The number of service stations in the municipality of Chisinau is by 95 higher than it is stipulated in the municipal gas station placement scheme, said the executive director of the public association “Urban Ecologist Movement” Vladimir Garaba, IPN reports.

“Now we have by 95 filling stations more than planned in the general scheme, which is a mandatory urbanistic document that must be implemented. The plots were allocated without calculating the number of vehicles that run in the given area, the distance from one station to another, the impact of placing the stations near other polluting facilities. The environmental aspects were completely ignored and this continues to be done,” Vladimir Garaba told a news conference.

The legislation provides that the filling stations must be located at a distance of 25 meters from homes and 50 meters from schools and kindergartens. “In time, the public authorities started to deviate from the municipal gas station placement scheme. We consider the Chisinau City Hall does this illegally as a new station can be built by amending the scheme first,” stated Garaba.

The Urban Ecologist Movement recommends the local public authorities to stop issuing authorizations and impose a moratorium on the building of filling stations for which authorizations had been issued and to look for other locations for these.

According to the Urban Ecologist Movement, the existing filling stations can satisfy the city with oil products for 20 years ahead.