Posted on September, 10 2003

Brussels, Belgium - WWF welcomes the inclusion of dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons in an EU law controlling major accident hazards. This will help prevent environmental disasters such as the 1998 toxic spill in Spain's Doñana wetlands and the 2000 cyanide spill in the Danube river basin. Last night the European Parliament and the Council reached agreement in conciliation on the amendment of the EU Directive controlling major accident hazards (the so-called Seveso II Directive after the chemical accident in Italy back in 1976) to cover dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons. This new law will soon be published in the official journal of the European Communities. WWF has been instrumental in promoting the inclusion of these waste lagoons in the Seveso II Directive. Wet sludge from mining — which frequently contains toxic materials including heavy metals and cyanide — is often stored in unstable ponds known as tailings (waste) lagoons, which are sometimes held in by makeshift earth dams. These can collapse for a variety of reasons, spilling the waste into the environment and causing long-term pollution of rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Following the 1998 toxic spill from the Boliden zinc mine "Los Frailes" in Aznalcóllar, southern Spain — which had disastrous environmental and socio-economic consequences for the Doñana wetland ecosystem and local communities — WWF presented the European Commission with a list of mine and quarry waste lagoons across Europe. WWF also submitted a detailed proposal to the EU institutions for changes in EU environmental legislation to prevent such accidents from occurring again and to reduce everyday freshwater pollution from mining and quarrying waste by, amongst other things, ensuring that dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons have internal and external emergency plans to prevent, minimise and remediate environmental damage. Following further tailings lagoon accidents, such as the 2000 cyanide spill in Romania that contaminated large parts of the Tisza and Danube rivers, and other accidents in Romania, the UK, Sweden, and Greece, WWF has been working to ensure that EU law makes it compulsory for operators of dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons to have proper "major accident prevention" policies, including provision of relevant information to the public. WWF is, therefore, very pleased that the Seveso II Directive has finally been amended to cover dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons. “Recent tailings dams failures in Europe and associated environmental and human health impacts could have been predicted and prevented if the EU regulatory framework on mining safety had not been so poor," said Eva Royo Gelabert, WWF Senior European Water Policy Officer. "WWF welcomes the amendment to the EU Directive on the control of major accident hazards which should fill the gap in EU environmental legislation in relation to environmental safety procedures linked to the management of dangerous mine and quarry waste lagoons. We would very much like to congratulate the European Parliament for having supported WWF’s point that all mine and quarry dangerous waste lagoons had to be covered by this Directive irrespective of the mineral processing method they are associated to." For further information: Eva Royo Gelabert Senior European Water Policy Officer, WWF European Policy Office E-mail: ERoyogela@wwfepo.org