Singing the Danube blues

"The sad reality is that from a water-management point of view nutrients are the last thing an upstream country like Hungary is going to tackle," says Zlinsky. Here keeping bacteria and toxins in check is the top priority. "Nutrients are something you don't tackle unless you have the time, the money, and you feel like it."

Who pays for the clean-up?

When the cold war ended, many hoped that all the nations along the Danube would find themselves part of an expanded European Union, unifying the Danube Basin under a single polity for the first time since the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelianus. No longer would one country dump its wastes on its neighbors. West European wealth and expertise would make the middle and lower Danube as clean as its headwaters in Germany.

That proved wishful thinking. In the intervening decade, the only Danubian country admitted into the EU was prosperous Austria. Yugoslavia disintegrated in a hateful war that's left Bosnia in ruins and made Serbia an international pariah. Romania and Bulgaria descended into economic chaos.

One agent for change starting to exert more influence is the European Union. "Since all of these countries want to join the European Union (EU), they're all trying to comply with European environmental standards," says Jasmine Bachmann of the WWF's Vienna-based Danube program.

The EU and multilateral development banks helped set up international environmental commissions for both the Danube Basin and Black Sea, but cooperation remains limited. On the Danube, scientists now cooperate on monitoring and alert one another to accidents, but governments still refuse to accept liability for environmental damage done to their neighbors. "The 'polluter pays principle' isn't working on the international level," Dr. Laszlo says.

Cooperation among Black Sea countries has been stalled because of tensions between Russia and Turkey, longtime rivals for control of the sea.

Among the hopeful, albeit minor steps is: the recently announced $60 million World Bank loan package to protect wetlands and fund needed changes in agricultural practices - something Mee says will help reduce nutrient pollution in the Black Sea; the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development committed 42.5 million euro to upgrade the Czech city of Brno's sewage plant. Currently, wastewater from Brno's 390,000 inhabitants flows into the Morava River and on to the Danube without proper treatment.

This year's high-profile Romanian cyanide spills helped sound the alarm. The Commission of the European Union has said that financial aid will be extended to Hungary, Serbia, and other countries affected by the spills. The Australian mining company that spilled the toxins, Esmeralda Exploration of Perth, does not admit responsibility.

Critics point out that since the collapse of communism, the biggest investment the international community has made in the Danube was to bomb the Serbian bridges spanning it.

And with the bridges down in Novi Sad, Danube captains are feeling a bit like the river's sturgeon, blocked from delivering urgent cargo where it belongs along the shores of the mighty river.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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