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REHABILITATION BY NATURAL MITIGATION OF THE POLLUTED SOILS WITH HEAVY METALS FROM ZLATNA AREA
Abstract
In the polluted area with emissions from Zlatna metallurgical plant, more than 50,000 ha of agricultural and forestry land has been affected by pollution over a time period of 200 years. Approximately 5,000 ha from these lands were severe and extremely polluted. The vegetation was completely destroyed on more than 2,000 ha, leading to intense erosion processes. The forest vegetal cover was completely destroyed, and the trees had some dry branches, spots on leaves, bark burns and even completely destroyed, the oak stopped producing fruits, and if there were any, these fruits were deformed and fell down at early stages due to loss of germination power. In the year of 2004 the activity from the metallurgical plant was stopped. Stop of acidic deposits with heavy metals in soils has resulted in development of vegetation, decreasing of soil and vegetation loading level with heavy metals, a trend of NPK balancing levels in plants and increasing of soil pH. Floodplains Fluvisols, that were yearly fertilized with manure, mostly supplied from cattle, are currently cultivated mainly with maize, alfalfa and some vegetables, and the production has reached normal levels. The sorption processes have been enhanced with the pH increases. The metals are adsorbed on the surface of the very fine organic matter, clay minerals, Fe and Mn hydroxides and oxides and some poorly soluble salts such as calcium carbonate. The soil adsorption process has a major effect on the heavy metals bioavailability. Nitrogen level was found deficient in the leaves of maize plants, low to normal in alfalfa leaves and normal in pumpkin leaves. The phosphorus and potassium values were in the deficit range in maize leaves and normal in alfalfa. In most of the cases the heavy metals values (Cu, Zn, Pb, Ca, Ni, Mn) were recorded within the normal range.
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