Set Up of an Environmental Monitoring System, Shchuchye, Russia Technical Assistance

An intergovernmental agreement on cooperation about chemical weapon destruction was signed between France and the Russian federation on 14th February 2006 in the context of a Global Partnership dedicated to preventing catastrophic terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It came into effect on 25th April 2007 after ratification by both countries. The present demonstrated project was launched as part of this collaboration on the Shchuchye site (Russia – Kurgan Oblast). The project concerned the environmental surveillance system for the Shchuchye site required for the safe operation of the installation used to destroy chemical weapons. The aim was to implement equipments and methods of analysis for very low concentrations of pollutants in the three environmental compartments: air, water and soil. This has been achieved with the help of industry and other organizations in France (Environment/SA for supplies, INERIS and Antea Group) and Russia (ROST Association and EKROS Engineering). This system takes account of the normal operation of the installation as well as incident management. It includes 11 stationary atmospheric measuring stations constructed by Environment/SA and EKROS Engineering including ASTEK dedicated toxic gas detector: “Terminator FOV-1”, 3 mobile atmospheric measuring stations, 2 mobile soil & water measuring stations, 4 sampling cars constructed by Environment/SA and EKROS Engineering, a complete Chemical analysis laboratory which can handle ppb analysis of toxic gases, organics and minerals pollutants, an information collection center and a meteo station which can retrieve, display and archive all the datas or alarm from the stationary and mobile stations. Antea Group has provided a technical expertise and various negotiations during the negotiation phase, the project initiation files & contracts redaction, the project Monitoring and reporting to stakeholders, the REX. Up to 2009, No other site of the world uses such an innovative system. Antea Group worked on this project for 4 years. It successfully began operating in March 2009, before the start of destruction operations, after 15 months of work on the site.