The Committee for Environmental Protection has begun removal of hundred tons of toxic chemicals and contaminated soil from warehouses of former collective farmers in the Jomi district of Khatlon province.
People there live in the vicinity of the pesticide warehouses, do not realize what danger they face and continue building houses near the harmful facilities.
The process of liquidation of the contaminated materials began in the Jomi district on May 12.
Rahmatullo Khairulloyev, the head of the National Center for Fulfillment of Tajikistan’s Obligations under Stockholm Convention, says specialists from the Committee for Environmental Protection have inventoried the warehouse in which pesticides, including DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), have been stored since the Soviet era.
According to Khairulloyev, their specialists have discovered eight such warehouses in the Jomi district alone.
“The examination findings show that concentration of DDT in the territory of the village of Jovidon in the Aral jamoat of the Jomi district is very high. Therefore, we have decided to carry out the Clean Land action in this village. We plan to remove more than 100 tons of contaminated soil and toxic chemicals to the Vakhsh toxic chemicals range,” Khairulloyev said.
“The pesticide storage facilities that had been constructed in the Soviet era began crumbling. Moreover, local residents are using bricks of the warehouses for their needs,” said the head of the National Center for Fulfillment of Tajikistan’s Obligations under Stockholm Convention. “It is still impossible to demolish the warehouses themselves and remove them to the range because of lack of money. Therefore, it has been decided to fence the facilities.”
According to specialists, 164 warehouses storing toxic chemicals have been studied in Tajikistan.
