Aspects of petroleum products pollution, in Romania and measures again pollution effects.

Buzoianu, Daniela Angela

1. INTRODUCTION

Environment protection is a priority of economical and social development and its purpose is creating a healthy and clean environment that wouldn't affect development possibilities of future generations. Environment protection and natural resources preserve are necessary in accordance with a sustainable economic and social development request. Also, for reaching these objectives, increasing the awareness and education level of population are needed (Antonescu, 2003).

For making environment protection efficiently, a complex of well correlated activities and actions are also needed, to increase health and environment conditions of the entire population. That involves development of an appropriate mentality of the community, a realistic evaluation of environment problems, establishing the priorities, elaboration of appropriate strategies for solving them. Last but not least, changing the attitude and awareness concerning environment and civic responsibility helps us to transmit a clean and healthy environment for future generations, respecting the three dimensions of sustainable development : economic, ecological and social.

2. PAPER DATA

Geographically grouped, pollution situation in Romania between 2002 and 2009 looks like that:

South-Muntenia region includes Arges, Calarasi, Dambovita, Giurgiu,Ialomita,Prahova and Teleorman counties.

According to the data provided by the Environment Protection Agency, the pollution situation in South-Muntenia region between 2002 and 2009 is presented in Tab.1and graphically shown in Fig. 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

South-East region includes Braila, Buzau, Constanta, Galati, Tulcea and Vrancea counties (Buzoianu, 2005).

According to the data provided by the Environment Protection Agency, the pollution situation in South-East region between 2002 and 2009 is presented in Tab.2 and graphically shown in Fig.2.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

South-West-Oltenia region includes Dolj, Gorj, Mehedinti, Olt and Valcea counties.

According to the data provided by the Environment Protection Agency, the pollution situation in South-West-Oltenia region between 2002 and 2009 is presented in Tab.3and graphically shown in Fig.3.

West region includes Arad, Caras-Severin, Hunedoara, and Timis counties. Generally, in this region were registered very few petroleum pollution events.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

North-West region includes Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj, Maramures, Satu-Mare and Salaj counties. In this region petroleum pollution events that were registered were on very small surfaces.

Central region includes Alba, Brasov, Covasna, Harghita, Mures and Sibiu counties. Generally, in this region were registered very few petroleum pollution events.

Bucuresti region includes Bucuresti City and Ilfov county. In Bucuresti City and Ilfov county petroleum pollution events were very small and caused by discharge of petroleum products in the sewage network.

North-East region includes Bacau, Botosani, Iasi, Neamt, Suceava and Vaslui counties. This is a region where very few events were registered.

According to the data presented before, we can make a percentage distribution of events which caused water and soil petroleum pollution. This distribution is presented in Tab.4. and graphically shown in Fig.4.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

Analysing these data, we can see that the most affected regions by petroleum and petroleum products pollution are South-Muntenia, South-East and South-West-Oltenia, the less affected being North-East, Central and West regions. The big concentration of events in these regions is determined by the fact that in these areas we have an important amount of petroleum and petroleum products mining, processing and transportation activities. Even the pollution incidents and accidents constantly decreased during the last few years, critical areas from a pollution point of view still remain as: Prahova-Teleajen, Borzesti, and Onesti because of mining activities. In these areas we can consider that a "historical pollution" exists, although works for remediation and rehabilitation have been done. Also, among the industrial objectives where fervently the soil quality indicators are nonconforming from a pollution point of view are Videle and Poieni Oil scaffolds from Teleorman county. In Dambovita county a significant impact on the environment of oil mining activities is also registered .We can see here a salted soil and water effect at surface and underground (Chiurtu, 2009).

Even between 2002 and 2009 were a lot of pollution events, in most of the cases the effects of accidental pollution were removed in short time, applying the following specific measures:

--correcting faults, replacing the affected sections and equipments.

--stop pumping operations till causes for accidental pollution were discovered and eliminated.

--development of dams with absorbing cords.

--development of soil dams and collection pits downstream.

--septage collection of oil drained.

--spreading absorbent substances "spill--sorbs" type.

--scraping polluted soil and replacing it.

--greening the land affected and using it again in agriculture For the areas where remediation works have not been done yet, these will be done in the near future period according with the actual Environment Protection laws (Buzoianu, 2009).

3. CONCLUSION

In Romania, environment protection problems are sharp due to local pollution made mainly in mining and oil fields areas.A significant part of pollution can be prevented with simple and less expensive measures internal management. To establish an efficient system to treat environment problems means to elaborate a balanced plan to improve the performance in this area and for measuring the progress in reaching the proposed objectives.

The strategic objectives for environment protection in Romania need to register into the overall objectives of the activities developed by the National Action Plan for Environment Protection from Romania.

4. REFERENCES

Antonescu,N.N; Coloja,P.M; Georgescu,A. (2003). Concepts and principles of cleaner production practices and pollution prevention, Editura. Universitatii Petrol-Gaze din Ploiesti, Romania

Buzoianu,D.A. (2005). European Union, challenges in environmental protection, Proceedings of Nicolae Titulescu University's International Conference (Lex et Scientia, nr. XII) , pp.246-249, ISSN 1583-039X Bucuresti June 2005, Ed.Cartea Universitara Bucuresti

Buzoianu,D.A. (2009) Strategic study on Environment Protection in the Romanian Petroleum Extraction, Annals ofDAAAMfor 2009& Proceedings of the 20th international DAAAMSymposium,pp 1639-1640, Viena, 2009

Chiurtu,E.R. (2009). Research to improve the recovery solutions of areas polluted with oil products, PhD study, Petroleum-Gas University from Ploiesti, Romania

*** (2009) http://www.anpm.ro--The National Environment Protection Agency, Annual Report about the state of environment factors in Romania, Accessed on: 2010-06-19

Tab. 1. Geographical repartition of pollution events in
South-Muntenia region

Crt.
nr. County name % of evens

1 Arges 25
2 Calarasi 1.0
3 Dambovita 11.3
4 Giurgiu 1.5
5 Ialomita 5.5
6 Prahova 35.0
7 Teleorman 20.7

Tab. 2. Geographical repartition of pollution events in
South-East region

Crt.
nr. County name % of evens

1 Braila 8.5
2 Buzau 15.3
3 Constanta 50.0
4 Galati 5.7
5 Tulcea 17.0
6 Vrancea 3.5

Tab. 3. Geographical repartition of pollution events in South-
West-Oltenia region

Crt.nr. County name % of evens

1 Dolj 15.2
2 Gorj 41.4
3 Mehedinti 11.1
4 Olt 24.0
5 Valcea 8.3

Tab. 4. Petroleum and petroleum products pollution events
distribution between 2002 and 2009

Crt.nr. Region name % of evens

1 South-Muntenia 37.5
2 South-East 29.5
3 South-West-Oltenia 22.0
4 Central 1.0
5 Bucuresti 3.0
6 North-East 1.0
7 North-West 4.0
8 West 2.0