The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is setting up a new fund to deal with the legacy of Soviet-era uranium mining and processing in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The new account with the name Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia is being established at the request of the European Commission, which is providing an initial 8 million euros, with additional funding under consideration.
The fund will finance projects to rehabilitate high-priority sites in the countries where it will operate, the Bank reported. Central Asia served as an important source of uranium in the former Soviet Union. This led to a large amount of radioactive contaminated material from the mining industry being placed in mining waste dumps and tailing sites. Most of the mines were closed by 1995 but very little remediation was done. The accumulated amount of radioactive contaminated material in the region is a threat to the environment and to the health of the population. Many of the uranium legacy sites are concentrated along the tributaries to the Syr Darya River, which runs through the densely populated Fergana Valley, the agricultural center of the region which is shared by the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
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