This quote from Bucharest Business Week certainly raises that intriguing question..

We have issued repeated written warnings over the past year to the plant, asking them (the firm that owns the mine) to once again check all their technological equipment, Virgil Diaconu, deputy minister in charge of environmental protection told Reuters.

Poisonous flow

Government officials accused a local gold smelter, 50 per cent owned by an Australian gold mining firm, of ignoring warnings that cyanide could spill into a river flowing from Romania into Hungary. But Esmeralda Exploration Ltd denied the charges. Officials in both Hungary and Romania say the Tisa river was badly polluted by cyanide from the plant on January 31.

We have issued repeated written warnings over the past year to the plant, asking them to once again check all their technological equipment, Virgil Diaconu, deputy minister in charge of environmental protection told Reuters.

Esmeraldas media adviser, Chris Codrington, replied: There was only one on-site visit from the environmental protection authority last year, which resulted in a suggestion unrelated to the incident. Local and Hungarian environment ministry officials met in Oradea last week to discuss the problem.

link

http://www.bbw.ro/article.cfm?filename=national_news.txt

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 18, 2000