The European Commission will start a legal action against Romania for failure to comply with EU regulations on mining waste management. The case is referring to Romania’s Bosneag tailings pond, a 102-hectare wasteland which used to serve the Moldova Noua copper and zinc mines and which is currently almost completely abandoned.

“The pond is a major pollution source, spreading toxic dusts which pose significant risks to human health and to the environment. Romania has agreed to take measures to solve this problem, but made insufficient progress,” the European Commission announced on Thursday.

The action was started by Slovenian Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Environment, to force Romania to accelerate solving this problem.

According to EU legislation, member states must ensure that mining waste is properly managed so that they pose no threat to human health or to the environment, even after mining exploitations are closed.

The Tausani - Bosneag tailings pond is located on the left bank of the Danube, close to Moldova Noua village. The pond was used to collect and decant mine waters from the Moldomin copper exploitation, which is located a few kilometers to the North.

The water in the pond evaporated and now it looks more like a desert which has a 1.5 meters thick layer of fine powders which contains high concentrations of copper and other metals. Stronger winds usually carry this dust to agriculture land in the area, and when it rains some of the waste gets to the Danube,according to local media.

Some 5,780 hectares of land are affected by this pollution source in Romania and another 12,000 hectares are affected in Serbia. Some 30,000 people live in the affected area, on both sides of the Danube.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com