Tajikistan’s lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament (Majlisi Oli) yesterday ratified an agreement between Tajikistan and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on activities of the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia (ERA) in Tajikistan.
Presenting the agreement to lawmakers, the Minister of Industry and New Technologies, Zarobiddin Faizullozoda, noted that ERA, a fund initiated by the European Commission and managed by the EBRD, would provide a more than 33 million euros grant to carry out remedial work at two radioactive waste tailing dumps – Dehmoi and Taboshar – in the northern Sughd province.
According to him, there are 55 million tons of radioactive wastes being accumulating in ten uranium tailing dumps in the Sughd province.
The ERA was set up in 2015 to rehabilitate high-priority sites in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Central Asia served as an important source of uranium in the former Soviet Union. Uranium was mined for over 50 years and uranium ore was also imported from other countries for processing there. A large amount of radioactively-contaminated material was placed in mining waste dumps and tailing sites. Most of the mines were closed by 1995 but very little remediation was done neither prior to nor after closure of the mining and milling operations.
The amount of radioactively-contaminated material accumulated in the region is a threat to the environment and to the health of the population. Many of the uranium legacy sites in Central Asia are concentrated along the tributaries of the Syr Darya River which runs through the densely populated Fergana Valley, the agricultural center of the region which is shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The EBRD is the only international financial institution engaged in nuclear safety and decommissioning programs and has been active in the field since 1993.
