MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax-AVN) - The European Union is launching a new project intended to create an environment and health monitoring system during the destruction of a former chemical weapons production facility at the Khimprom JSO in Novocheboksarsk, Russia's internal republic of Chuvashia.
Representatives of the EU Commission in Russia presented the project in Moscow on Monday.
"This is the third Tacis-sponsored chemical weapons destruction-related project in Russia. The two others launched with the Economy Ministry were related to Saratov and Dzerzhinsk, where chemical weapons used to be produced," Alexander Gorbovsky, chief of the department for conventional problems of chemical and biological weapons in the Russian Ammunition Agency, told Interfax-Military News Agency Monday.
He said that the purpose of the project was to render technical aid and modernize the environment and health monitoring system due to the destruction of a former chemical weapons production facility in Novocheboksarsk in accordance with UN requirements on the prohibition of the development, production, storage, and employment of chemical weapons and on its destruction. The requirements became effective in 1997.
"The project will be a serious step towards the solution of a more complicated problem - the destruction of the largest facility that used to produce VX (a lethal nerve gas - Interfax- AVN). We hope that the program will be successfully fulfilled in 2004," Gorbovsky said.
The project is Tacis-sponsored.
Tacis is an EU program sponsoring the developement of market economy and democracy in Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia states by free franchise of experience and know-how in various fields. Since 1991, Tacis has passed USD2.5bn for grants intended for over 1,500 projects in Russia.
The budget of the project in question is planned for 18 months at overall expenditure of EUR2.3m (USD2.5m). Russia is represented by the Russian Ammunition Agency.
As was said at the presentation, the overall goal determines concrete tasks of the program as modernization of the system responsible for the monitoring of the destruction and burial of the site, state of the air, water and ground, as well as health of the humans involved in the work. Other tasks are assessment and perfection of parity interaction with federal and local authorities, analyzing the state of these media, informing the population on the measures on safe conversion, and publication of the data on the monitoring, state of the environment, and health of local residents.
In the event that this project is a success, the EU will keep on aiding Russia in chemical weapons destruction, Magnus Ovilius, first secretary of the EU Commission in Russia, said. He added that that would depend on a lot of factors, including political.
According to Ovilius, the plan is split into four stages. The first stage should end in April with an established staff of the project. By late May the equipment necessary for the realization of the project will be determined and its procurement will begin. Then comes practical work.
Ovilius said that the ultimate goal was to grant the population full information on the results of the environment and health monitoring.
The consortium that has become the contractor of the project is headed by COWI, a leading Danish consultancy company.