontar and Devecser and other nearby villages.

Most of those killed were drowned or swept away in Kolontar as the sludge hit. A disaster relief official said on Monday that the body of the last missing person had been found in fields between Kolontar and Devecser.

All life in the Marcal river, which feeds the Danube, is said to have been extinguished.

The sludge reached the Danube on Thursday, but Hungarian officials said on Friday that the pH level in the river was "normal", easing fears that Europe's second-longest river would be significantly polluted.

Emergency crews have been working to dilute the alkaline content of the spill, adding huge quantities of gypsum and chemical fertilisers to the waters of the Marcal and Raba rivers.

[Phantasee]

I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but your ecological disaster is a lot more interesting than the BP Gulf disaster. Especially with the power-hungry PM angle to the lex MAL.

[CaptainChewbacca]

- old survey reports have been publicized, made before the construction of the broken reservoir. These stated, that the reservoir has been built on two different soil. Most of the reservoir built on silt deposited by the floods of the Torna stream, while the northern wall built on clay. The breach happened at the border of the two different soils. MAL's management denied any knowledge of the reports, which has been disputed by almost everyone else. Especially because they just got the permit for building another reservoir nearby, for which they had to make new surveys.

I can tell you the 'no knowledge of the reports' is BULLSHIT of the highest order. A fundamental site weakness like that would have been in the bullet-point summary of every single assessment ever done on that site. If the boundary was known (and it was) and no special modification was made for it, that's incredibly negligent on the part of the builder. Whether or not they said the accomodated it and LIED, well, that has yet to be seen.

[folti78]

I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but your ecological disaster is a lot more interesting than the BP Gulf disaster. Especially with the power-hungry PM angle to the lex MAL.

No problem, it's just the running joke, since 2006-7 that Hungary became more and more of a banana republic. We have everything for it, except banana ...

Now the lex MAL, the two incidents are not similar, because MAL is not big and rich enough to buy off the current government. It would be interesting if the disaster happened at a more bigger company like MOL (near monopolistic petrol company), or some at multi's site, who has enough money to buy off Orban and the FIDESZ.

Also, if MAL's leadership and owners supported MSZP (FIDESZ' arch rival, previous governing party, now a broken), which make them ideal scapegoat for the King's the Great Leader's PM Orbán's vendetta against MSZP's supporters. Another one that MAL's two biggest owners (40% and 30% respectively) are near to the top on the list of top 100 wealthiest Hungarians, who established their business using inside knowledge and connections during the big privatization wave of the early 90's, which will fit right into Orbán's propaganda as himself being the defender of the little man against the evil capitalists and bankers ....

Sadly it looks like that the disaster was a great propaganda boon for him, because he can shoved himself as the great leader working for the people at disaster site (like a PM could do anything except listening to the experts and making the marching orders ...), raising his popularity before the sad reality called budget of 2011 comes knocking to everyone.

[folti78]

- old survey reports have been publicized, made before the construction of the broken reservoir. These stated, that the reservoir has been built on two different soil. Most of the reservoir built on silt deposited by the floods of the Torna stream, while the northern wall built on clay. The breach happened at the border of the two different soils. MAL's management denied any knowledge of the reports, which has been disputed by almost everyone else. Especially because they just got the permit for building another reservoir nearby, for which they had to make new surveys.

I can tell you the 'no knowledge of the reports' is BULLSHIT of the highest order. A fundamental site weakness like that would have been in the bullet-point summary of every single assessment ever done on that site. If the boundary was known (and it was) and no special modification was made for it, that's incredibly negligent on the part of the builder. Whether or not they said the accomodated it and LIED, well, that has yet to be seen.

Well everyone who has two braincells to rub together knew that their claim was a lie, but pretty much every statement of the leadership was either blatant lies or half-truths by that time.

As for the accomodation, it wasn't exactly secret that the May-June heavy rains upset the soil many places, causing everything from landslides, to floods, to road and railway damage due to washed out foundations ... (biggest one was the closure of the M1 highway because of collapsed pavement due to washout, and the backup roads have been flooded.)