Environment and Security

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Environment and Security 32 /

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Tajikistan recently started making overtures to interna- tional bodies on the issue of radioactive waste deposits. Uzbekistan has so far been slower to raise international awareness of the issue of uraniummining waste on its own territory compared with facilities in Kyrgyzstan (see above), although it does recognize the threat from both (State Com- mittee, 2002: 106-107; Goldstein and Makarov, 1999) 29 . Apart from activities related to uranium mining and their hazardous wastes, there are three main centres of con- cern in Kyrgyzstan: the antimony and mercury mining and processing plants of Kadamjai and Khaidarkan and the ore plant in the Sumsar Valley 30 . The soil is contaminated with heavy metals (as with the Kan Ore management plant) 31 and

other toxic substances. Moreover mercury has been stolen from the Khaidarkan plant on several occasions. Some 150 kg of this highly toxic metal seem to have found an illegal market in the area. The Uzbek authorities also see the Ka- damjai antimony plant as a transboundary problem. In Tajikistan, chemical and textile industries around Isfara and the chemical waste deposit of Kanibadam have been identified as hotspots in the Sogd province. The Kanibadam toxic waste deposit (for obsolete pesticides) potentially rep- resents a similar situation to the radioactive tailing dumps described above, with unprotected deposits vulnerable to natural hazards, located in the vicinity of a border, water- way and town. During the preliminary ENVSEC mission in

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