Heavy Metals Pollution of Vegetation from the Industrial Area of Târgovişte City CARMEN CRISTINA ELEKES, NICOLAE PETRESCU, SORIN CONSTANTIN CIULEI Department Environmental Engineering University “Valahia” of Târgovişte 2 Regele Carol I, Târgovişte, Dâmboviţa ROMANIA cristina_elekesh@yahoo.com , n_petrescu06@yahoo.com , sorin0200@yahoo.com Abstract: - Some plants with a high level of accumulation show a great capacity of metals absorption from the soil and transfer these elements to root and shoots, which represents a risk for the insertion of these metals in the food-chain. In this paper we studied species like Lolium perenne, Festuca pratensis, Stipa capillata, Agrostis alba, Cynodon dactylon, Luzula campestris and Agrostis tenuis, which represent an important source of animals foddering, being the base component of perennial meadow. The level of metal concentrations in plants varies according with the species and the soil characteristics, between 10.03 mg/kg and 191.98 mg/kg for Cr; between 0.99 mg/kg and 113.83 mg/kg for Cu; and between 8.38 mg/kg and 379.22 mg/kg for Sn. Key-Words: - grasses, heavy metal, soil, concentration, bioconversion factor 1 Introduction In the industrial platform of Targoviste City, the metallurgic activities of the industrial units SC Mechel SA, SC Oţelinox SA and SC Erdemir SRL present a pollution risk by the deposit of the emitted substances reach in heavy metals on the leaves and on the soil, by the improper deposits of the rough material, by the careless handling of materials, by the infiltration of some noxious substances draw into the soil by the precipitation and by the waste waters emission caused by the sewerage system breakage. Figure 1 The emission of sedimentable dusts in the industrial area of Târgovişte The toxic effect depends on many parameters like: exposure period, dispersion range, presence or absence of other elements, the form of manifestation for toxically elements (those with a high range of toxicity are the most soluble and admissible), and on the meteorological parameters [16]. The atmospheric emissions, emanated from the metallurgic activities, are found on soil up to some kilometers distance from the pollution sources. The level of these dusts emission depends on the final metallurgic product type. For example, for cast iron, steel, bronze and brass, the emitted dusts are about 8-12 Kg/tone of product, but, for the aluminum, these emissions increase up to 450 Kg/tone of product [18]. Metals like Cr, Mn, Zn, and Cu are usually founded in the green plants, but in low concentration, which doesn’t affect the health of organisms from food- chain. In the industrial area, where the concentration of these metals in soil outrun, in many cases, the alert limits, the concentration level in plants increase up to a range risky for health of living organisms. This is because of the high tolerance of some plants species for heavy metals, elements that the green plants accumulate in root and shoots, by vacuoles or metals chelation [14]. Also, plants with a high level of accumulation show a great capacity of metals absorption from the soil and transfer these elements to root and shoots. The perennial grasses are metal-tolerant plants [13], and are studied frequently in the literature [3, 9, 11, 4, 17, 7, 2]. They are characterized like high dry matter yields producer, as well as high accumulators for heavy metals [12] and well reducer of metals toxicity in the soil [17]. Considering the humans healthy, the pollutants can have some effects like bodily charge with toxic substances, which can cause malfunction of respirator, glandular, digestive and excretive systems. If the pollutants action continues, they cause abnormal reflexes, the decrease of work capacity, of good mood and the sleep if affected. Also the illness form of Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Environmental and Geological Science and Engineering ISSN: 1792-4685 22 ISBN: 978-960-474-221-9