What illegality was discovered by the Ministry of the Environment after analyzing hundreds of requests for permits for fish ponds
Machinery (photo source Dmitry Kalinovsky, Dreamstime.com)
The Ministry of the Environment is checking hundreds of applications for approvals for fish ponds, after it was discovered that in most cases they were never built, but ballasts were installed, sources close to the investigation say.
The Ministry of the Environment had announced at the end of 2025 an intensification of controls at various ballast stations in the country, and in November a total of 655 controls were carried out and fines of 4.4 million lei were issued.
Following those controls, the Ministry of the Environment discovered an illegality related to ballast tanks, because permits are requested for fish ponds, but in the field those who requested the permits would have built ballast tanks, to extract sand and gravel. The fishponds have not become a reality, but remain only in theory, sources say.
There have been several hundred applications for permits for fishponds in the last three years, but in the vast majority of cases, ballasts have been installed, sand and gravel are extracted, and then the pits are left empty and the fishpond for which the permit was requested is not created.
The Ministry of the Environment has opened an investigation and will announce its findings. The sources also say that ballast checks will be tightened and that performance criteria, such as a minimum number of inspections to be carried out, will be included in inspectors' job descriptions. They will have to report how many checks they did and what sanctions they gave.
At the end of 2025, the Ministry of the Environment announced an intensification of controls at ballast tanks, and Minister Diana Buzoianu explained that those ballast tanks have a negative impact.
“Behind these numbers are dramatic stories. There are areas where illegal mining has led to the loss of human lives, communities left without access to water or much more vulnerable to floods, destroyed infrastructure. The impact is not only on the environment, but on people's daily lives,” said the minister.
She also said that some bridges have collapsed because of the ballasts that poorly managed the riverbeds and that the localities where the ballasts were not built correctly are much more exposed to floods, because the riverbed can no longer cope.
