The accident from Alum did not affect employees

Fri, 03/10/2006 - 01:00

Tulcea – A process solution container of ALUM Tulcea cracked in the morning of March 10, around 3.00h. About 500 cbm substances overflowed inside the plant and on one of the neighbor streets.

No employee of the alumina producer was affected by the solution discharge. First controls of the Environmental Agency showed that no fish died in lake Cisla.

“Starting 3.30h we’ve been working on limiting the solution discharge”, said Dan Gheorghe, general manager of ALUM Tulcea. “We have immediately put bags around the fissure in order to reduce the flow of discharged solution. We used 55 tons neutralizing substances, we isolated the area and stopped the discharge of caustic soda by making a dam around the container.”

ALUM teams also used pumps for moving the solution from container and outside it into other storage containers.

Teams of the alumina plant worked together with firemen for neutralizing the substance that reached on street, under the supervision of Environmental Agency’s employees.

A truck belonging to the company and other four of the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations participated to cleaning up the road around Isaccea.

“Substances did not affect lake Cisla, due to the fact that we made a dam for isolating the area. Around 4 a.m., the situation was under control, following some measures taken by ALUM.”

Teams are further working on neutralizing the area completely and repairing the caustic soda container.

“We have set together with the Environmental Agency the measures that will be taken for preventing such accidents”, so Dan Gheorghe.

Alumina producer has an environmental program of over $ 9m. Last year the company invested $ 2.4m in the conformation to environmental standards program agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency. ALUM realized 92% of investments set with authorities with regard to conformation to environmental standards.