Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The Chemical Weapons Convention is shortly characterised, and the main principles of, the General Purpose Criterion are stressed. The status of its implementation as for March 14, 2004 shows the main data obligatorily declared by 161 Party States and main achievements in destruction of Chemical Weapon (CW) stockpiles and destruction / conversion of CW production facilities and their verification. The Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is briefly presented and the main results of the First Review Conference analysed.

The territory of the Udmurt Republic (UR) there are two arsenals with chemical weapon (CW). The total volume of stored chemical warfare agents is more than 12,000 tons (more than 30% of the Russian CW stockpile) which the Russian Federation (RF) is to destroy in compliance with the international obligations of the Convention on the Prohibition of CW. The safety not only of the Udmurt Republic but also the contiguous regions - Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Kirov Oblast - depends on the safe storage of the chemical warfare agents and timely and competent destruction of these arsenals. It has been almost six years since Russia joined the Convention on Prohibition of CW. During this period Russia has been able to advance along the path of chemical disarmament. The advance is perhaps not as far as we wish, but the positive dynamics are evident. Yet, many issues connected with the provision of environmental safety during work with CW have not been solved, or are in the first stage of their realization. The objective of the Government is to prevent emergency situations of global character while carrying out this work, the consequences of which — according to the experts’ appraisal — may be significant losses of population and extensive damage to the environment.

The Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC) supplements the Geneva Protocol of 1925. In order to exclude any use of chemical weapons it prohibits any possession of chemical weapons and installs a strict verification system. In the Review Conference States Parties pledged to increase their efforts to this end. When this momentum shall be kept, existing shortcomings are to be overcome. This relates to the following subjects: infringements into independence and integrity of the Technical Secretariat (TS); living up to the undertakings of the States Parties as defined in the Conventions text; adaptation of the verification system to changes in science and technology; scrapping the recently adopted tenure policy of 7 years maximum for staff and inspectors and, instead, ensure that the TS will retain its experienced people; public accountability of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concerning results in the endeavour to exclude completely the use of chemical weapons; strengthening the effectiveness and transparency of work of the political organs of the OPCW, especially the Executive Council; enhancing co-operation between States Parties especially in the destruction of CW stocks.

Safe operation of high hazard facilities located within the boundaries of the regions and republics of the Russian Federation can be achieved by joint work of several government bodies. Each of them is to efficiently execute its specific functions. However, effective coordination of their work is a specific problem. Coordinated work depends very much on the information about the hazardous facilities and their respective areas. This is why the role of each government body should be clearly determined on all stages of joint work: collection of information, its analysis, and decision-making. The presented report is dedicated to creation of a system of environmental monitoring on the territory of one of the Russian Federation regions.

Presented is a technique of prediction of quantitative risk assessments for Nature from potential accidents at chemical warfare agent facilities.

Experimental and theoretical results of the authors and other Russian and foreign scientists on analysis of toxic substances formation from combustion of chemical compounds are examined. The theoretical approach of the authors has a general character, allowing to determine concentration limits of substances formed by high temperature combustion and can be applied to a wide set of utilized toxic substances. Special attention is given to the case of combustion of chlorine-containing substances, during which formation of polychlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons (dibenzo--dioxines, dibenzo-furans, etc.) is possible. The report shows that a correctly organized combustion process, with fast water cooling of combustion products in particular, the contents of dioxins and furans in combustion products can be reduced 8–10 times.

Methodology for risk assessment has been developed on the basis of definition of the detriment for ecosystem as the whole. Species-edificators are considered as the basic component influenced by toxic chemicals. The system of safety criteria for natural communities is proposed, where the quantitative risk scale and actual changes under influence of poisonous and toxic chemicals in community are compared.

The provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) connected with possible contact of personnel are summarised. Any handling with chemical weapons (CW), both in bulk and in munitions as well as with toxic armaments waste, in implementing the CWC, including verifying its provisions, is associated with actual health and environmental risks. The most fundamental provisions of the CWC, which reflect its original purpose, are those dealing with destruction of CW, which present a high risk during the whole course of destruction operations, starting with loading the cargo containers, over transportation, filling of destruction equipment, etc. untill the disposal of nontoxic waste and scrap metal. The developed and operational destruction technologies are reviewed. The system of workplace safety and environmental protection of CW destruction / disposal operations including their verification as envisaged by the CWC is to be based on toxicological data of toxic agents to be destroyed, efficiency of technologies and toxic properties of end products. At present, with the exception of studies connected with the influence of sea-dumped CW on aquatic environment, there is a lack of data dealing with the impact of CW on other environmental components and ecosystems.

The problem of risk analysis and assessment in emergency situations at hazardous chemical processing facilities has become especially acute in the recent past. The European document providing for control over safety of chemical processing facilities is the Sevezo Directive. It has become the basis for modern legislation in European governments on industrial and transportation safety. Over the past few years, Russia too has intensified its development of a legislative and normative base in the sphere of industrial safety. The “Act on the Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities” was adopted (1997). In accordance with this Act, each hazardous facility in Russian Federation is to develop a Safety Declaration that is subject to expert review, and obtain a production permit from respective authorities. This article presents the Russian approach to the analysis of the extra hazardous chemical processing facilities, namely the chemical weapons destruction facilities (CWDF). It is shown that declaration is an integral part of ensuring industrial safety and necessary for the estimation ecological danger posed by CWDF and for the purposes of ecological insurance.

The work considers a formal model for assessment of the systematic and accidental risks associated with chemically dangerous compounds. It is shown that, when analyzing risk, it is necessary to take into account, in one form or another, the unsteady nature of physical-chemical processes and the negative effects due to them.