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Research was carried out on the ecological situation in 2001 on the territory of the largest arsenal of chemical weapons, in the Pochep region of Bryansk area. These chemical weapons are an agent dispersal ammunition, which is filled with nerve agent. The complex method was used in the analysis of natural ecosystems. Bioindicators of the state of environment were chosen among the components of forest ecosystems such as: standing timber of a Scotch pine (Pinus silvestris L.); fir-tree (Picea abies (L.) Karst), oak (Quercus robur L.), regrowth, undergrowth, topsoil growth, soil mesofauna, ornithofauna, amphibians, assemblage of epiphyllous lichen, the pollen of a Scotch pine and also agrocenosises. The system of local ecological monitoring was established on the territory of the arsenal «Valley». The system is based on 23 permanent trial areas. On the whole, no negative influence of the arsenal of chemical weapons on the components of natural ecosystems was revealed. Marked negative changes of separate indices are caused by the influence of additional technogenic and anthropogenic factors.

Environmental monitoring is a system of observation, estimation and prognosis for the environment under the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors. This system must be realized in the frames of 4 subsystems, which are air monitoring, surface and ground water monitoring, soil monitoring, and flora and fauna monitoring. The effectiveness of the environmental monitoring, the realization of its purposes and tasks depends on the cooperation between “the informative sub-system” and the health care institutions which are responsible both for the social-hygienic and the social-ecological monitoring, the other organizations, and the administrative and governmental institutions.

The persistence of hazardous pollutants in the environment or waste streams and materials is frequently due to the thermodynamic and/or kinetic stability related to their molecular structure. Further these pollutants tend to be sorbed strongly to other components of the contaminated matter such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) or pentachlorophenol (PCP) to clayish soils or polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) or dibenzofuranes (PCDFs) to filter dusts. Adsorption renders such pollutants virtually inaccessible to physical, chemical or biological remediation and/or natural attenuation processes. These difficulties of stability and inaccessibility can be effectively overcome by mechanical activation of appropriate reductive dehalogenation reactions inside a . Such recalcitrant compounds, like PCBs, PCDDs, PCDFs or PCP, can be completely dechlorinated under strikingly benign, reductive conditions, i.e., and , by the contaminated material with a base metal and a hydrogen donor. A ball mill is utilized as a mechanochemical dehalogenation reactor in one single, almost universally applicable, operational key step. This novel, versatile dehalogenation approach can be successfully applied both to contaminated materials and highly concentrated or pure contaminants and of their mixtures, , and is designated as “Dehalogenation by Mechanochemical Reaction” (DMCR). For instance, PCBs in contaminated soil, filter dust, transformer oil, or as pure PCBs oils from transformers or capacitors can be rapidly dechlorinated to harmless chloride and their parent hydrocarbon biphenyl by applying magnesium, aluminum or sodium metal and a low acidic hydrogen source like an ether, alcohol and/or amine. DMCR offers several economic and ecological benefits. Ball milling requires a low energy input only, toxic compounds can be converted to defined and usable products, the method facilitates the re-use of scrap metals such as magnesium or magnesium-aluminum alloys, and detoxified materials like transformer oils can be readily recycled after a DMCR treatment. No harmful emissions to the environment have to be expected. This paper presents selected results of various treatability and feasibility studies demonstrating the versatility and efficiency of DMCR regarding the defined destruction of numerous hazardous persistent organic pollutants (POPs) like PCBs, PCDD/Fs and related compounds (PCP and dichlorobenzene (DCB)) in different solid and liquid contaminated materials.

The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1992 does not regulate contaminations of soil and water by starting, by-products and degradation products of chemical warfare agents that do not pose an acute danger but have harmful long-term effects. The financial means for removing these risks are often missing. A solution for this problem could be the application of adapted microorganisms that are able to biodegrade organoarsenic compounds. Examinations with the model substance triphenylarsine have shown that such a degradation is basically possible.

This article focuses on safety aspects of the dismantling of Old Chemical Weapons in Belgium, in particular of the shell type 77 mm filled with mustard gas (HD) and frequently chlorobenzene. Experiments were set up in order to determine whether the exposure limits for these chemicals (long-term as well as short-term) were exceeded during the dismantling process. In this process, two distinct operations were identified: (i) task 1 in which drilling and sampling are the main operations; (ii) task 2, consisting of a milling operation in order to separate the head from the shell body, followed by emptying and packing. For both subtasks the measured values are in agreement with a lognormal distribution. Significantly higher values for HD and for chlorobenzene concentrations are associated with task 2. A long-term respiratory overexposure might be excluded for chlorobenzene; for HD, however, a respiratory protection factor of at least 200 is indicated. To evaluate possible short-term overexposure via the skin, C.t values were measured for a sequence of task 2 operations. The results cannot be compared with a specific statistical distribution due to the fact that (i) these values are not truly independent, and (ii) the number of measurements is too limited to apply other inferential statistical methods. From the raw data, however, one can conclude that the upper confidence limit value of the 95 percentile remains lower than the accepted limit of 5 mg.min/m.

The problem of radio-ecological monitoring of the environment has become particularly topical lately. This is due to the intensive development of the radio-chemical technologies, processing and burial of the waste of nuclear explosions for military and peaceful purposes and accident situations. Various types of radiation can strengthen non-radiation factors of danger. The radioecological situation on the territory of the Udmurt Republic has not been studied deeply enough. The absence of the necessary information increases the probability of the ‘psychogenic effect’, the negative attitude to the construction of facilities for disposal of various types of waste and, in particular, to the facilities for chemical weapon destruction. This contribution shows the necessity of organization on the territory of the Udmurt Republic of not only a system of chemical monitoring of the environment, but also of a complex of radio-ecological investigations, training courses for the population, and provision for access to information on the chemical and radiation situation to the public.

The complexity of multi-component mixtures of unknown composition and biological activity that are formed during destruction of chemical weapons poses the problem of their thorough toxicological and public health study. The general procedure scheme of toxicological and health investigations of a complex chemical factor of unknown composition and toxicity vector is suggested, which includes several main blocks: information, sample preparation, analytical, toxico-sanitary, biological, chemical markers, biological markers, and evaluation.

Investigation of the bitumen salt masses (BSM) ingredients is required to evaluate toxicity and hazard of chemical weapons destruction products. The identification of components is feasible in the case of simultaneous consideration of mass spectrometric and chromatographic findings with the use of all known methods of calculation of the retention indices. The combined interpretation of parameters obtained within the frames of only one GCMS-EI instrumental method can be no less efficient than the combination of two and more different instrumental methods.

The environmental and health monitoring activities associated with the planned demolition of the former chemical weapons production facility (CWPF), the detached Plant No 4 at JSC Khimprom, Novocheboksarsk, Russia are presented, the prospected demolition being briefly outlined. The various organizations responsible for environmental and health activities are introduced. Through a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, the major risk factors for the workers, the population and the environment has been outlined. It is concluded by the environmental impact assessment that, if the accepted solutions are followed and observed, the demolition of the former CWPF will not significantly affect the environment and the living conditions of the population of Novocheboksarsk and the surrounding territories. A close collaboration between national and regional socio-hygienic monitoring activities and local information activities are strongly emphasized in order to achieve maximum public confidence and acceptance in the demilitarization process.

U.S. Army facilities for elimination of chemical warfare agents (CWA) include instrumentation for monitoring trace-levels of CWA in air. Protocols for calibration and quality control assessment of air-monitoring systems use solutions of agent standards in solvent; however, agent potentially detected in the facility would be in gaseous form. The Army is conducting vapor validation studies in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). These studies assess performance of instrumentation to monitor for CWA vapor at temperature and humidity conditions encountered at CWA destruction facilities. Vapor validation studies on monitoring methods for lewisite (L) [dichloro-(2-chlorovinyl)arsine] are of interest because the CWA is difficult to sample and must be derivitized for analysis. Vapor validation efforts have resulted in recommendations for changes to equipment configuration to enhance monitoring of CWA vapor.