According to the Dzerzhinsk Committee of Environmental Control, the drinking water quality in some residential areas of the city does not meet minimal safety standards. The groundwater in this area was poisoned by Dzerzhinsk's Cold War-era factories responsible for the production of Sarin and VX gas. Chemicals and toxic residuals from those manufacturing sites are present in both ground and surface water.

According to figures from Dzerzhinsk's environmental agency, prior to 1998 (and as early as the 1930s) almost 300,000 tons of chemical waste were disposed of haphazardly around the area every year and around 190 separate chemicals were released into the groundwater. The city draws its drinking water from the same aquifers into which old wastes and unused products were pumped.

Beginning in 1997, scientists were able to document the alarming fact that throughout the 1950s and ‘60s chemical weapons were dismantled, without proper environmental oversight, 10km northwest of the town of Leonidovka, in the Russian state of Penza Oblast. The polluted area covers 65,800 acres of forest, where the plantlife, soil, and water all tested positive for arsenic, dioxins, and heavy metals at levels that were hazardous to human health. Locals also fear that toxins have penetrated into groundwater supplies and can be pushed back to the surface after heavy rains.