EURO-ECO 2007 Hanover 4 - 5 December 2007	Environmental and Engineering Aspects for sustainable living
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Moscow

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It goes without saying that the environmental damage caused by automobile industry with all its derivatives is enormous. To find means to restore the natural environment is extremely difficult.

It is known that the moving automobile transport emits a great number of toxic substances but on the top of it as additional sources of its negative impact can be viewed filling and service stations necessary for technical maintenance of motor vehicles as well as the dangerous cargo that is moved along the roads.

The stationary points, providing service to the automobile transport, enlist numerous gas stations with large deposits of flammable oil products located basically in underground storages (gasoline, diesel oil), gas stations, stations of technical services, auto pools, garages, car washes.

During its existence each of this sources of ecological hazards causes damage to the environment in the form of outputs of the products of their activities, such as machine oil, gasoline, black oil, gas oil and other technological mixtures) in atmosphere and adjacent soil levels, forming dumps of worn spare parts, tyre covers, rusted frames etc.

Formally the legislation envisages responsibility for ecological infringements from misdeeds to crimes.

But in reality there are a lot of problems dealing with the estimation of inflicted damage, bringing the defendants to account and defining for each of them the share of their negative performance. And even in the case that the size of damage is measured and the guilty parties are identified, it is very problematic and in many cases almost impossible to make them allocate the necessary means for restoration of the natural balance violated by them, cleansing of the contaminated territory and reimbursement of their damage. The reasons might be different: complications in testifying the guiltiness of concrete bodies or persons as well as interrelation of occurred unfavorable consequences and actions (or passivity) of these bodies, paying inability of these bodies, long delays in court proceedings on such cases. Moreover, the large proportion of the financial means that might be used for cleansing works or equipment is used to cover trial costs, which normally precede the cleansing works.

Typically of Russia there is a high degree of environmental contamination due to underground, ground and mobile capacities of flammable oil products. This problem was not so acute 10 years ago when there were much less cars with a few service and gas stations, besides all of them were municipal ones. During last 3-4 years it can be observed on the example of Moscow that the number of cars was multiplied, alongside with multiplication of service and gas stations, all of them are now in private ownership.

As a result the concentration of the objects with unfavorable impact on the environment and with a higher risk of ecological accidents increased dramatically in the city.

All those reasons lead to deterioration of the ecological situation whereas the means for its improvement are hardly available.