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Russian Munitions Agency

Chemical Disarmament

Safety Problems of CW Stockpiling and Destruction

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Victor Ivanovich Kholstov was appointed as Director General of Russian Munitions Agency
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Chemical Weapons | Facilities of Former CW Production | Facilities of CW Stockpiling and Destruction | CW Destruction Technologies | Safety Problems of CW Stockpiling and Destruction | Chemical Terrorism | Implementation Problems of the CW Convention

Safety Problems of CW Stockpiling and Destruction


Safety problem of CW stockpiling and destruction is an issue of primary importance. The monitoring of CW stockpiling and destruction facilities provides for:
  1. Control of work (technological) zone:
    • Emergency signaling system
    • Health safety signaling system
    • Allowable discharge limits control system
  2. Control of industrial site
    • Periodic sampling of air, soils and waters followed by analysis in laboratory
  3. Control of medical safety zone
    • Periodic sampling of air, soils and waters followed by analysis in laboratory
  4. Monitoring of protective action zone (residential zone)
    • Periodic sampling of air, soils, waters, greenery and others on stationary, route posts and sample plots followed by analysis in laboratory
Normative and technical documents, adopted in Russia, hardly regulate processes of CW stockpiling and destruction, as well as determine corresponding requirements for facilities and personnel. Safety Standards of the Russian Federation determine maximum allowable concentrations and levels of CW agents, causing no biological effect on person and other objects of animate nature. By the way these safety standards are still almost ten times less then those adopted in USA. The essential requirement of the Convention when developing the technology of CW destruction is to provide human beings security and environment protection. The fact of convenience of the Russian technology for CW destruction is acknowledged by the independent examination at the level of the IUPAC Commission. The technology provides for discrete and sequential destruction of limited quantity of toxic substances, contained in one ammunition, that ensures its quick localization in case of emergency. In the process while content of one munition is not sent in decontamination solution, the next one will not be opened. The reaction products are being held in a reactor until then, while the analysis (the combination of biochemical and physicochemical methods) will not fix the absence of chemical agent in reaction mass. Thereon, as warfare chemical agent is not deactivated completely, the produced reaction mass is put on retreatment with obligatory use of other decontaminant. Such process provides the complete safety of transportation of products of munitions deactivation and/or reaction mass to operating facilities for CW destruction and/or processing of reaction mass. Indeed, on the first stage the reaction mass with median lethal dose of LD50> 1,500 mg/kg (the 3rd class of danger) is being formed, but on the second stage the bitumen-salt mass with median lethal dose of LD50> 5,000 mg/kg (the 4th class of danger) is being formed. The volume of transportation of especially dangerous materials (the first class of danger), conventional for developed countries, for instance, chlorine in tanks is 200 thousand tons per year, and this is in case, that chlorine is 400 times more toxic than reaction mass.