page_title: Ahtium
section_title: Gypsum pond leak
hierarchical_section_title: Ahtium / Environmental impacts / Gypsum pond leak
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial photograph of Talvivaara mine in Sotkamo, Finland. June 2013. Suomi: Ilmakuva Talvivaaran kaivoksesta ja sen ympäristöstä Sotkamossa kesäkuussa 2013. Kipsisakka-altaat.
context_page_description: Ahtium was a Finnish mining company that operated the Talvivaara nickel mine from the company's establishment in 2004 until the mining business was sold to the state-owned Terrafame in 2015.
  Formerly listed on the London and Helsinki Stock Exchanges, the company was a constituent of the OMXH25 index. Its mining business, Talvivaara Sotkamo, went bankrupt in November 2014, and it is bound for liquidation, with at least 98% of equity lost, and €1.4 million debt outstanding. The mine had suffered several leaks of toxic metal-contaminated tailings, which had threatened local waterways. Members of the management were charged with criminal environmental offenses. There has been considerable government involvement, with the Government of Finland being the largest single owner through their investment company Solidium. In 2015, the newly established government-owned corporation Terrafame bought the mining business of Talvivaara. Since February 2017 Terrafame, operating the Talvivaara Mine, have new owners from Singapore Trafigura and its Galena Asset Management.
  Athium filed for bankruptcy in March 2018.
context_section_description: In November 2012, there was a major leak from the gypsum waste pond, which is contaminated with nickel, uranium and other toxic metals. Finland's Environment Minister visited the site, after calling it "a serious environmental crime". The mining firm posted a 4.3 million euro loss in the third quarter of 2012, blaming weak output and low nickel prices. On the same day, Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, published an editorial column that labeled the company "a large-scale failure, that casts a shadow on the efficiency of the Finnish society as a whole", criticizing Finnish officials for not taking administrative action against the mining company for its environmental problems. With warmer spring weather, this holding pond recently leaked an estimated 250,000 cubic meters of contaminated liquid into the environment again.
caption: Gypsum pond in June 2013.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "6144", "Image ImageLength": "4088", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D700", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2013:06:28 12:34:14", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1022", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5338", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/4000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:06:18 11:22:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:06:18 11:22:42", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1495723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "57", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "57", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "57", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4961", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3543", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2314006", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[35, 35, 7/5, 7/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "35.0 mm f/1.4"}