Russian Disposal Plant Opening Could be Delayed

Delays in U.S. funding are threatening to slow the opening of a chemical weapons disposal facility in Russia’s Volga district, the chairman of the State Chemical Disarmament Commission said yesterday (see GSN, June 2).

The chemical agent elimination plant is scheduled to begin operations in December 2005. However, only 30 percent of the U.S. money allocated for the project has reached Russia; the rest remains with U.S. contractors, said commission Chairman Sergei Kirienko.

Germany has already fulfilled its commitment to provide equipment for the facility, Kirienko said, according to RIA Novosti.

“Work on the project is now only 40 to 50 percent financed. This cannot go on like that,” he said.

An already operating plant in Gorny also faces trouble, Kirienko said ð — determining what to do with byproduct produced by disposal of war gas (see GSN, June 1).

“Reaction mass poses no danger. But its being stockpiled is not good,” he said. “The design has not yet been coordinated between the agencies and the ecologists,” Kirienko added (RIA Novosti, June 10).

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