Aughinish denies any risk from bauxite

AUGHINISH Alumina has denied claims by farmers living near its facility on the Shannon Estuary that bauxite residue, similar to that which has caused the Hungarian environment disaster, poses a risk here.

Local farmers claim the bauxite, which is piled on a 200-acre site at the facility, is hazardous. Aughinish Alumina, which employs 440 people at its bauxite extraction plant near Foynes, said there is no danger of any spillage from its bauxite residue pile as they treat it in a totally different manner to the method used at the disaster facility in Hungary.

The spillage of bauxite residue in Hungary has claimed seven lives, destroyed towns and villages and caused heavy pollution along the Danube.

The Aughinish facility, like that in Devecser, Hungary, extracts alumina from bauxite leaving a huge red mud bauxite residue.

Aughinish Alumina, owned by the Russian corporation Rusal, imports four million tons of bauxite every year from West Africa and processes it into 1.8 million tons of alumina. This is shipped to aluminium smelters around the world. The process results in a huge amount of red mud from the residue bauxite.

A spokesman for Aughinish Alumina said yesterday the waste bauxite residue is spread over a 200-acre dry area adjacent to the river.

The disaster plant in Deveser, Hungary, is a wet area covering just 25 acres and experts say the bauxite residue there was not sufficiently treated to keep it dry, resulting in a wet sludge which has burst out of storage pools.

The spokesman for Aughinish Alumina said the Hungarian method of dealing with bauxite was different as it involved “wet pounding”.

“We use a dry stacking method. It is a far more modern approach for storing residue... Our method of disposal is considered by the EU as the best available technology of its kind,” said the spokesman.