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Impoverished Setting Threatens Russian Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility, Environmental Group Says By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — An impoverished rural population that is seeing its plight worsened by construction of a Russian chemical weapons destruction facility could end up acting to disrupt the internationally funded project, an environmental group warned Friday (see GSN, Sept. 12). Construction activities have reportedly blown out water lines and damaged roads in the Shchuchye region, and local schools have seen teachers lured away to work at the chemical weapons disposal site, leaving one school nearly inoperative, Global Green USA said in a report on the project. “The [Global Green] Legacy Program has become increasingly concerned that the area’s destitute conditions, in combination with the presence of a dangerous weapons stockpile and an expensive destruction facility, will create a ‘perfect storm’ of problems that could ultimately derail the project,” the group said in the report. “Impoverished residents might be driven to compromise the security of the nerve agent stockpile or the nerve agent destruction facility — for the right price — through collusion with terrorist groups,” said Global Green, the U.S. affiliate of former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev’s Green Cross International. “Disgruntled residents could slow or stop the pace of construction through sabotage or demonstrations. Cash-strapped regional authorities could use their oversight of the permitting process to deny construction permits and disrupt the project.” The facility is about five miles from the town of Shchuchye, the administrative and population center of the 26,000-resident region of the same name. More than 5,000 tons of nerve agent, or about 13 percent of Russia’s chemical weapon stockpile, is stored near the construction site. Russia, the United States and other countries are spending $2 billion to build the destruction facility, which is to begin operations by 2009. Global Green portrayed investments in the facility and its housing camp as contrasting starkly with living conditions for Shchuchye residents. Italy financed a new gas pipeline to the weapons destruction site, but the gas is not available to local homes “where the average inside temperature is well below acceptable Russian standards,” according to the report. Melting snow each spring leaves much of Shchuchye mired in mud, but the chemical weapons site has an “excellent drainage system,” the group said. Global Green estimated at $110 million the “minimum investment required to rebuild Shchuchye’s engineering and social infrastructure” in hopes of heading off any disruption of the weapons destruction project. The group also raised the alternative possibility of a future voluntary relocation of the local population. The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program and the Global Partnership against WMD proliferation do not typically fund “outside-the-fence” projects such as socioeconomic improvements, Global Green said, but “several GP countries have expressed a willingness to help address pressing socioeconomic needs” in Shchuchye. “Russia’s federal and local governments fully intend to address pressing socioeconomic needs, but budgetary constraints, ambiguous jurisdictional responsibilities and competing needs for resources are making this difficult. Indeed, Russia has been unable to provide the most basic necessities — for example, a viable emergency evacuation plan — for the chemical weapons stockpile community of Shchuchye,” Global Green said. The study was released in conjunction with a Global Green conference here on chemical weapons destruction. Asked by Legacy Program Director Paul Walker at the conference about the top obstacles to destroying chemical weapons, Russian Embassy Senior Counselor Vladimir Yermakov named constraints of time, public outreach and international assistance. The latter factor has been a bone of contention between Moscow and Washington, which differ over how to count U.S. assistance provided for weapons destruction in Russia. U.S. officials say the United States has provided $700 million for the Shchuchye project, but Russia estimates the figure at $300 million, refusing to count funds Washington spends on startup and administrative costs and which are not available for contracts in Shchuchye. Yermakov said the ambiguity about assistance figures creates budgeting difficulties for Russia. “When we do not receive that assistance, it creates havoc,” he said. “We have to know beforehand if we get assistance or if we don’t get assistance.” U.S. State Department chemical- and biological-weapons specialist David Weekman expressed confidence that the two countries would come to some agreement about how to address the funding and budgeting dispute.
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