When the sludge reservoir belonging to an ores treatment plant loaded with heavy metals and cyanide derivatives had its dike ruptured in late January 2000 due to heavy rainfalls, no one anticipated that this would result in the gravest contamination river Tisza had ever had. The spill, in the amount of nearly 100 thousand cubic meters, wiped out the fish population primarily in the upper reaches of the river. Unfortunately, it was impossible to determine the real proportions of the damage, as no comparative data on water quality, taken before the contamination, was available. The only measurable data was the total weigh of fish carcass collected, that reaching about 200 tons.
Lake Tisza and Kisköre Dam proved effective in reducing the fallout of the spill, by closing off the side branches of the lake and suspending damming temporarily at the arrival of the spill, the contamination was prevented from spreading all across the lake and was conveyed downstream in the shortest possible time.
The Tisza Region Government Commissionary Office estimated the damage to be some HUF 30 billion (USD 107 million). At the initiative of the Hungarian party, a quadrilateral meeting took place in Kolozsvár on May 22, 2000, with Ukrainian, Slovak, Romanian and Hungarian participants to discuss the issue of rivers shared by the countries with a view to preventing further contaminations from taking place.
At the time, Hungary was preoccupied with the then flooding Tisza, when yet another round of contamination took place in Romania, affecting rivers Fekete-Körös on May 5 and Szamos on July 6. (Source: Vizeink Krónikája/Chronicle of Hungary's Water
Published by Vízügyi Levéltár és Könyvgyjtemény)
Edited by László Fejér
Information & Contact:
László Fejér
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