Gold cyanidation
Gold cyanidation (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest process) is a hydrometallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to a water-soluble coordination complex. It is the most commonly ...
is a chemical process for extracting gold from low-grade ore. Used in Romania for decades, the process came into debate following the
2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill and proposal of the
Roșia Montană Project
Roșia Montană Project was a proposed gold and silver mine in Roșia Montană, Romania. If approved, it would have become Europe's largest open-pit gold mine and it would have used the gold cyanidation mining technique. The project met with ...
, which would create the largest operation for gold extraction using cyanides in Europe.
Exploitation projects
Currently, there is no exploitation project active, but there is one that has its operations suspended temporarily (
Baia Mare
Baia Mare ( , ; hu, Nagybánya; german: Frauenbach or Groß-Neustadt; la, Rivulus Dominarum) is a municipality along the Săsar River, in northwestern Romania; it is the capital of Maramureș County. The city lies in the region of Maramur ...
) and there are two proposed projects (
Roșia Montană
Roșia Montană (, "Roșia of the Mountains"; la, Alburnus Maior; hu, Verespatak, ; german: Goldbach, Rotseifen) is a commune of Alba County in the Apuseni Mountains of western Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the Valea Roșiei, through ...
and
Certej).
Previously, there were also exploitations in
Baia de Arieș
Baia de Arieș ( Hungarian: ''Aranyosbánya'' or ''Offenbánya''; German: ''Offenburg'') is a town in Alba County, Romania. It administers five villages: Brăzești (''Berzesd''), Cioara de Sus (''Felsőcsóra''), Muncelu (''Muncsal''), Sartăș ( ...
(Alba County),
Sasar,
Suior,
Cavnic
Cavnic ( hu, Kapnikbánya; german: Kapnik) is a former mining town located in the valley of the river Cavnic, east of Baia Mare, in Maramureș County, northern Romania. The town covers , at altitudes ranging from 500 to 1050 meters above sea l ...
,
Băița,
Băiuț
Băiuț ( hu, Erzsébetbánya) is a Communes of Romania, commune in Maramureș County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Baiuț, Strâmbu-Băiuț (''Kohóvölgy''), and Poiana Botizii (''Rákosfalva'').
History
Over the cour ...
(Maramureș County).
There are some ongoing explorations projects operated by
Eldorado Gold
Eldorado Gold Corporation is a Canadian company that owns and operates gold mines
Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold pann ...
in
Brad
Brad may refer to:
* Brad (given name), a masculine given name
Places
* Brad, Hunedoara, a city in Hunedoara County, Romania
* Brad, a village in Berești-Bistrița Commune, Bacău County, Romania
* Brad, a village in Filipeni, Bacău, Romania
* ...
,
Deva
Deva may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Deva'' (1989 film), a 1989 Kannada film
* ''Deva'' (1995 film), a 1995 Tamil film
* ''Deva'' (2002 film), a 2002 Bengali film
* Deva (2007 Telugu film)
* ''Deva'' (2017 film), a 2017 Marathi film
* Deva ...
and
Muncel (
Hunedoara County
Hunedoara County () is a county ('' județ'') of Romania, in Transylvania, with its capital city at Deva. The county is part of the Danube–Criș–Mureș–Tisa Euroregion.
Name
In Hungarian, it is known as , in German as , and in Slovak as ...
), in addition to the company's new intended exploitation in Certej.
Ban attempts
In 2005, a number of 12
Greater Romania Party
The Greater Romania Party ( ro, Partidul România Mare, PRM) is a Romanian nationalist political party. Founded in May 1991 by Eugen Barbu and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, it was led by the latter from that point until his death in September 2015. The ...
Senators (among which
Gheorghe Funar
Gheorghe Funar (; born September 29, 1949 in Sânnicolau Mare, Timiș County, Socialist Republic of Romania) is a nationalist Romanian politician, who rose to fame as a controversial mayor of Cluj-Napoca between 1992 and 2004.
Biography
He became ...
) proposed a law project which banned the usage of cyanides for gold and silver extraction in Roșia Montană.
The law was rejected in the Senate in November 2005 and in the Chamber of Deputies in March 2006. The government also opposed it arguing that the law referred to a special case.
A year later, Funar and
Peter Eckstein
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
of the
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania
The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR; hu, Romániai Magyar Demokrata Szövetség, RMDSZ; ro, Uniunea Democrată Maghiară din România, UDMR) is a political party in Romania which aims to represent the significant Hungarian m ...
, usually bitter rivals in the political scene of Cluj, created a new law which was more general and avoided to talk about Roșia Montană. The project was nevertheless rejected in the autumn of 2008, meeting the opposition of the Democratic-Liberal Party.
A third attempt to ban gold cyanidation was registered in the Senate in June 2013, proposed by non-affiliated deputy
Remus Cernea
Remus Cernea (; born June 25, 1974) is a Romanian activist against discrimination based on faith and religion, an advocate of the separation of church and state and the founder of the ''Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience Association''. From 201 ...
, being supported by other 38 senators and deputies of all parties, many of which from the government coalition. The only MP from the Democratic-Liberal Party to support the law was the deputy
Teodor Paleologu
Theodor Paleologu (; born July 15, 1973) is a Romanian historian, diplomat and politician. An independent who was formerly a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL), the People's Movement Party (PMP) and the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L), ...
.
Disasters
The
1971 Certej dam failure
The 1971 Certej dam failure was a flood due to the failure of a tailings dam at the Certej mine which led to the death of 89 people. It occurred on 30 October 1971 in Certeju de Sus commune, Hunedoara County, Romania.
Background
The tailing pond ...
led to the deaths of 89 people after a failure of the dam of the
tailings pond
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
.
The
2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill occurred when a dam (operated by Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government) holding 100,000 tonnes of cyanide-contaminated tailings spilled into the
Someș River
The Someș (; hu, Szamos; german: Somesch or ''Samosch'') is a left tributary of the Tisza in Hungary and Romania. It has a length of (including its source river Someșul Mare), of which 50 km are in Hungary.[Tisza
The Tisza, Tysa or Tisa, is one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. Once, it was called "the most Hungarian river" because it flowed entirely within the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it crosses several national borders.
The Tisza be ...]
and
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. The spill created a large-scale environmental disaster that has been called the worst environmental disaster in Europe since the
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
.
["Death of a river"](_blank)
''BBC'', February 15, 2000
References
{{Gold cyanidation in Romania
Gold mining in Romania