There are twenty three tailing dumps and thirteen waste rock dumps scattered throughout Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, home to a former Soviet-era uranium plant. From 1946-1968 the plant produced and processed more than 10,000 metric tons of uranium ore--products eventually used to create the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. What remains now are not atomic bombs, but 1.96 million cubic meters of radioactive mining waste. The combination of unsecured radioactive waste with the region's high seismic activity threatens to contaminate the drinking water supply of the entire Ferghana valley: a fertile and densely-populated area, with inhabitants in the hundreds of thousands, stretching throughout Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. In May 2002 a huge mudslide blocked the course of the Mailuu-Suu river and threatened to submerge another toxic waste site. In April 2005 the Obschestvenny Reiting newspaper reported that after another earthquake and landslide, about 300,000 cubic meters of material fell into the Mailuu-Suu River near the uranium mine tailings.

Copsa Mica was one of Europe’s most polluted towns in the 1990s and remains the most polluted town in Romania to this day. Two factories Carbosin that produced carbon black and Sometra, a non-ferrous metallurgical smelter were behind this pollution. Carbosin shut down in 1993 but the smelter is still operational.

Berezniki is an industrialized town situated on the banks of the Kama River 176 kms to the north of Perm. The city was founded as a sodium plant in 1883 because the area is rich in potassium salts. This city is listed as one of the most polluted towns in Russia and is on the Federal Target Program list of towns with possible local areas of environmental contamination with dioxins or dioxin-like agents. Berezniki also suffers legacy contamination from the Second World War when the chemical factories actively produced toxic chemicals that still pose a significant health hazard to this day.

One of the most infamous symbols of life-threatening pollution is the Chernobyl reactor, which suffered a meltdown in April 1986. To this day, the settlements closest to the reactor site remain depopulated ghost towns; however, the explosion sent a radioactive cloud over most of Europe, and many regions received a fallout level that, while not quite serious enough to require permanent evacuation, is still more than enough to blight local ecosystems and human communities with radiation poisoning. 110 miles away is the region of Bryansk, of which nearly 2 million acres received a heavy dose of fallout pollution, primarily Cesium-137. Hundreds of thousands of people still inhabit this largely agricultural area, and the greatest danger they face is the ingestion of radioactive particles (or radionuclides) that have accumulated in the meat, fat, and milk of local cattle, as well as the produce from local farms and gardens. In some provinces over 20% of all dairy milk is dangerously contaminated. Children receive the highest exposures to cesium, as they tend to ingest more dairy products than adults and their still-growing bones absorb more pollutants from their food.

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.

Cherepovets, an industrial center 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow, is home to the Severstal steel plant, one of Russia’s largest steel plants. The plant was built in Soviet times and owned by the Ministry of Black Metallurgy of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In 1965, a 5,000 meter-wide “sanitary security zone” was established around the steel plant (later reduced to 1,000 meter-wide in 1992). According to a letter from the Mayor of Cherepovets dated 3 June 2004, in 1999 the plant was responsible for more than 95 percent of industrial emissions into the town’s air. According to the State Report on the Environment for 1999, the Severstal plant was the largest contributor to air pollution of all metallurgical plants in Russia.

During its 30 years of operation, the mining and chemical Combine at Zheleznogorsk discharged its cooling water contaminated with radioactive wastes directly into the Yenisei River. Now, 300 kilometres along the river can be officially declared an environmental disaster zone based on the amount of contamination over that time. The village of Bolshoi Balchug lies immediately downstream from the plant, and at least 64,000 are potentially affected by radionuclides like plutonium-239, cesium-136, and strontium-90.

The main goal of the project was to improve radiation situation in the river bank zone in the Bolshoi Balchug community. Specialists of the Citizens` Center on Nuclear Non- Proliferation have examined the Bolshoi Balchug bank. All "hot" particles found together with surrounding soil were excavated from the riverbank and buried in a proper radioactive waste landfill.

A once-secret manufacturing center of the Soviet Union's defense industry, Dzerzhinsk (population 300,000) has hosted many chemical factories, including production facilities for Sarin and VX nerve gas. Lead additives for gasoline, mustard gas, munitions, and other highly-polluting products can also claim this city as their birthplace. While many of these factories are now closed, the chemical industry still employs over a quarter of local residents. The groundwater and soil around the city, about 250 miles east of Moscow, remain severely polluted with phenol, arsenic, dioxins, heavy metals, and a host of other toxins. Indeed, a dominant ecological landmark in the area is the “White Sea”, a 100-acre-wide lake of toxic sludge discharged from nearby factories.

Clearly, Dzerzhinsk faces huge challenges in managing this legacy of toxic wastes. It holds the ignominious title of "The Most Chemically Polluted Town" in the world. Greenpeace claims that the average life expectancy of city residents may have shrunk to a mere 45 years. The city's annual death rate, 17 per 1,000 people, is much higher than Russia's national average of 14 per 1,000. And, according to researchers at the Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Pathology, rates of reproductive health disturbances affecting women and fetuses, as well as rates of respiratory and pulmonary diseases in children, are dangerously high. In study after study, the health impacts of these chemicals continue to dampen enthusiasm and drain resources needed for economic and social recovery in Dzerzhinsk.

While there are many pollution-related issues that cry out for investment and remediation in the city, water quality is of paramount importance. The Dzerzhinsk Committee of Environmental Control, a local government agency dedicated to finding solutions for pollution-related problems, has highlighted the degree to which the quality of drinking water in some residential areas of the city, damaged by years of discharge of as many as 150 separate toxic chemicals, does not come close to meeting safety standards. Despite this assessment, the city still draws its drinking water from the same aquifers abused by toxic wastes and unused products over many years.

One area of particular concern is the residential sector of Gavrilovka (population 1,000), about 2 miles away from a former tetraethyl lead production facility. Environmental testing conducted in 2002 by a Russian laboratory identified elevated levels of metals (e.g., lead, arsenic) and toxic organic compounds in the groundwater that serves as the primary source for residents' drinking water. Industrial wastewater discharges and solid waste leaching were identified as primary sources of groundwater contamination.

Gorniak is the center of the ore mining industry in the Altai region. Copper, zinc and lead are extracted in the Loktevsky District.

A once-secret manufacturing center of the Soviet Union's defense industry located 450 kilometers southeast of Moscow, Dzerzhinsk (population 300,000) has hosted many chemical factories, including production facilities for Sarin and VX nerve gas. Lead additives for gasoline, mustard gas, munitions, and other highly-polluting products can also claim this city as their birthplace. While many of these factories are now closed, the chemical industry still employs over a quarter of local residents. The groundwater and soil around the city, about 250 miles east of Moscow, remain severely polluted with phenol, arsenic, dioxins, heavy metals, and a host of other toxins. Indeed, a dominant ecological landmark in the area is the “White Sea”, a 100-acre-wide lake of toxic sludge discharged from nearby factories.

Clearly, Dzerzhinsk faces huge challenges in managing this legacy of toxic wastes. It holds the ignominious title of "The Most Chemically Polluted Town" in the world. Greenpeace claims that the average life expectancy of city residents may have shrunk to a mere 45 years. The city's annual death rate, 17 per 1,000 people, is much higher than Russia's national average of 14 per 1,000. And, according to researchers at the Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Pathology, rates of reproductive health disturbances affecting women and fetuses, as well as rates of respiratory and pulmonary diseases in children, are dangerously high. In study after study, the health impacts of these chemicals continue to dampen enthusiasm and drain resources needed for economic and social recovery in Dzerzhinsk.

While there are many pollution-related issues that cry out for investment and remediation in the city, water quality is of paramount importance. The Dzerzhinsk Committee of Environmental Control, a local government agency dedicated to finding solutions for pollution-related problems, has highlighted the degree to which the quality of drinking water in some residential areas of the city, damaged by years of discharge of as many as 150 separate toxic chemicals, does not come close to meeting safety standards. Despite this assessment, the city still draws its drinking water from the same aquifers abused by toxic wastes and unused products over many years.

One area of particular concern is the residential sector of Pyra (population 4,000) where groundwater is also used as a major source of drinking water. The town is surrounded by swamps and the old local water treatment facility does not provide even an adequate level of groundwater cleanup. Drinking water tested was found to have ferrous-organic and fecal bacteria levels well above accepted safety standards. Compounding these problems, the aquifers that supply Piri also feed into groundwater that affects larger population centers as far away as St. Petersburg.

The smelter town of Karabash lies in the Chelyabinskaya region of the south Urals, 1,300 kilometers southeast of Moscow. The town originally developed due to large copper deposits and in 1910 a smelter was built here specializing in the production of 'blister copper'. Immense sulfur dioxide emissions, fall-out of metal-rich particulates and mounds of black slag are thought to be responsible for higher incidences of birth defects, skin diseases and internal organ failure among the residents of this town.

Krasnoufimsk is located in Sverdlovsk Oblast (Yekaterinburg) in the Central Urals. 82,000 tons of radioactive monazite concentrate have been stored here since the sixties. Exposure to monazite is linked to increased risk of cancer and is most dangerous when inhaled.

There is a very high incidence of cancer in the Krasnoufimsk district. As of late 2004 there were 990 cases of cancer among district residents (more than double that of other districts). More than half the children suffer from developmental problems. Illnesses of the musculoskeletal system, thyroid gland, and reproductive systems are also common.

The main goal of the project was to raise awareness about the problem and lobby the government for a safe removal of the monazites pollution in the Krasnoufimsk District. Blacksmith funded the local partner NGO raise awareness about the problem and lobby the government for its safe removal.

The monazite was initially obtained because it contains thorium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Interest in monazite raw material declined once the uranium-plutonium nuclear fuel cycle began to be adopted.

The monazite is packed in three-layered paper bags of 50 kg, which are stored in wooden boxes. Those are stocked in 23 warehouses (19 made of wooden and 4 made of metal), which were built in the early forties by the Central Administrative Board of Material Reserves (GUMR) of the USSR and initially used for the storage of strategic food stocks. The storage site’s total area is approximately 20 hectares.

Content of thorium in monazite is approx. 5% and content of uranium approx. 0.2%. Thus approximately 4000t tons of thorium (thorium-232) and 160t of uranium (uranium-238) are stored at the area, which represent total radioactive activity of 2.886 ·1014 Bq (7800 Ci).

Magadan, in the remote Russian Far East, is perhaps best known for its history as the capital of the Kolyma Land, a region once dotted with some of Stalin's most brutal labor camps. It rapidly industrialized under Soviet rule, and today is a city of about 130,000 people.

An area above the public beaches on the steep shores of Nagaevskaya Bay on the Sea of Okhotsk is contaminated with radioactive materials, and the contamination appears to be spreading. In 1991, an area contaminated with radioactive cesium (137Cs) was discovered near a housing construction factory, which has since gone bankrupt. Exposure to cesium from contaminated sites or from nuclear accidents can result in cancer risks much higher than typical environmental exposures. In animal studies, exposed rats had an increased risk of breast cancer, while in utero exposure is known to cause birth defects.

The public beach at the foot of the slope is about a third of a mile from a residential neighborhood, and during the summer months, the beach is crowded with visitors who swim and fish off the shore. Testing of the beach has detected radioactive spots of 420 microroentgens per hour (µR/h). The average background level of radiation that Americans are exposed to is around 34 µR/h, and in the Magadan region, 12 - 16 µR/h.

It is believed that the contamination originally came from improper disposal of radioactive material, perhaps through attempted incineration in the plant's furnace. When the ashes were disposed of, the cesium contaminated the slag heap.

The polluted area, covering approximately 1 acre, has been the object of earlier remediation efforts. However, because the location of the contamination is on a steep slope unprotected by vegetation, water runoff and soil erosion have been spreading the radioactive material on to the beach and into the Nagaevskaya Bay. The radiated waste is mixed with clay and sand to a depth of 16 to 23 feet (5 to 7 meters). Complete removal of contaminated soil is not possible without destroying the hill, on which other industrial plants are currently located.

Magnitogorsk in Western Russia lies on the banks of the Ural River. In the 1930's one of the largest Russian iron and steel works was established here that produced steel for half the Russian tanks during WW II. At optimum capacity it can produce up to 7.5 million tons of steel. The industry used to belch out 650,000 tons of industrial wastes, including 68 toxic chemicals, and polluted some 4,000 square miles of Russia. According to a steelworker, none of the filtering devices were in working condition.

This project brought together the NGO and local government communities of the area of Chelyabinsk near the Mayak nuclear complex, enabling a fractious relationship to transform into one of mutual cooperation. The intent was to encourage both parties to focus on implementing solutions to radioactive and environmental problems together.

In 1949, the Soviet Union funded the Mayak plant intended for the manufacturing of weapon’s grade plutonium in Chelyabinsk, in the Southern Urals. All liquid waste products were dumped directly into the Techa river, and eventually high levels of radioactive waste settled along the riverbed. In 1952, 70% of the inhabitants of nearby village Metlino suffered from leukemia, and authorities finally made an appeal to rectify the situation. Resettlement of almost 100,000 people lasted until 1961, the river was dammed in two places, and waste was redirected towards lake Karachaj. Inexplicably, however, every 50 km one village was left behind. This has proven a poor decision, as the plant is to blame for two other nuclear disasters: the explosion of radioactive waste tanks in 1957, and the effects of nuclear fallout from the bottom of lake Karachaj in 1967.

The first of these villages is Muslyumovo, population 2,500. Because the riverbanks confirm high levels of radioactive pollution, the population undergoes chronic exposure and every fourth child is born with some form of genetic mutation. The population is aware of the radiation, but likely doesn’t understand its full implications, as the water is used for drinking, bathing, fishing, and irrigation.

Muslyumova is located 30 km downstream from the Mayak Chemical Combine on the banks of the River Techa. It was the village most exposed to the Combine's unregulated radioactive discharges from 1949-1956. People living in this town were exposed to 240 millisievert (mSv) between 1950 and 1951 and in 1956 people received an average dose of 350 mSv (maximum exposure level 1mSv=100 mrem).

Four tons of toxic chemicals are stored in a dilapidated warehouse in the Soviet District of Nizhny Novgorod. Data provided by the Committee for Environmental Protection and Nature Management and the Center of State Sanitary and Epidemiological Monitoring of Nizhny Novgorod shows that a critical environmental situation has been reached here.

Northern Sakhalin has several onshore oil and gas fields developed by the Russian company Rosneft-Sakhalinmorneftegaz (SMNG) since the 1920's. Oil leaks/spills are common here due to the obsolete equipment, primitive drilling technologies and corroded oil pipelines. Two of the oldest oil fields are Katangly and Okhinskiy that still operates as it did about 75 years ago. These onshore Soviet-era oil companies cause massive pollution and environmental damage.

Partizansk is a city in Primorski Krai in the Russian Far East. Since the late 19th century it was an active coal mining site but mining operations have ceased since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the early 1950's a large coal-fired electric plant began operations here. The coal ash was disposed in a circular dam part of which broke in May of 2004 and released 60,000 tons of ash into the Lozovy Creek and Partizanskaya River, which is the source of drinking water to Partizansk and other settlements downstream.

Popov Island, 25 km southwest of Vladivostok lies in the Primorskii Krai Region of Russia's Far East. Tests conducted by scientists from the Il'ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute revealed mercury levels that were 8 times the maximum permissible concentrations in the drinking water at Popov Island. Mercury levels still exceeded permissible levels by 2-3 times even after 80% of the pipelines were replaced.

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.

The village of Romanovka is located 50km from the Talakan uranium mine. Uranium concentrates are transported across the River Vitim by ferries and cargo boats. Some of its abandoned ditches, known to be radioactive, were for many years exposed to open air, and studies showed a correlation between air- and water-borne exposure to this uranium supply and a cancer cluster in the local community. However, as is frequently the case with mining in developing regions, there had been no technical documentation throughout this mine's history and thus solidly proving a link was difficult. The village is also located just 1.5 km from other natural uranium deposits, and residents are known to raise crops and livestock there. Regardless of the immediate source, villagers were definitely suffering from exposure to radioactive material.

The village of Romanovka is located 50km from the Talakan uranium mine. Uranium concentrates are transported across the River Vitim by ferries and cargo boats. Some of the mine's abandoned ditches, known to be radioactive, were for many years exposed to open air, and studies showed a correlation between air- and water-borne exposure to this uranium supply and a cancer cluster in the local community. However, as is frequently the case with mining in developing regions, there had been no technical documentation throughout this mine's history and thus solidly proving a causal link was difficult. The village is also located just 1.5 km from other natural uranium deposits, and residents are known to raise crops and livestock in those zones. Regardless of the immediate source, villagers were definitely suffering from exposure to radioactive material.

The Rudnaya River Valley region has observed a high rate of cancer as well as chronic and acute illnesses due to the use of outdated mining technology and metal smelting. The district capital Dalnegorsk is contaminated with boron, sulfur, and heavy metals including lead, cadmium, and zinc. The second biggest town in the valley is Rudnaya Pristan, which translates into “mining port� and is built around the lead smelter and the seaport, is one of the most lead contaminated sites in Russia. The town has the highest rate of respiratory diseases in the region and other illnesses including neurological damage. Children there continued to have a higher blood lead levels even after the intervention began. For almost a century, lead and zinc ore produced in the local mines is processed at the refining factory in Dalnegorsk. The lead and zinc concentrate were transported in open cars to Rudnaya Pristan for smelting up until 2006. Lead and cadmium, the most potent toxins in the region, damage human health through inhalation of lead dust, playing with contaminated soil, eating produce grown on contaminated lands, and air pollution. These toxins inhibit the functioning and development of the nervous system and are particularly harmful to children, leading to permanent learning and behavior disorders. Common symptoms of lead poisoning include abdominal pain, headache, anemia, irritability, and in severe cases seizures, coma, and death.

DDT was widely used in Russia in the 1950s for the suppression of the Siberian silkworm. Although officially banned in the USSR in 1970, DDT continued to be used until the late 1980s. Significant amounts of DDT remain unused and stored n the Bakcharskaya region around the city of Tomsk.

Following the fall of communism in 1991, many DDT storage areas were left in neglect and some warehouses where DDT and other pesticides are stored have since collapsed, posing serious risks to the environment and human health. An inspection by the local environmental agency of Tomsk in 2002-2003 discovered 3 tons of DDT stored in local hangars, with reports that some DDT had already leaked out into the surrounding environment and the `Big Daw' settlement area.

Ufa is one of most heavily contaminated dioxin sites in Russia. In 1990 a phenol spill at the Khimprom herbicide plant leaked into Ufa’s drinking water supply. An investigation of the impact of this incident on human health revealed that levels of dioxin in the human body in Ufa were ten times background levels. The factory at the center of this contamination has long since been closed. Around 500,000 of petroleum by-products containing dioxin remain stored on the factory premises.

Volkhov is a small town on Lake Lagoda, in Karelia Province. Russia's first aluminum processing facility is located here. The plants were built in 1931 to take advantage of local bauxite from the Tikhvin deposit and to utilise the capacity of the first hydroelectric power station in the USSR, built at the same time.

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.

Zmeenogorsk is a small town in an area of hills, about 250 kilometers south west of Barnaul, the capital of Altai Krai (in southern Siberia). A small mining town, it was a center for gold and silver mining over the past century. There was a concentration/processing operation on a flat area of riverbank on the outskirts of the town. Mining activities ceased about 50 years ago and there are now only ruins of the processing facilities (along with the ruins of a prison which as also on the site). No details are available of the specific operations of the plant but it is believed that mercury was added at the concentration stage.