Abstract

This paper concerns to the air and soil pollution in the area of tailings ponds in Moldova Nouă, situated on Danube bank, near the Romania-Serbia border. The tailings ponds resulted from mining operations since the previous century, represent now a source of historical pollution in the area, especially on air quality, through dispersal of tailings dust on large surfaces. Depending on weather conditions, especially in case of drought periods, the wind of various intensities raises the dust and disperses it, affecting land surfaces: urban, tourist, agricultural, protected areas of community interest, like RAMSAR Iron Gates Natural Park - Divici-Pojejena Wetland. The dispersion has a direct effect on human health because of its chemical composition, which may contain SiO₂ and heavy metals like Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni, etc. Results were obtained following several field measurements of dust particles concentrations at various critical points, in corroboration with laboratory analyses of their content. For the study of the pollutants dispersion, the Breeze AERMOD model was used for obtaining cross-border pollution maps, respectively of the historical pollution by the accumulation of heavy metals in the soil from the immediate vicinity of the analysed area.