Members of Bulgaria Without Cyanides (BWC) coalition protested in front of the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs (MOEW) on March 21 against the decision of the Bulgarian Government to consider the investment proposal of Dundee Precious Metals to expand operations at its Chelopech mine in the country.

The protesters held posters saying, “Stop the cyanides”, “Why is MOEW not protecting the environment?” and “Cyanides are highly poisonous! Their effect on living organisms consists of blocking the cell breathing.”

Environmentalists handed out leaflets to the passers-by and spoke to the interested people. The papers contained information about how dangerous is the cyanide technology for the human health.

The cyanide accident in Baia Mare (Romania) on January 30 2000 was cited as one of the most serious of its kind in Europe. After the cyanide spill, 2000 sq km from the Danube River basin were affected, as well as the water supply of 24 municipalities with more than 2.4 million people, and several thousands tons of fish were found dead.

Because of its high risks, such technology was used only in uninhabited areas with law rainfalls and no earthquakes. “The conditions in Bulgaria do not allow to take this risk – the highly populated Thracian Valley in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, the high annual average rainfalls, serious flood conditions of the river Topolnitsa, as well as the vertical seismicity of the region would have to determine a negative decision concerning the technology implementation,” the environmentalists said.

As other strong reasons for not approving the usage of this technology BWC representatives cited the fact that many European countries did not use this technology and that it was outright banned in others, the parliamentary initiative for a ban in Romania, declaration 85/2007 for ban in the European Union that was proposed in the European Parliament and supported by several Bulgarian MEPs, as well as the initiative of the environmental ministers from the Visegrad 4 group of countries.

A tarns-border environmental impact assessment (EIA) has not been done on the Chelopech mine. The environmentalists further claimed the mine current EIA had several lapses including no public discussions on the project took place in the bigger populated settlements on the banks of the rivers Topolnitsa and Maritsa, which would directly be affected by construction of a tailings pond at a distance of 1300m from the nearby village of Chavdar.

The environmentalists also said that on Chakurov’s decision would impact “the destiny of two million people from three countries, whose drinking and agriculture watering needs depend on Maritsa River”.

BWC still hoped that MOEW decision would take into consideration before all the care of the citizens’ constitutional right on clean environment, as well as the strategic economic development of Bulgaria as tourism destination and producer of environmentally clean agriculture products.