RUSSIA: Residents say the military are rushing forward with an untried and unproven method of destruction, writes Peter Finn in Mirny
On a closed military base, just outside this small town cut from a forest along the Trans-Siberian railroad, sits one of Russia's deadliest stockpiles of chemical weapons. Nearly 7,000 tons of chemical agents are packed inside 40,000 aerial bombs that are secured in containers made of concrete and steel.
Broken down into individual doses, that's enough agent to kill everyone on the planet.
Sometime this year, Russian authorities are to begin to neutralise most of the 4,000 tons of VX nerve agent in the stockpile to meet a deadline under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1992, which calls for 20 per cent of the country's chemical arsenal to be destroyed by April 2007.
As the moment of destruction nears, some residents of Mirny and the surrounding farmlands live in dread. But the willingness of residents to struggle against the plant defies notions about the political passivity of Russians, particularly those living in the countryside. And it illustrates how the Russian government now has to contend with civic activism in even the most remote areas if an issue is sufficiently galvanising.
The authorities have been forced to engage their adversaries in debate even though some officials, particularly in Moscow, have treated the objections of residents with contempt.
A government newspaper even mused about how such public resistance would never have been tolerated in Soviet times. Local residents learned of what was on their doorstep only after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Echoing the criticism of some Russian and international specialists, many citizens here fear that the military is rushing forward with an untested method of destruction. The authorities are not prepared, they contend, for a serious accident, which could have untold consequences for the 4,000 people of Mirny and tens of thousands more living in two surrounding districts.
Officials are "in a hurry and they're using a technology that has never been tried before", said Tatyana Koroleva, a schoolteacher in Mirny, which means peaceful. "Life is cheap in Russia. People are very afraid that we will be betrayed."
This is a critical year for Russia under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which aims to achieve the complete destruction of the weapons worldwide by 2012. Russia and the United States have the largest arsenals.
So far, Russia has destroyed just 1 per cent of its stockpile, at seven sites - as compared with 35 per cent in the US at nine sites.
Plans call for the bombs stored at the Maradykovsky facility outside this town to be moved by hand from their storage places to an adjacent destruction building, which is under construction. There, workers will cut off the tops of the bombs, pour water containing neutralising additives on the VX, then reseal the bombs.
In three months, Russian officials say, the mixture inside the bombs prompts a slow reaction and leaves a residue that has low toxicity. "In reality, it will be fast," said Mikhail Manin, a former military officer and the senior official overseeing the destruction process in the regional capital of Kirov in central Russia. "We believe it's more reliable than other methods."
Two destruction plants, Kambarka in the Ural Mountains region and Maradykovsky here, 550 miles east of Moscow, are meant to begin operating in 2006.
The Kambarka facility, which holds lewisite, a blistering agent that contains arsenic, is scheduled to start March 1st, after several delays.
Most of the US plants underwent an 18-month testing period of an automated method of destruction, according to Paul Walker, legacy programme director at Global Green USA. It is the American affiliate of Green Cross International, an organisation founded by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to address the environmental consequences of war and conflict.
Despite the lengthy preparation in the US, accidents occurred. "In a few cases there were explosions that damaged the robots," Walker said.
In Russia there will be very little, if any, time for testing if the April 2007 deadline is to be met.
"People are concerned over safety and spillage, especially for the workers," Walker said. "We're all really hopeful, even though we remain deeply concerned over the safety and the efficacy of an unproven technology."
Lev Fedorov, a scientist, activist and president of Russia's Union for Chemical Safety, contends that the water-based neutralisation of the bombs has not been properly tested.
His group fears that the resealed bombs could rupture from the internal pressure of the reaction between the agent and the water-based solution.
"From physics we know that in each container for liquid like this 10 per cent of the volume should be left for expansion," he said. "They are going to pour 7 per cent and leave only 3 per cent for 100 days. It's dangerous."
However, Russian authorities express confidence that their method has been well tested, including by independent experts. "We examined about 50 different technologies and individual proposals," said Viktor Petrunin, general director of State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology.
Officials says that critics such as Fedorov predicted all kinds of calamities when work began at the country's first chemical destruction site, in Gorny but nothing adverse happened.
There, however, a different method was used to neutralise lewisite and mustard gas. "We've tried to have a real dialogue with people like Fedorov, but they seem more interested in stirring up trouble," said Mr Manin.
Officials said they had planned for accidents, and would have an alarm and evacuation plan in place by March.
All households in the area are being supplied with gas masks. Studies are under way to measure any changes in the environment once work begins.
"People will be told where to go depending on the wind," said Viktor Feofanov, head of civil defence in the Kirov region. "We have done a lot of training with the population and the population will know what routes to take."
"Mirny is very calm," said Yevgeny Yudintsev, the town's mayor. But in random interviews across the region, few seemed so calm. "Everyone is nervous," said Anatoly Gulin, a local businessman.
"Please stop this," said Galina Bagaiyeva, a music teacher.
Local activists said that if officials were so confident of public opinion, they would not have fought a long legal battle to prevent a district-wide referendum on the location of the destruction plant. The Russian Supreme Court in 2001 rejected the right of local citizens to demand a vote on the issue.
Late last year, in their final gambit, opponents of the plant organised a letter-writing campaign to the Kremlin in an attempt to get president Vladimir Putin to intervene.
"This is very dangerous," wrote Svetlana Mysova (12), who said her entire school wrote to Mr Putin.
Ms Mysova got a response that she said was "humiliating". The official Rossiiskaya Gazeta reprinted excerpts from the letters, including hers, with some snide commentary.
Opponents of the plant say they recognise the need to destroy the weapons, but wanted it moved at least 10km away from Mirny. It currently lies about 2,000 yards away.
"Safety is our first concern - not deadlines," said Manin. "Nothing will happen until everything is ready and we're absolutely confident. This will be a safe operation." - (LA Times-Washington Post service)