The pesticide burial ground in Dzhurin, Ukraine

Problems

• Pesticide bomb threatens Ukraine

  The Dzhurinsky pesticide burial ground is one of the biggest environmental problems in the Sharyhorod region and the Vinnytsia region as a whole. This object was created as an interregional one in Soviet times.  According to available documents, 1,023.7 tons of unidentified, unusable, and unknown pesticides from Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattia, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky oblasts were preserved there in 1978. The area of the burial site is 4.2 ha.
  
  In terms of the amount of unusable plant protection chemicals, the Dzhurinsky pesticide burial site is unparalleled in Ukraine. Most of the substances stored there are persistent organic pollutants and belong to the group of highly toxic substances. Hexachlorane alone - 200 tons, dichlorodiphenyltrichloromethylmethane (DDT) - 465 tons, as well as 6 tons of arsenic and 1 ton of mercury compounds. However, for 35 years, the metal barrels that contained the poisons rusted, the pesticides were mixed, and new, unknown compounds were produced. Unsuitable and banned pesticides remain there. 
  
  There was no project documentation for the pits, almost no monitoring of their impact on the environment, constant monitoring of the soil and groundwater was not carried out, no protection was provided, and the fence was damaged. This situation created a real threat of highly toxic substances entering the environment and spreading. Residents of neighboring villages repeatedly asked the local authorities to remove this "time bomb". In previous years, the authorities made attempts to remove these pesticides and liquidate the pesticide burial site, but only part of the waste containers was removed.
  
  Recently, a working committee consisting of Ukrainian specialists from several cities and an international expert from France conducted a field inspection of the pesticide burial site. With the support of the Ministry of Nature Protection, the region received about 35 million UAH for the destruction of unusable pesticides stored both at the Dzhurinsk Pesticide Burial Ground and at other storage facilities in the region. During the first phase of elimination, concrete bunkers are being opened and highly toxic waste is being repacked at the Dzhurinsk burial ground. During the week, more than 600 tons of indeterminate toxic substances from five bunkers have been repacked into special containers. 
  
  The second stage involves the removal of unusable pesticides from the largest pesticide burial site to Poland and nearby European countries. Vinnytsia environmentalists cannot yet say for sure whether the Israeli company "C Bud System", which won the tender to carry out this work, will fully complete it because the company was allocated a specific amount for the removal of 1,023.7 tons of pesticides. According to the documents, that is how many poisons are stored in the burial site, but one cannot exclude that there are more. If so, there will be a problem, but no one is thinking about how to solve it.