Missile Sites Targeted for Clean-Up

Once known as the bread basket of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine's agricultural land has been subjected to extensive environmental contamination since the Second World War--from toxic spills at abandoned missile sites to hazardous waste from mining activities. To address potential concerns over the potential health risks posed by these sites, and to encourage global clean-up efforts, Environment Canada recently completed a training and technology transfer project aimed at enabling the former Soviet republic to return this land to arable use.

The four-year, $5.7-million project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency and involved Environment Canada's Environmental Technology Centre (ETC) and two private-sector engineering consulting companies. Ukrainian partners included the national Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Nuclear and Environmental Safety, and Academy of Sciences.

The project took place near the central Ukraine cities of Khmelnitsky and Pervomaisk at two of the 176 intercontinental ballistic missile system silo sites that are located across the country. The sites and their surrounding facilities underwent complete assessments and were used to demonstrate a variety of cost-efficient and broad-application techniques for remediating soil and groundwater contaminated with diesel fuel, lubricants, heavy metals, rocket propellants and other toxic substances.

Map of Eastern Europe showing Ukrainian missile sites where technology transfer project took place.

Twenty-three Ukrainian engineers, chemists and technicians spent up to a year in Canada undergoing extensive classroom training at the ETC in Ottawa and at private consultants' facilities in Toronto, as well as attending hands-on demonstrations at remediation sites in central Canada. In addition to receiving instruction on the basics of project management, sampling, monitoring, clean-up techniques, field and laboratory analytical methods, safety, and environmental philosophy, they had to learn two new languages: English and computer-ese.

After Canadian training was completed, half a dozen ETC scientists went to the Ukraine for one- to three-month field sessions to set up equipment and demonstrate site assessment and remediation techniques. They established a full-scale analytical laboratory at a university in Kiev, and set up a mobile soil-washing station to demonstrate the removal of hydrocarbons and metals from contaminated soil. Drum skimmers, which are commonly used in oil spills, were used to remove crude oil from the surface of ponds and creeks. Hydrocarbon-impacted groundwater was extracted using skimmer pumps and then heated to remove contaminants through a process called steam stripping.

Less capital-intensive bioremediation technologies were also employed, including bio-piles and landfarming—both of which involve constructing containment cells to prevent pollutants from leaching into the surrounding environment, and then working nutrients and water into the contaminated soil to stimulate the growth of hydrocarbon-destroying bacteria.

After the project was completed, a seminar was held so trainees could make presentations on what they had learned to their colleagues and other guests. In the months since, Kharkov military university, where the analytical equipment is now located, has also launched an environmental training program. Both steps offer promise for the transfer of this technological know-how to other parts of the country and beyond its borders.

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