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Experience of the penza oblast in cw demilitarization
Lessons learned in u.s. chemical demilitarization
On the experience of work of the military personnel of the
The role of the kurgan affiliate of gcr in the public education
Перечень принятых сокращений
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Pankratov V. Representative of the Penza Oblast administration

EXPERIENCE OF THE PENZA OBLAST IN CW DEMILITARIZATION

Abstract

About 60 years ago the CW stockpiles were placed in Leonidovka, Penza Oblast. After the Second World War the old ammunition was terminated. For today three presumable areas of destruction are detected.

Analysis of the ground samples from those areas has discovered unallowable concentration of arsenic combinations and products of their transformation.

The dangerous area is close to the Sursky water tank which is the source of drinking-water for Penza. There is the risk of getting the toxic agents into drinking-water. Contaminated area is allowable to the population, so the danger of people and animal affection arises. That is why it is necessary to examine the presumable areas of CW destruction.

The essential task is to develop a strategy for training people on CW disarmament problems in order to avoid social and political stress of the society. It is not a secret that some political parties try to exploit ecological problems for self-interest.

The medical examination of the residents near CW stockpile is necessary. The difficult task is the development of CW destruction technologies which guarantee ecological safety. The modern ways of destruction have considerable disadvantages.

The important sphere of regional co-operation is preparing legal foundation on the CW destruction problem.


Paul F. Walker, Ph.D., Legacy Program Director Global Green USA

LESSONS LEARNED IN U.S. CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION

Good afternoon. My name is Paul Walker. I am delighted to be back in the wonderful city of Izhevsk again to participate in the bilateral destruction of chemical weapons. I was last here over a year ago when we organized a similar Green Cross hearing for the chemical weapons stockpile in Kambarka.

Allow me to first say a few words about Global Green USA which I represent here. Global Green USA is the American affiliate of Green Cross International in Geneva Switzerland. We are one of twenty-three national affiliates, including Green Cross Russia, around the globe. Our common purpose is, simply put, to change the way humans manage the earth, to improve our respect for a fragile planet, and to promote environmental awareness among all nations and peoples.

Each national affiliate, from Burkino Faso in Africa to Venezuela and Argentina in South America to Japan and South Korea on the Pacific Rim to many West European countries, all implement this ambitious goal in various, more practical projects. One of our major projects in the U.S. is called “The Legacy Program,” a joint effort with our Swiss and Russian colleagues to promote the closure, cleanup, and reuse of military lands. This of course involves addressing the destruction of Cold War military arsenals and inventories. We therefore get involved in demilitarization of a variety of weapon systems including nuclear weapons, strategic missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and conventional ammunition such as landmines and unexploded ordnance.

As a military analyst, I have studied and worked on this issue for well over a decade now, but was particularly struck by its importance five years ago when I was a senior staffer for the Armed Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives (our equivalent of your Duma in Moscow). The sheer size and cost of our chemical weapons demilitarization effort – at least $750 million annually – rivals many major weapons procurement programs. The program has burdened by divisive politics, particularly concerning choice of destruction technologies. And an on-site visit I made to another Russian chemical weapons stockpile site in July, 1994 made clear to me how important it is to all of us, especially to the local communities like Kambarka and Kizner, that we rid ourselves of these weapons as soon as possible in order to preclude accidents, leaks, explosions, theft, and diversion.

As you are well aware, both Americans and Russians agreed some years ago to abolish their enormous Cold War arsenals of chemical agents. The combined size of these two arsenals is over 70,000 tons – some 40,000 tons at seven major stockpile sites in Russia (of which Kizner is one), some 30,000 tons at nine major sites in the United States.

We began actively studying the abolition of these weapons over fifteen years ago and today have successfully destroyed some 2,000 tons at two sites: Johnston Atoll west of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean and Tooele, Utah in the southwest part of the United States. The U.S. Defense Department constructed a prototype incinerator on Johnston Atoll which for several years now has burned chemical weapons moved from Germany and Okinawa. The Utah incinerator began limited test operations in August, 1996 and is now beginning to make real progress in destroying the Utah chemical weapons stockpile which represents 42% of the total U.S. chemical weapons arsenal.

Let me briefly review for you our nine stockpile sites in the U.S. As you’ve heard me say, two of our sites in Utah and the Pacific are currently burning chemical agents. Three additional sites in Oregon, Arkansas, and Alabama have begun construction of incinerators similar to what now operates in Utah. Two sites in Indiana and Maryland which hold only bulk agent, that is, chemical agent in large bulk containers rather than in munitions, have opted for non-incineration technologies; in the case of Indiana which houses VX nerve agent, technologies of neutralization and super-critical water oxidation (what’s called “SCWO”) are being developed and tested. Maryland houses only bulk mustard agent and is developing still another two-stage technology, neutralization and bioremediation, to destroy its stockpile.

Our final two sites in the U.S. -- Kentucky and Colorado -- have been prevented by Congress from expending any funds on incineration until other alternative technologies are thoroughly investigated and demonstrated as viable destruction methods. These two sites are currently awaiting results from a demonstration program of up to six alternative technologies – various types once again of neutralization, also super-critical water oxidation, electro-chemical processes, solvated electron technologies, and plasma arc processes – before they finally decide on what process to utilize. My colleague here, Dr. Hindman, spoke yesterday in Kizner specifically to his experiences in the state of Kentucky.

I will try to draw some general conclusions from our process which I hope will be helpful in our discussions here this week and, perhaps more importantly, as you move forward to decision-making for Kizner and Kambarka. I also point out that these conclusions are mine and mine alone; they may elicit disagreement from other colleagues here but I expect will be good starting points for fruitful discussions.

First, we’ve found in the U.S. over the past decade that there is no generic solution, no “silver bullet,” to chemical weapons destruction at all sites. Each stockpile site is unique in the type and size of arsenal, in the age and mix of weapons, in local and state environmental and transportation regulations, and in public concern and involvement. The technologies of destruction, and the process of decision-making, must be uniquely designed for each site, for each local community, and for each region. There may of course be strong similarities between sites, especially those with identical agents and weapons, but none of our nine American sites is identical with any other. I suspect that this is the story here in Russia as well.

Second, public involvement in decision-making – which is very different from simple public relations and information-sharing – is one of the keys to helping build consensus on how, when, where, and why the stockpiles are destroyed. For example, we’ve learned that the establishment of local citizens’ advisory committees (what we call “CACs”), representing a wide spectrum of stakeholder interests, is very helpful in moving the process forward. Dr. Hindman, as we heard yesterday in Kizner, is a co-chair of his Kentucky CAC and can speak to this directly. Local outreach offices which can provide information and speakers to the local community and which can help educate visiting delegations and interested groups are also key in keeping the public involved in this very important and potentially controversial process.

In the case of two of our sites – Kentucky and Colorado – the U.S. Army has established a national Dialogue on Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (what we call “DACWA” or “The Dialogue”) which convenes representatives from federal, state, and local governments, from Native American tribal communities, and from citizen and environmental organizations to help determine very specific criteria for the research, development, demonstration, and implementation of destruction technologies. The Dialogue has been very effective to date in empowering stakeholders, building consensus, and encouraging development of non-incineration technologies.

Third, a heightened sensitivity on the part of all stakeholders, especially the U.S. Army, to public health and environmental concerns and regulations has been necessary when dealing with such deadly materials as mass destruction weapons. Issues surrounding destruction of any toxic waste tend to be controversial, but one must be especially careful when dealing with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; the probability of accidents may be low, but the risks can be very high should something go wrong. Today the Army, federal and state regulators, and non-governmental groups are extremely vigilant over the management and destruction of these stockpiles. Congress, for example, has forbidden the transportation of chemical weapons, as I believe Russian regions have also legislated, thus necessitating the construction of individual destruction facilities at each site. The original U.S. plan was for regional facilities to be built, perhaps what was originally planned here at Chapayevsk.

Fourth, transparency and openness – what you might call “glasnost” – is required in order to build trust within communities, regions, and countries. Russian colleagues have told me that some communities were kept in the dark about what was housed at these bases until the early to mid-nineties. Certainly both American and Russian bases were totally closed to outside visitors until the past couple of years. We still have difficulties, however, in visiting both Russian and U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles, partly due to long-standing Cold War traditions and bureaucracies. This must change. U.S. bases now open themselves up to citizen and expert visits regularly and most of our bases now have international inspection teams on site under auspices of the newly ratified Chemical Weapons Convention. But we must do more, allowing foreign and domestic press and foreign visitors greater access to our stockpile sites, acknowledging the need of course for appropriate medical protection, in order to continue to build trust and accurate public knowledge.

Fifth, we’ve found that a range of destruction technologies must be studied, evaluated, compared, and competed in order to not only arrive at the best, safest, and most cost efficient solution but also to provide public confidence in the final method chosen. In the U.S. we have examined over thirty different technologies – both low and high pressure, both low and high temperature – in order to arrive at informed, best practices. We’ve also discovered that there is no perfect technology for destroying these weapons; every technology has risks, every one has toxic effluents, but some may be more controllable and measureable as far as risks are concerned – an important determinant for local communities.

And lastly, I would emphasize that we have realized, especially during our political debates on ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention last year, that this abolition process is one which must be bilateral and reciprocal. In other words, we will not destroy our chemical weapons in the U.S. unless you destroy you own here in Russia, and vice versa. We must go down the abolition road together, or neither of us will reach our final destination. This means that both countries must fully implement the Chemical Weapons Convention; all nations, certainly all Convention signatories, must help us destroy our arsenals. And we ourselves, citizens and officials involved in this truly historic process, must rise above our petty, bureaucratic, and personal concerns; we must work democratically to build true consensus so that a decade from now we can declare our nations chemical weapons free.

Thank you for your time and interest.


Paul Walker is the Legacy Program Director for Global Green USA. He runs Global Green’s Washington, DC office and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D. in defense studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.A. in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and an A.B. degree from the College of the Holy Cross. Prior to joining Global Green two years ago, he was a senior staffer for the Armed Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has been involved in questions of military, foreign, and environmental policies for over twenty years and has published numerous books and articles on the subject. He has taught at Harvard University, among other academic institutions, and now focuses most of his work on military base closure, cleanup, and redevelopment.


Petrov V. The Chairman of the Udmurt Affiliate «Union for chemical safety»

ON THE EXPERIENCE OF WORK OF THE MILITARY PERSONNEL OF THE

CHEMICAL WEAPONS STORAGE IN BLUE-GRASS WITH THE POPULATION

OF THE STATE OF KENTUCKY

Abstract

The experience of work of the military personnel at the base of the chemical weapons storage in Blue-Grass with the population of the State of Kentucky has been discussed. The conclusion has been made that the given experience of work with the population results in decrease of social tension in the community and it will be useful to introduce such an experience in Russia.

The question of creating of the collective security system as an immediate task at the initial stage of the chemical weapons destruction has been considered.

The personal assessment of the speaker of the technologies presented by other institutes at the fourth public hearings has been given. As far as the question on utilization of bitumen-salt masses has not been solved yet, the improvement of the alternative methods of the second stage of the Russian technology is suggested in order to decrease toxicity of the wastes and the poligons of their burial.


Manilo I. President, Kurgan affiliate, Green Cross, Russia

THE ROLE OF THE KURGAN AFFILIATE OF GCR IN THE PUBLIC EDUCATION

ON CW DESTRUCTION

Abstract

The CW destruction problem has arisen at a very difficult period of political, economical and ecological crisis in Russia. The society is concerned by the «cold war» tendency, when all President’s efforts on nuclear weapon and CW distruction are reduced to execution of ineffective, economically harmful, politically provocative and imperfect program.

Additionally should be mentioned, that pollution at the Kurgan Oblast exceeds allowable limits stipulated by the Chernobyl law. The main task for the CW destruction facility building is to provide safety for local population and environmental protection.

The public opinion is formed during meetings and sittings of regional public organisations, that perform information-analytic activity, through popular science literature, regular publications in local newspapers.

One of the most important factors of positive public opinion formation is involvement of experts and scientists in solution of technological CW destruction problem. Our experience has proved that major aspect in public opinion formation is repeated contacts with large collectivities giving them as much information as possible. It means the public meetings at higher education institutions, schools, hospitals, museums, war depots, police stations etc. The result of our work is obvious: people realise that further CW stockpiling is more dangerous than its destruction.


ПЕРЕЧЕНЬ ПРИНЯТЫХ СОКРАЩЕНИЙ


ХО – химическое оружие

УХО – уничтожение химического оружия

ОВ – отравляющие вещества

БОВ – боевые отравляющие вещества

ФОВ – фосфорорганические вещества

ОУХО – объект по уничтожению химического оружия

ОЗХО – организация по запрещению химического оружия

КХО – Конвенция по запрещению химического оружия

ПДК – предельно-допустимые концентрации

ОВОС – оценка воздействия на окружающую среду


Четвертые Публичные слушания

по проблеме уничтожения

химического оружия


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Четвертые Публичные слушания по проблеме уничтожения химического оружия