Jantáková N., Ženišová Z., Kordík J. & Benková K., 2018: Monitoring the impact of environmental burdens from the former Apollo Refinery, the Chemika and Gumon plants in Bratislava. Acta Geologica Slovaca, 10, 2, 73–87.

Monitoring the impact of environmental burdens from the former Apollo Refinery, the Chemika and Gumon plants in Bratislava

Nora Jantáková¹, Zlatica Ženišová¹, Jozef Kordík² & Katarína Benková²

Slovakia; jantakova2@uniba.sk, zlatica.zenisova@uniba.sk
²State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr, Mlynská dolina 1, SK-817 04, Bratislava, Slovakia; jozef.kordik@geology.sk, katarina.benkova@geology.sk

Abstract

In the former industrial part of Bratislava, on the left bank of the Danube River, the Apollo Refinery was located, as well as chemical plants Chemika and Gumon. In 1944, the US Army bombed the Refinery, and it was this area from which the oil-based pollution has spread and prevailed there to-date. Complex chemical pollution was also caused by leakage from Gumon and Chemika plants, which is mainly represented by polycyclic and volatile aromatic hydrocarbons. Today, these sites are labelled in the Register of Contaminated Sites as the contaminated site of the “B” category. The register of Contaminated Sites defines Category A (potentially contaminated site), Category B (contaminated site) and Category C (remediated site). Since 2015, monitoring works have been carried out in the premises of both plants. In the scope of the monitoring the free phase of oil substances has been measured, along with the pollution and odour of groundwater, and organic contamination has been confirmed. Measurements have highlighted the intense impact of groundwater oscillation on the free phase of oil substances thickness – with the increase in groundwater table levels, the thickness of the free phase of oil substances drops, and vice versa. The work focuses on interpreting the data obtained from monitoring measurements and subsequent assessment of the impact of groundwater pollution from the environmental load of the Apollo Refinery and the chemical plants Chemika and Gumon.

Key words: Bratislava, groundwater, monitoring, environmental burdens, Apollo Refinery, Chemika and Gumon plants

Manuscript received: 2018-09-04

Revised version accepted: 2018-11-18