Caspian Sea 2011

2010

in Azerbaijan by 2010. Liquid pesticides, mainly polydophen, until recently mostly remained at the old sites. However by 2010 1,184 barrels of liquid pesticides and 200 contaminated trays were removed to the central stores. As far as hazardous wastes are concerned, there are five landfills in Azerbaijan for disposal purpos- es. The newest landfill for hazardous waste, with a total capacity of 250,000 m 3 , was constructed with financial support from the World Bank, and has been in operation since 2004. Mercury wastes in the amount of 40,000 m 3 , removed from the Syn- thetic Detergents Plant, have been buried in the landfill. According to the questionnaire, removal and management of toxic mercury waste of Sum- gait is completed. The landfill is managed under the umbrella of the Ministry of Ecology and Natu- ral Resources and meets international standards (CEP 2007b). In 2010 another new landfill for haz- ardous waste with total capacity of 250,000 m 3 was constructed with financial support of govern- ment. In total 95,000 m 3 of mercury wastes have been removed by 2011. Iran : Very little is known about the situation in Iran. The only information available is that pes- ticides are considered to be the most serious pollutants, with “hot spots” found in the dense agricultural areas of river deltas and along the Caspian coast of Iran. In addition, an emerging environmental problem is poor urban and ru- ral solid waste management, with no effective means of urban solid waste disposal (Question- naire Iran 2010). Kazakhstan: According to the Baseline Invento- ry, there are eight hot spots in Kazakhstan relating to industrial waste dumps, of which six represent oily waste and two are toxic industrial sites. “Koshkar-Ata”, near the city of Aktau in Manghis- tau oblast and 7-8 km from the Caspian shoreline, is a tailing dump established in the 1960s. Ac- cording to the questionnaire, it is still seen as an emerging environmental problem. The Koshkar- Ata depression was chosen as a dumping site for

radioactive and toxic waste from uranium deposits developed by the Caspian mining and metallurgi- cal industry. The threat posed by the tailing dump on the Caspian Sea environment escalated follow- ing the collapse of the Soviet Union: output of the industry fell, leading to reduced water discharges into the tailing dump and the consequent draining of its bottom layers which are contaminated with radioactive elements. At present, the water level in the tailing dump is maintained by wastewater disposal from the urban sewage system as well as by untreated household sewage from the city of Ak- tau. It is calculated that the amount of discharge needed for maintaining the water level is six mil- lion m3 while the area of coastal beach subjected to dusting amounts to 24 km 2 . It should be noted that each year there are measures taken to stabilize the level of liquid of the tailings. The basic problem is that dust containing radionuclides, heavy metals

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