Workshop in Forotic (Caras-Severin county)

Politehnica University Timisoara (Romania) and the Mining and Metallurgy Institute Bor (Serbia) jointly launched a project in 2019 to create an educational and research network dealing, in an integrative manner, with the issue of soils polluted due to mining activities. The network brings together scientists from different domains, but also decision makers and inhabitants of the affected areas, interested in initiatives to protect the environment and ensure the sustainable use of natural resources in the Romanian-Serbian cross-border area.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 the village Surducu Mare (belonging to the municipality Forotic, Caras-Severin County) hosted a new workshop on the technical, medical, and green technology aspects of decontaminating polluted soils.

The mayor’s representative priest Leon Posteucă presented the perspectives for economic development of the region, and heartfeltly spoke about the mining traditions in the region and about the evolution of the village which had, throughout its history, ties with mining activities. Assoc. prof. Cornelia Muntean, manager of the NETMIN project explained to the audience the importance of a holistic approach to environment issues and invited participants to join the network, to receive interesting and timely information on environment projects. From dr. Daniel Duda-Seiman’s presentation the audience found out the impact that environment factors have on public health.  The audience received with lively interest the information on green technologies for depolluting soils, proposed by prof. dr. Radu Șumălan.

The activities of the project “Forming of network for enhancing environmental protection from pollutants of mining cross border areas”, acronym NETMIN, eMS no. RORS-308, are carried out within the framework of the Interreg-IPA Cross-border Cooperation Romania-Serbia Programme, which ensures 85% of the funds.