Greenpeace slams Canadian gold project in Romania
Date: 06-Dec-02
Country: ROMANIA
Author: Adrian Dascalu
"We asked the Romanian government not to authorise Gabriel Resources to start the mine," Herwig Schuster, an official from the Vienna office of the environmentalist group, which also coordinates Greenpeace activists in Romania, told reporters.
Gabriel Resources, a Canadian company, is carrying out the $420 million project and aims to extract 300 tonnes of gold and 1,700 tonnes of silver over 14 years.
As part of the project, it plans to relocate the 900 families of Rosia Montana, a poor mining town 500 km (310 miles) west of Bucharest, and has promised them money and new homes.
Opposition parties have joined environmentalists in attacking the mine project.
The ultra-nationalist Greater Romania Party put forward a motion in parliament this week asking the government to keep its monopoly on gold deposits and protect the population, environment and archaeological sites in the area.
Ecologists say Gabriel Resources' plans to build a tailings pond near the opencast mine to store water with cyanide, used to separate gold from ore, would cause massive environmental damage.
The company has repeatedly rejected such charges, saying it would install a $4 million cyanide destroyer at the planned ore processing plant.
The government said it would make no concessions on safety standards for the sake of the much-needed investments in an area hard hit by unemployment.
"The situation is totally under control...the government keeps a close eye on the project and all approvals related to the project will be in line with international regulations," a senior government official told Reuters this week.
He said no final approval had been given to Gabriel Resources to start commercial exploitation of the site.
Schuster said both the relocation of Rosia Montana residents and the use of cyanide would breach EU rules and were likely to affect Romania's chances of joining the European Union.
Rosia Montana residents campaigning against the project said the authorities had ignored their demand for a referendum on the town's fate. Others accepted the cash offered by the company and have already left town.