M I N I N G

The city of Pecs in southwest Hungary is one of the country's most picturesque tourist spots. But the landscape begins to look different as you travel westward into Baranya county, once a key mining region. Now it is plagued with high unemployment and the wreckage of industries that had little or no regard for the environment. Among the casualties and culprits is Hungary's only uranium ore mine, reduced to a skeleton staff of around 100 left mainly to clean up after 40 years of neglect. In 1997, uranium mining at the Mecsek Ore Mining Company will stop completely, but its closure will leave a longer lasting legacy than unemployment.

Much of the criticism surrounding nuclear power has focused on high-level radioactive wastes and the reactors themselves, but the mining of uranium for nuclear fuel creates problems of its own. At Mecsek, most of the waste is chemical, and it is threatening to seep into the groundwater. "Our problem is unique in that the tailing ponds are situated in the center of the water supply area," explains Istvan Benkovich from the Mecsek Ore Mining Company.

Tailing ponds, large lakes fed by pipes from the mine, are the resting place of uranium processed in the mill. By the time the liquid waste reaches these ponds, 90 per cent of the uranium has been removed, but chemical compounds such as magnesium sulphate and sodium chloride remain in the silt that collects in layers on the bottom. In 5-10 years, this contaminated water is expected to reach the local water supply, potentially affecting around 50,000 people. Tailing ponds also emit radon gas, a radioactive substance which exists naturally in the atmosphere in low levels. Little is known about the health effects of the gas, but surrounding villages have registered slightly higher amounts than normal.

A similar problem exists at the so-called heap leaching sites. Here, relatively low grade ore is crushed and dumped on an area of land covered with protective sheeting. A chemical solution is then placed on top of the ore and uranium is extracted by ion exchange. Now the concern is that the protective sheeting between ground and ore is breaking down and chemical pollutants are likely to seep into the groundwater.

Since 1992, when a government decision restructured Mecsek and set it on a course of remediation, the company has investigated the problems of waste in the area, and has begun the process of recultivating its dry waste sites, the destination for heap-leached ore. But these changes require continual injections of money from a cash-strapped government. "It is very difficult to obtain these financial resources in the required amount," says Benkovich. "We'd like to do more work and spend more money but the situation of the Hungarian budget makes this quite impossible to obtain."

This year the government has allocated Ft 5 billion (ECU 27.9 million) for all the country's dangerous waste problems, including toxic chemicals that have polluted rivers, groundwater and the atmosphere. Austrian experts estimate that at least Ft 50 billion (ECU 280 million) must be spent on Hungary's hazardous waste problem, of which uranium mines is only a part. Illegal imports of waste from Western Europe make the problem even more difficult to quantify.

The Mecsek Ore Mining Company is confident it will receive the funding it needs to stop its uranium waste from further harming the environment. But environmentalists are concerned that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lack of independent information about uranium waste implies that the problem could be much larger. "The problem with monitoring waste is that it is very difficult for NGOs to get involved since it requires a lot of money and time," says Janos Miko, a lawyer for the Green Alternative group. Similar clean-ups of uranium mine waste in eastern Germany cost DM 15 billion (ECU 7.5 billion).

These problems are not unique to Hungary. Uranium mining has devastated large tracts of Central and Eastern Europe, leaving a plethora of problems in its wake. The case of the heavily mined "Black Triangle" region, located at the border areas of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, has been well-documented since the beginning of the 90s and is now an established part of the Phare Multi-Country Environmental Programme. This year the first stages of a separate Uranium Mine Waste Project will begin in Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. The Mecsek Ore Mining Company in Pecs will act as Programme Coordination Unit. The aim of these programs is to share information and work together to tackle similar problems.

Some are skeptical of the program's immediate benefits. Short on funds, Phare is using the ECU 1 million that it has earmarked for the project for investigations and strategy development. The Mecsek mine, which started investigations in 1992, is more interested in starting the cleaning process. "On this specific problem we don't have any connection with the other countries involved," says Dr. Csovari Mihaly from the Mecsek Ore Mining Company. He points out that the location of the tailing ponds and the chemical waste produced are different from other examples in the region. But Jan Vrijen, the consultant leading the Phare programme, argues that "priority areas" must be made after cataloguing an "overview of the variety of mining operations" in Central and Eastern Europe.