The EU should intervene in the debate over Romania’s controversial Rosia Montana mining project

The Commission should therefore consider extending the precautionary principle, which underpins European climate and environmental policy, to the use of cyanide mining technologies in the EU. Similarly to radioactive water, the cyanide-contaminated water used in extracting the metals must be contained and cannot be released into the ground. In Rosia Montana, the exploration will use around 12,000 tones of cyanide annually compared to, for example, 1,000 tones Europe wide, totalling a staggering 204 million tones throughout the lifetime of the mine. The contaminated water must be placed in a 400m deep and 8km wide pond, which is meant to last forever.
As history shows, the impact on the environment, public health and on the long-term sustainability of communities can be dire when unpredictable weather patterns, failing maintenance standards and human error meet. The spill of cyanide-contaminated water at another Romanian mine in Baia Mare in 2000, which involved ‘only’ 100 tones of cyanide tainted water, has been deemed Europe’s worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl. This should convince EU decision-makers that some economic activities carry too high an economic, environmental and social cost.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/10/21/the-eu-should-intervene-in-the-debate-over-romanias-controversial-rosia-montana-mining-project/