Hungarian residents afraid to use wells after oil spill

Euronews

16-03-2025

In the outskirts of Gárdony, a town in central Hungary, small houses are occupied by agricultural workers and commuters. Robert Dudás, 28, and his partner, who both work in the nearby city of Székesfehérvár, moved here last February.
They were drawn to the clean, calm environment - a nice change after living in a Soviet-style apartment. But just a few months later, an oil spill changed their neighborhood.
Last September, MOL, Hungary's leading gas and oil company, detected a drop in the pressure of one of their pipes. A weeks-long investigation eventually revealed a leak near Dudás's house.
The cleanup could cost billions of forints (millions of euros) according to local media. The local population, including Dudás, claims there has been a lack of transparency, and is campaigning for compensation and answers.
According to a report it released in late February, MOL - in which the Hungarian government has shares through foundations - detected a drop in pressure in its 190km long pipeline in September.
After locating the leak to a stretch two metres below ground near Gárdony in October, MOL dug up the pipe to reveal a 10cm long break.
It then halted the flow of oil for a few weeks before replacing the part, covering the pipe with fresh soil, and resuming operations. The monitoring and cleaning continues, through blue pipes that mark newly dug-up monitoring wells, of which around a dozen are visible in the streets near where the leak happened.
But residents were left with questions, including about the quantity of the oil that escaped.
MOL initially acknowledged a spill of 10 cubic metres. But after an investigation by independent investigative watchdog Átlátszó, and pressure from the locals, the company admitted that almost 487 cubic metres of oil had escaped.
That's around one fifth of the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, or 6,500 times as much oil as a car gas tank could hold.
'There is one family which is directly affected,' Árpád Pál Eötvös, Gárdony's mayor, told Euronews. They lived on the property next to where the spill happened. According to Eötvös, this family received compensation from MOL, which offered to buy their property.
Eötvös highlighted that his office is in weekly communication with MOL, which tested a dozen wells. On top of this, the municipal government tested over 50, none of which showed signs of contamination from oil, but found sodium, nitrite or e-coli bacteria, all of them harmful.
According to Eötvös, this is due to the fact that this area, close to agriculture and without running water or paved roads, isn't fit for full-time residents, but acknowledges that the high cost of renting drives people to live here.
'This area is an alternative for the cost-of-living crisis,' agrees Róbert Dudás, a local resident. His property is around 200 metres from the leak. He learned about the incident on Facebook.
Like many, Dudás relies on the well in his garden. He did a test privately in January 2025, and found no contamination. Nevertheless, he received a letter from the municipal government, advising residents to abstain from drinking well water due to possible contamination unrelated to the spill.
He thinks that the municipal government should advocate for those living here, not only the one family which received compensation. 'There are 164 residents here. The local government has let all of them down,' he says.
According to Tibor Horányi, an environmental engineer and member of the NGO Alba Natura Foundation, and a member of the municipal assembly, there are more victims from the oil spill than MOL and the local government have acknowledged.
"This person doesn't want to use well water because he can smell oil. This one can't keep animals, this [person] stopped growing vegetables,' Horányi points in different directions, standing on soil MOL used to fill holes after the leak. According to the Gárdony-based environmental engineer, the locals could take MOL to court for compensation.
'But not everyone is in a financial position to pay for a lawyer,' he says.
In its February report, MOL announced it is building an L-shaped solid wall underground, to halt the potential spread of the contamination while extraction is ongoing through monitoring wells.
Experts, including Horányi and the local branch of Greenpeace, fear the contamination could reach Lake Velence, Hungary's third largest lake which lies just a few kilometres away and is home to multiple endangered species.
'In a standard damage clearance, one doesn't use isolation walls because they are expensive,' says Gergely Simon, a chemical expert from Greenpeace Hungary. 'We suspect that the contamination is larger than they thought.'
Gárdony's mayor says that the contamination has not spread beyond the initial scope, but believes the plan for building the underground wall is 'reassuring.'
Greenpeace notes that MOL's pipe system is vulnerable due to its age, as many of the pipes were laid 50 years ago.
The incident in Gárdony wasn't an isolated case. Moreover, the locals share a rumour about a leak here, ten years ago, although there is no evidence of this.
A few weeks before MOL acknowledged the break in Gárdony, another pipeline in Kiskunmajsa, a town in southern Hungary, burst and leaked crude oil.
MOL also has a controlling stake in INA, the Croatian oil-gas company, which lost one of its gas platforms in the Adriatic Sea in 2020. It hasn't been recovered since, posing a threat to marine life.
Greenpeace is demanding compensation, transparency, and cleanup at these sites, as well as stronger efforts to prevent similar incidents, and a transition away from fossil-fuel infrastructure.
MOL says they look after their network of over 1,200 kilometres of pipeage in Hungary using 'the most modern equipment.'
'It seems like the maintenance and care of these pipes is not sufficient,' Gergely Simon, from Greenpeace, says. "Because if it were, these events wouldn't have happened."
MOL didn't respond to questions from Euronews.
The top ten countries experiencing the highest temperature increases are all in Europe, according to the latest UN data.
Each of these European nations, including Switzerland and Ukraine, recorded a temperature rise exceeding 2.5°C in 2023, compared to the 1951-1980 baseline.
It's not just 2023: analysing the 10-year average from 2014 to 2023 reveals that the top 15 countries experiencing the highest warming were all in Europe as well.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) dataset on land temperature change, the global mean annual temperature change on land reached 1.8°C above the 1951–1980 baseline in 2023.
That is the highest temperature rise ever recorded. Even more concerning, the last nine years since 2015 have been the warmest ever recorded.
Europe experienced the most significant warming, with a 2.4°C rise. That marks the seventh time in the past nine years that temperatures in the region have surpassed 2°C.
The Paris Agreement's 1.5°C limit was exceeded in all regions in 2023, except for Oceania, which recorded a 0.9°C increase.
Among 198 countries and 39 territories, Svalbard and the Jan Mayen Islands in Norway were an outlier in 2023, recording a 3.6°C temperature increase - the highest in the world.
'We should not overinterpret short-term [such as annual] temperature statistics, in particular for small regions, because of the influence of internal variability,' Sebastian Sippel, professor of climate attribution at the Leipzig Institute for Meteorology, tells Euronews Green.
Moldova, Ukraine, Andorra, Switzerland, and Belarus all experienced warming exceeding 2.7°C compared to the 1951-1980 average.
In the EU, Romania and Slovenia had the highest annual temperature rise at 2.62°C.
27 out of 49 countries and territories in Europe ranked among the top 30 for the highest temperature increases. They include France (2.59°C), Spain (2.57°C), Russia (2.53°C) and Germany (2.44°C).
Warming was strongest in western and eastern Europe. Only three non-European countries made the top 30: Kazakhstan (2.58°C), Morocco (2.56°C) and Tunisia (2.4°C).
This indicates that Europe is warming at a much faster rate than most other regions globally.
Francesco N. Tubiello, senior statistician and team leader at FAO's Environment Statistics Unit, explains this is because Europe (which in their aggregates includes Russia) has the largest land mass at northern latitudes.
Iceland and the Faroe Islands were exceptions in Europe, experiencing the least warming in 2023, with temperature increases below 0.65°C.
Norway, Sweden, and the UK followed as the next lowest, recording annual temperature rises between 1.2°C and 1.5°C.
'Countries that border the Atlantic Ocean typically have a smaller temperature trend. Countries that extend into northern (Arctic) regions typically show a larger temperature increase,' Sippel says.
Rebecca Emerton, climate scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), explains this variability can be driven by numerous factors, including atmospheric circulation patterns, oceanic influences, and more localised factors such as snow cover, soil moisture, and geographical characteristics.
As experts emphasise the importance of examining long-term trends, we calculated the 10-year average for 2014-2023, the most recent decade available. During this period, the top 15 countries and territories with the highest temperature increases are all located in Europe too.
'Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, becoming the fastest-warming continent on Earth,' Emerton says.
'The Arctic is the fastest-warming region,' she adds. Copernicus's 2023 European State of the Climate report explores the reasons why - including the proportion of land in the Arctic, and changes in atmospheric circulation that favour more frequent summer heatwaves.
The ESOTC uses the 1991-2020 baseline but does not report temperature changes at the country level.
'Northern regions are known to warm more than the global average due to Arctic amplification, and many countries in Europe lie relatively far in the North,' Sippel explains.
The Arctic is warming significantly faster than the rest of the world. This phenomenon, called Arctic amplification, is driven by sea ice loss, which enhances heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere.
Dr Robin Lamboll, a research fellow at Imperial College London, also points out the impact of country size on temperature variations.
'Europe has smaller countries on average than other places, and smaller countries are more likely to have experienced larger temperature swings simply because you don't average out the changes over such a large area,' Lamboll says.
Erik Kjellström, professor at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, suggests that the reduction of aerosols in the air may have contributed to Europe warming more than most other continents.
'Europe has also been clearing up its aerosol emissions (or smog). This results in less smog, but smog partially serves to block out sunlight (temporarily), and therefore results in some additional warming compared to regions with lower levels of historic smog,' Lamboll explains.
The 10-year average reveals Svalbard (Norway) as an extreme outlier, experiencing a staggering 3.44°C temperature increase compared to the 1951-1980 baseline. This far exceeds any other region.
Daniela Schmidt, professor in the School of Earth Science at the University of Bristol, explains that there is less warming near the equator and more towards the poles (polar amplification). 'Hence more warming in Svalbard,' she says.
Eastern European and Baltic nations rank among the fastest-warming areas, with Belarus (2.29°C), Russia (2.27°C), Estonia (2.26°C), Latvia (2.24°C), and Lithuania (2.24°C) all showing significant increases.
Central and western Europe are also warming rapidly. Germany (2.14°C), Poland (2.15°C), and Switzerland (2.16°C) exhibit strong trends, while Belgium, the Netherlands, and France have all recorded average temperature rises exceeding 2°C compared to 1951-1980 levels.
Southern Europe and the Mediterranean are warming at a slower pace compared to northern and eastern Europe. They include: Italy (1.81°C), Spain (1.78°C), Portugal (1.65°C), Turkey (1.59°C), and Greece (1.29°C).
'The land has warmed more than the sea. This is because the sea can carry heat into its depth and takes a long time to warm, whereas the upper layers of the land warm very quickly,' Lamboll says.
Iceland remains the least affected among European countries, with warming staying just below 1°C. The UK (1.28°C), Isle of Man (1.18°C), Ireland (1.16°C), and the Faroe Islands (1.06°C) follow Iceland, reporting the smallest rises in average temperature.
The FAO's data is based on Global Surface Temperature Change which is distributed by NASA-GISS.