Attention to local climate risks is increasing in Russia’s regions

Abandoned chemical plant dismantled in Samara region.

The government of the Samara region will spend 2.5 billion roubles to liquidate the region’s largest facility of accumulated environmental damage. This refers to the former Srednevolzhsk Chemicals Plant (SVCP) in the town of Chapaevsk, which was liquidated back in 2005. Such facilities are among those that pose particularly high environmental and climatic risks at the regional level.

As clarified by the regional administration, the specified funds were allocated to eliminate the nidus of contamination in sludge pit Sh-2. The plan provides for the sealing of the waste repository and construction of an impervious blanket 2 metres thick and 27 metres deep along the perimeter of the repository, which will serve as a kind of a sarcophagus around it.

In addition, the site will be reinforced with bank protection and a drainage system.

As clarified by the government of the Samara region, the planned works will exclude penetration of toxins into the soil and the Chapaevka river, because the sludge pit Sh-2 is located near the watercourse bed and contains wastes of hazard classes II-IV. The construction of the protective barriers began in May this year.

“The scope of works being carried out here is very large, it is the largest site of accumulated environmental damage in the Samara region. Today it does not affect the ecology of Chapaevsk, but there are risks of toxic substances getting into the Chapaevka river.

This is unacceptable, and in order to exclude such a risk, in this case an impervious wall is being built, which will encircle the main object — the sludge pit. In the next three years, the work will be completed,” the agency quoted the regional government chairman, Viktor Kudryashov, as saying.

Although the chemical plant closed down nearly 20 years ago, the 263-hectare site still contains industrial buildings, sludge collectors and a sludge pit holding chemical fertiliser, toxic chemicals and defence products wastes. In the past, the plant produced chemical warfare agents, including the deadly gases mustard gas and phosgene.

Engineering surveys, as well as chemical and biological analyses, were carried out at the site following decommissioning. Researchers identified the boundaries of the contamination sources. On the basis of their findings, they developed a project to eliminate the sources of danger to people and the environment.

As a result, the plant was included in the state register of objects of accumulated environmental harm. In 2021, the Samara region won a tender of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation and received funding to improve the territory of the plant under the national project “Ecology”.

Cover photo: Tourism information portal Zhigulyovskaya Mosaika