Alina Oprea • 18 May, 2023 at 9:35 AM
The Romanian National Water Administration has recently applied fines worth RON 490,000 (about €100,000) to companies that did not comply with the legal provisions related to the exploitation of mineral aggregates. Controls were organized in the Argeș-Vedea, Banat, and Mureș hydrographic basins, discovering irregularities in 12 companies with profile activity.
In five of the cases, it is about serious deviations, related to the non-compliance with the mineral aggregates exploitation perimeters (including in the terrace) - basically, these operators were exploiting tens of hectares of land outside the approved perimeters. In these cases, our inspectors took steps to calculate the penalties and recover the value of the damages (approximately RON250,000/ €50,000), respectively, it was ordered to stop the mining activity of the mineral aggregates from the unauthorized perimeters.
Following the controls, the competent institutions will also be notified (eg: the National Agency for Mineral Resources, the Police, the National Environmental Guard, the Ministry of Agriculture, etc.).
"We draw attention again to the fact that the improper exploitation of aggregates causes erosion phenomena at bridges, but also at the flood defense infrastructure, thus endangering the residents of the area and those downstream. All these violations are sanctioned according to the Water Law", states the Romanian Waters National Administration.
The specialized water management inspectors from the National Administration "Romanian Waters" (from the central level and the 11 Water Basin Administrations) say that they will continue the monitoring and controls of the economic agents according to the Activity Plan, as well as according to the powers and obligations I return them. It is about planned, thematic, and unannounced controls, but also about controls regarding the implementation stage of the measures imposed by previous checks.