Seems as if the EU's worst fears are starting to form as the spill has reached the Danube. Despite what the Academy of Sciences is saying wildlife is being affected, with one tributary being declared dead.
KOLONTAR, Hungary – Red sludge flowed into the Danube River on Thursday, threatening a half-dozen nations along one of Europe's key waterways. Monitors took samples every few hour to measure damage from the toxic spill and emergency officials declared one Hungarian tributary dead.
As cleanup crews gathered deer carcasses and other wildlife from the villages in southwestern Hungary flooded by the industrial waste, environmental groups warned of long-term damage to the farming region's topsoil.
Conflicting information swirled about the dangers posed by the ankle-deep muck coating the most seriously hit areas after the collapse of a waste-storage reservoir at a nearby alumina plant Monday.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences maintained that while the material was a continued hazard, its heavy metal concentrations were not considered dangerous to the environment.
This is fucking bad. Not Chernobyl-bad, but pretty fucking close. I hope they manage to halt the waste before it spreads to the entire of the eastern countries and i hope the people responsible will be so sued that they hardly will afford breathing.
Edit:
On October 08 2010 16:44 neobowman wrote: Wait, what exactly is the spill's origins?
A storage-dam burst and went right into a nearby river which in turn made it flow out in europes second largest river, Danube.
Wow, I hadn't even heard of this. It's horrible that things like this occur, although not terribly surprising considering the number of factories on earth pumping out toxic shit.
i heard that the company which can be held responsible for this could cover like 1% of the demage costs, not sure on what numbers this is based though. Looks pretty bad
Fun fact: The company that is responsible for the disaster has limited liability. They will have to pay the exact sum of 35,000 Euro and that's it (according to yesterday's news that is about 0.1% of the actual monetary damage).
On October 08 2010 17:41 madnessman wrote: Ouch those pics look pretty bad. At least the materials in the sludge aren't super radioactive or poisonous.
Yeah but the red side mud is already highly caustic due to the initial bauxite ore being digested in NaOH. You've got the NA2O which reacts with water into NaOH
On the bright side of this disaster, my final year engineering thesis is on the alumina process (although further downstream in the process, ocne all this red mud has been removed from the bayer liquor) and has a required section on safety....I guess i can right about this now
On October 08 2010 17:41 madnessman wrote: Ouch those pics look pretty bad. At least the materials in the sludge aren't super radioactive or poisonous.
Well, from a chemistry point of view none of this stuff is dangerous. Fe2O3 is merely rust. SiO2 is about as dangerous as sand. TiO2 is a common white pigment. CaO in water just turns into Ca2+ and OH-. Ca2+ is an essential human mineral. Na2O similarly dissociates in water to Na+ and OH-. So basically the most dangerous thing here is that the resulting sludge/solution would be quite alkaline. But once it hits the danube there's gonna be so much water that it won't significantly change the pH of the river.
I've seen the media mention "heavy metals" all the time, but so far they have not specified which heavy metals they mean. The above list does not contain any.
I really don't think this disaster is as big as the media coverage suggests. The gulf of mexico on the other hand...
I know Arsenic has been mentioned somewhere. Best we wait for a proper analysis but as far as I learned, Aluminium production produces some pretty nasty waste.
I'm getting so sick of spills of various substances killing wildlife . We need more wildlife if anything, especially those innocent frogs....so innocent.
On October 08 2010 17:41 madnessman wrote: Ouch those pics look pretty bad. At least the materials in the sludge aren't super radioactive or poisonous.
Fe2O3 Al2O3 SiO2 CaO TiO2 Na2O
Wait.. Isn't CaO unstable and caustic? Uh oh...
Well, from a chemistry point of view none of this stuff is dangerous. Fe2O3 is merely rust. SiO2 is about as dangerous as sand. TiO2 is a common white pigment. CaO in water just turns into Ca2+ and OH-. Ca2+ is an essential human mineral. Na2O similarly dissociates in water to Na+ and OH-. So basically the most dangerous thing here is that the resulting sludge/solution would be quite alkaline. But once it hits the danube there's gonna be so much water that it won't significantly change the pH of the river.
I've seen the media mention "heavy metals" all the time, but so far they have not specified which heavy metals they mean. The above list does not contain any.
I really don't think this disaster is as big as the media coverage suggests. The gulf of mexico on the other hand...
The ph of the sludge was orignally around 13, it is not "quite" alkaline it's VERY alkaline.
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