Considerations on the investigations necessary for assessing the damage in soils polluted with hydrocarbons

Abstract

Environmental accidents are inherent to any economic activity. They can affect and even significantly harm all environmental factors. According to the polluter pays principle, economic operators causing a pollution have to support the costs corresponding to the damage caused and to its remediation. A first necessary step in assessing these costs is the investigation of the soil’s contamination. The current paper discusses the main methods used in the speciality practice to assess the extent of the pollution of an area with hydrocarbons and presents the case study of a polluted area in the Dambovita county, Romania. The investigations carried out in this case included both in-situ analyses such as the realizing of pedological profiles on the geometric horizons to the depths to which the pollutant was presumed to have penetrated and laboratory analyses. For example, in the case study, for the soil the laboratory analyses comprised the total contents of petroleum hydrocarbons (determined by IR spectrometry), the moisture (determined by means of the gravimetric method), the pH, the amount of humus (determined by moist oxidation and titrimetry), the total nitrogen content (determined with the Kjeldahl method), mobile phosphorus and potassium (determined with the Engner-Riehm-Domingo method). Precise results obtained through these investigations allow a more efficient response to the environmental damage and a shorter time necessary for the application of remediation measures such as bioremediation.