Abstract

Environmental degradation is today one of the great problems of mankind. Not only the need to exploit, but also the necessity to

protect and preserve the natural environment have led to the adoption of specific rules for the prevention and remediation of

environmental damages, according to EU standards.

Taking into account that any human intervention on the natural and anthropogenic environment can lead to ecological risk

diversification, occurrence of accidental pollution and environmental damage propagation, thereby causing damage to

environmental factors quality, there is a need for a forceful, dramatic and exclusive solution of these problems by applying

procedures related to environmental liability, according to the “polluter pays” principle.

European legislation imposes strict requirements regarding the environmental protection and encourages the development of

financial guarantee insurances in order to cover the companies’ liabilities in case of damages.

The need of an unitary approach, both from theoretical and practical points of view (by case study), of the high topical theme as

“Environmental Liability” is thus currently one of the most effective means of solving environmental problems.

This paper presents a case study concerning a particular modality of applying the Community laws for greening a site

accidentally contaminated with petroleum products. Specifically, the pollution occurred by accidental discharge into the

environment of a quantity of about 5 tons of oil from two tank wagons, as the result of their derailment from train and their

overturning near the track.

The actions done by the Environmental Protection Agency Salaj related to coordination of the activity of removing the

environmental damage and cleaning the affected site, in accordance with Emergency Government Ordinance (EGO) nr.68/2007

provision approved by Law no.19/2008 with subsequent amendments, are presented in this work.