THANKFULLY, 4,000 emergency workers have so far prevented the ruinous spill of red alkaline mud in the Hungarian village of Kolontar from polluting tributaries of the river Danube. On October 4th a 40m breach in the wall containing the waste byproduct of a bauxite refining factory producing aluminia spilled 200 million gallons, killing nine people, injuring 129, and destroying 2,000 acres of land along with livestock and wildlife. The disaster highlights other dangerous sites throughout this region of Europe and reinforces the need for a much stricter application of environmental regulation.
Beyond Hungary, the Danube flows through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine and Romania before it reaches the Black Sea. The mighty water system is vulnerable to a potential 97 similar industrial disposal sites in these and other states, according to a 2007 report on protecting its ecology. Most of them, like the Kolontar plant, were products of rapid industrialisation and minimal environmental protection during the communist period. Privatised in the 1990s, they were bought up cheaply by companies seeking easy profits and able to avoid too close scrutiny by the new state regimes. Although the European Union demanded action during enlargement negotiations and funded clean-up operations, the results have been disappointingly patchy.
There is now an opportunity to tackle the issue more robustly. Coinciding with Hungary’s accession in 2004, the EU adopted the Environmental Liability Directive. It includes the polluter pays principle and provides for the complete recovery of costs from those responsible, including restoring lands, plant and animal ecology to their previous state. Hungary is one of the few member states to have adopted the directive fully. This should allow the government led by Viktor Orban to demand that these conditions are fulfilled. The company involved, MAL Rt, is owned by three of the country’s richest men. It is part of a multinational chain that has a 12 per cent share of the EU alumina market and 4 per cent of the world’s.
The company’s initial complacent attitude towards the spill, its meagre offer of compensation and its subsequent admission to have minimal insurance coverage angered Hungarians, who welcomed the arrest of the managing director for questioning. Mr Orban told parliament that “Hungary’s biggest ecological disaster was caused by human negligence, the escape of a hazardous material from a plant built and run by people.” He has pledged to act against businessmen whose political connections enriched them in the post-communist years. Even if it is contained, this spillage will take years to clean up at an estimated cost of at least €100 million.
The Hungarian authorities will have international as well as domestic support if they pursue this case vigorously. They should be encouraged to do so by the European Commission, which has sent a team of experts there to check on compliance and environmental standards. This will become a test case for applying the principle that polluters should pay.