Sources and types of environmental pollution

Radiation space debris

A separate problem is radioactive space debris. Solar energy alone is not enough for the full-fledged operation of the spacecraft. In this regard, at the end of the last century, attempts were made to use alternative sources energy for the spacecraft. Several tens of spacecraft with nuclear power sources were launched into near-earth orbits, the time of ballistic existence of which is many hundreds of years. Scientific research has shown that in the event of the destruction of these devices, some radioactive debris can enter the upper atmosphere in a few years.

Radiation space objects are composed of different components, which can be divided into three main groups:

Fragments of nuclear power plants;

Separate spacecraft with nuclear power plants (NPP) that have completed their operating cycle;

Operating spacecraft, on board of which there are certain nuclear installations that pose a potential danger due to the likelihood of their destruction due to collisions with elements of ordinary space debris or with meteoroids.

The radioactive elements of each of the three groups have radiation characteristics. First of all, it is the total flux and energy spectrum of gamma-neutron radiation. The study of these characteristics makes it possible to determine the type of radioactive fragments of space debris, to analyze the dynamics of their further state, and also to assess their contribution to the general radiation situation.

Spacecraft with nuclear power plants on board, launched into a circular near-earth orbit with an altitude of 800 - 900 km, should enter the upper atmosphere after many hundreds of years, no longer presenting the danger of radioactive contamination of the atmosphere. But in case of destruction (for example, from a collision with space debris or a meteoroid) fragments can form that can enter the atmosphere after a few years.

Chapter 7. Impact of the RF Armed Forces on the Environment

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has a multifaceted field of activity that affects the ecological situation in the country's territories. In military units there are a large number of potentially hazardous military facilities, such as nuclear launchers, storage facilities for liquid rocket fuels, storage and depots of ammunition, weapons, military equipment, and fuel and lubricants. During their operation, there is constant pollution of the environment. natural environment - atmospheric air, soil, surface and ground waters, flora and fauna. In addition, accidents can occur at these facilities, leading to more serious, possibly irreparable, environmental consequences.

Sources of environmental pollution at military facilities are usually:

Public utility facilities;

Life support facilities;

Areas and places of combat training;

Armament and military equipment.

The objects of the first two of the named types belong to the sources of pollution common to all military units. The next two types of objects can have significant specificity - depending on their belonging to different types Armed Forces and combat arms.

Sources of pollution common to all military units (regardless of belonging to a particular type of the Armed Forces and branch of the armed forces) can be called:

Barracks and housing stock;

Boiler rooms, catering units, first-aid posts, bath and laundry facilities;

Sewerage systems, treatment facilities;

Subsidiary farms;

General purpose vehicles;

Items Maintenance and repair of vehicles and special equipment;

Gas stations, battery charging points, compressor stations;

Fuel and lubricants warehouses;

Places for collecting household waste and garbage.

These are sources that operate constantly and are not associated with the belonging of a military unit (military facility). Therefore, they can be conditionally attributed to military household sources. They differ little from similar sources for civilian agencies. At the same time, these sources should be classified as the most unfavorable from the point of view of the frequency of their violations of environmental legislation.

The reason for this phenomenon lies in the low ecological culture of the service personnel and all military personnel, which is manifested in the lack of due attention of the leadership to the creation and maintenance of environmental and nature protection structures at military facilities - on the one hand, and in violations of environmental requirements by subordinate personnel in everyday life, during the operation and maintenance of equipment, in field exercises and exercises - on the other.

Military facilities, special equipment and residential camps of military units are presented from an environmental point of view complex systems, using, on the one hand, natural resources to support their activities and, on the other, are sources of various harmful effects on the environment, mainly pollution.

Therefore, the obligatory part of environmental support the daily activities of troops is the protection of the natural environment, which provides for:

Organization of environmentally safe water use;

Treatment of domestic and operational (industrial) waste water;

Reduction of volumes and neutralization of gas emissions containing products of combustion of fuels;

Collection and disposal of solid operational and household waste;

Protection of the environment from harmful energy pollution;

Restoration of the quality of environmental components disturbed as a result of the daily activities of the troops.

IN last years Among environmental measures, more and more attention is paid to the environmental safety of the elimination of weapons, military equipment and military facilities in general.

Introduction

TSB gives such a concept to war - “War is an organized armed struggle between states, classes or nations. War is the continuation of politics by violent methods. In war, the armed forces are used as the main and decisive means ... ". War happens like inside a country between citizens - Civil War and between countries, for example, the Great Patriotic War. But no matter what the war was, it is still terrible. Sadly, war is a companion to economic development. The higher the level of economic development, the more powerful and perfect the weapons used by the belligerent states. So when economic development any state reaches such a moment in the economy that the country will consider itself a combat-ready country, stronger than other countries, this will lead to a war between these countries.

The impact of wars on the environment

Any military action leads to the destruction of the environment. Since, for example, a high-explosive weapon can cause great damage to both the soil and vegetation cover and the inhabitants of forests and fields. Also, chemical, incendiary, gas weapons radically harm the environment. All these blows to the environment, which are growing as the economic power of a person increases, lead to the fact that nature does not have time to compensate for the destructive consequences of human economic activity.

The use of natural objects for military purposes is their use to defeat the enemy. The simplest common methods are water poisoning and fires. The first method is the most common due to its simplicity and effectiveness. Another method - fires - was also often used in war. The inhabitants of the steppes were especially fond of this method: it is understandable - in the steppe, fire quickly spreads over vast territories, and even if the enemy does not die in the fire, he will be destroyed by the lack of water, food and feed for livestock. They burned, of course, and forests, but this is less effective from the point of view of defeating the enemy, and was usually used for other purposes, which will be discussed below.

Another reason is the huge burial sites that remain at the sites of major battles (for example, during the battle on the Kulikovo field, 120,000 people died). With the decomposition of a huge number of corpses, poisons are formed, which with rain or groundwater fall into water bodies, poisoning them. The same poisons kill animals at the burial site. They are all the more dangerous because their action can begin both immediately and only after many years.

But all of the above is the destruction of natural objects as a means of destruction or a consequence of battles (ancient eras). In war, nature and, first of all, forests are purposefully destroyed. This is done with a trivial goal: to deprive the enemy of shelter and livelihood. The first goal is the simplest and most understandable - after all, forests at all times served as a reliable refuge for troops, primarily for small detachments waging a partisan war. An example of such an attitude towards nature is the so-called green crescent - the territories stretching from the Nile Delta through Palestine and Mesopotamia to India, as well as the Balkan Peninsula. During all wars, forests were cut down as the basis of the country's economy. As a result, these lands have now turned, for the most part, into deserts. Only in our years the forests in these territories began to be restored, and even then with great difficulty (an example of such works is Israel, on whose territory there were once huge forests that completely covered the mountains, and were heavily chopped down by the Assyrians and almost completely cut down by the Romans). In general, it must be admitted that the Romans had great experience for the destruction of nature, for example, after the defeat of Carthage, they covered all the fertile lands in its vicinity with salt, making them unsuitable not only for agriculture, but also for the growth of most plant species.

The next factor in the impact of wars on nature is the movement of significant masses of people, equipment and weapons. This became especially pronounced only in the XX century, when the feet of millions of soldiers, wheels and especially the tracks of tens of thousands of cars began to dust the ground, and their noise and waste polluted the area for many kilometers around (and also on a wide front, i.e. That is, in fact, a solid strip). Also in the twentieth century, new powerful projectiles and engines appear.

First, about the shells. First, the power of the new projectiles was predetermined by the fact that new types of explosives produced explosions of much greater power than black powder - 20 times more powerful, or even more. Secondly, the guns have changed - they began to send projectiles at much larger angles, so that the projectiles fell to the ground at a large angle and penetrated deep into the soil. Thirdly, the main thing in the progress of artillery was the increase in the firing range. The range of the guns increased so much that they began to fire beyond the horizon, at an invisible target. Coupled with the inevitable increase in the dispersion of shells, this led to firing not at targets, but at areas.

In connection with the change in the combat formations of the troops, shrapnel and grenades (and artillery, and hand, and rifle, etc.) came to replace the explosive bombs of smooth-bore guns. And ordinary landmines give a lot of fragments - this is another damaging factor that affects both the enemy and nature.

Aviation has also been added to artillery pieces: bombs also have a large dispersion and penetrate deep into the ground, even deeper than shells of the same weight. At the same time, the charge of bombs is much larger than in artillery shells. In addition to destroying soil and destroying animals directly by explosions and shell fragments (in the broadest sense of the word), new ammunition causes forest and steppe fires. To all this, it is necessary to add such types of pollution as acoustic, chemical pollution as products of explosion and powder gases, products of combustion caused by explosions.

Another class of negative impacts on the environment is associated with the use of engines. The first engines - they were steam engines - did not do much damage, unless, of course, you count the huge amount of soot they emitted. But at the end of the 19th century, they were replaced by turbines and internal combustion engines that run on oil. The first military engines in general and oil engines in particular appeared in the Navy. And if the harm from steam engines, on coal, was limited to soot and slags thrown into the sea, calmly lying on the bottom, then the oil engines not only did not reduce the soot, but also made it more harmful, fatal for the flora and fauna of water bodies. On land, the harm from engines was, in principle, limited to only exhaust and small (compared to the sea) spots of land flooded with petrol and oil products. Another thing is that wounds on the ground, and sometimes they do not heal for a long time, are left by machines driven by these motors. But this is not so bad. The above pollution is not specifically military, it is typical for all ships. But main feature warships in particular and wars at sea in general is the death of ships. And if the wooden ships of the sailing era, going to the bottom, left behind only a few chips on the surface, which quietly rotted at the bottom, giving food to mollusks, then the new ships leave huge spots of oil on the surface and poison the bottom fauna with a mass of poisonous synthetic substances and lead. containing paints. So, in May 1941. after the sinking of the Bismarck, 2000 tons of oil spilled out. During World War II alone, more than 10 thousand ships and vessels were sunk. Most of them had oil heating.

To this must be added the fact that both in peacetime and in wartime, huge tankers carry oil and oil products by sea. And if in peacetime they are not in greater danger than the rest of the ships, then in wartime they are sunk in the first place, because without fuel the most formidable equipment turns into scrap metal.

Tankers are the main target of all weapons at sea in WWII.

In addition to this, the war at sea has another specific danger for all living things, associated with the peculiarities of the aquatic environment. Any modern war uses the force of the explosion of various substances. Their main task is to give high speed to projectiles (from rockets and artillery shells to their fragments and bullets) or to create a blast wave. But on land, the last damaging factor is, in general, secondary, since the blast wave in the air is not so strong due to the low air density, and secondly, due to the fact that it quickly fades away, but in the shock wave has crushing power in water.

Fishing with dynamite is considered a terrible barbarism. In all civilized countries, this is considered poaching and is prohibited, and low developed countries, in which such fishing is widespread, gets pretty much from ecologists from more prosperous countries. But if the explosion of one checker in several tens of grams is considered barbarism, then what to call tens and hundreds of thousands of ammunition exploding in water? Is that a crime against all living things ...

In the XX century, all types of weapons have developed. There were also new ones: tanks, aircraft, missiles. And although their strength was immeasurably higher than that of older species, they also struck one or more people at a time. The most important thing in the development of weapons in the 20th century is that qualitatively new types of weapons have appeared - those that are called weapons of mass destruction. These are chemical, bacteriological and atomic weapons. One need not even talk about the impact of their combat use - its consequences are clear as it is. But unlike conventional weapons, weapons of mass destruction should be tested not only before, but also after acceptance, the consequences are close to the combat use of these weapons. The number of tests of chemical and atomic weapons cannot be compared with the number of facts of their combat use. Thus, atomic weapons were used only twice, and there were more than 2,100 tests. About 740 of them were carried out in the USSR alone.

In addition, in the production of chemical and especially atomic weapons (yes, in principle, and any other), a lot of harmful and dangerous substances are obtained that are difficult to dispose of and store, and even then they are often not utilized or stored, but simply thrown away. Considering that many chemical substances do not decay for hundreds of years, and radioactive ones - for hundreds of thousands, millions and even billions of years - it becomes clear that the military industry is laying a time bomb under the human gene pool.

In Russia and the USA, on the basis of physical and mathematical models, the consequences of the exchange of nuclear strikes for the Earth's climate and biosphere were calculated. The TNT equivalent in model calculations varied from 1 to 10 million tons. Even an exchange of blows of 1 thousand megatons, which corresponds to the minimum possible amount when unleashing a general nuclear war, should lead to the emergence of "nuclear winter" - a sharp drop in air temperature in the lower atmosphere, which can range from 15 to 40 C (in the Northern Hemisphere). Further events can develop according to following scheme... The supply of solar energy to the earth's surface will significantly decrease, while the long-wave radiation of the earth's surface and atmosphere into space will continue. The presence of dust and soot particles in the Earth's stratosphere will lead to its warming up and establishment temperature regime, preventing air exchange in height. The firmament will be covered with a continuous dark veil. The ocean temperature will drop by several degrees. The temperature contrast in the "ocean-land" system will lead to the emergence of destructive cyclonic formations with heavy snowfalls. A nuclear winter can last for several years and cover a significant part of the the globe... It will end only when most of the dust settles on the surface of the Earth. The death of a part of the terrestrial vegetation will lead to the death of many animal species.

The environmental consequences of local conflicts can be assessed by the examples of the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US aircraft in 1945 or the largest disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986.

The radioactive air masses formed as a result of the disaster, passing over the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, a number of regions of Russia, reached Poland, Germany, Scandinavian countries, and then France, Austria, Italy on August 27-28. Somewhat later, an increase in the radioactivity of air and land was noted in Asia and North America. Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be permanently closed and dismantled by 2065. Today, nuclear power and its impact on the environment are the most pressing issues at international congresses and meetings.

The production of any product requires the expenditure of any resources, which, naturally, are taken from the reserves of nature. Weapons are no exception, besides, they are usually very complex in design and require many different types of raw materials. The military does not care too much about environmental technologies, and even more so during a war - the formula works as much as possible, as cheaply and as quickly as possible. With this approach, it makes no sense even to talk about the protection of nature and its wealth.

If earlier the basis of all wars was the physical defeat of troops (although environmental methods were used for this), then in the second half of the 20th century, the basis of the strategy and tactics of the belligerent countries was the deliberate destruction of nature on the enemy's territory - “ecocide”. And here the United States is ahead of the rest. Having started the war in Vietnam, the United States used its territory as a testing ground for weapons of mass destruction and new tactics of warfare. War 1961-1973 on the territory of Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea, it had pronounced features of ecocide. For the first time in the history of wars, the target of defeat was the habitat of entire peoples: crops of agricultural plants, plantations industrial crops, huge tracts of plain and mountain jungles, mangrove forests. On the territory of South Vietnam, 11 million tons of bombs, shells and mines, including large-caliber bombs designed to destroy the natural environment, were detonated. For the destruction of vegetation, more than 22 million liters of a poisonous substance, about 500 thousand tons of incendiary substances were used. Together with military herbicides, at least 500-600 kg have got into the natural environment of South Vietnam. dioxin - the most toxic of natural and synthetic poisons. In 1971. The United States has set the task of completely destroying the forests of Vietnam. Huge bulldozers literally cut the forest along with the fertile layer to the root. The ecological war in Vietnam must be seen as the deliberate use by the US Army of advances in chemistry, ecology, and military science to destroy the human environment. Such actions can lead to significant climatic shifts, a sharp and irreversible decrease in the biopotential of the region, the creation of unbearable conditions for production activities and the life of the population.

Since ancient times, wars have had the most negative impact on the world around us and on ourselves. With the development of human society and technical progress, wars became more and more fierce, and they increasingly influenced nature. As society developed, armies grew - from a few primitive hunters armed with clubs to the multimillion-dollar armies of the 20th century. At first, the losses of nature due to the small capabilities of man were small, but gradually they became first noticeable, and then catastrophic.

Military objects are called the troops and forces under the legal responsibility of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, weapons and military equipment, training fields, shooting ranges, ranges, tank and autodromes, part of the territory, water areas and airspace with control objects located on them, enterprises, military training institutions, military garrisons and townships intended for the implementation of all types of military activities.

The interaction of military facilities with the environment is carried out in several directions. First, any object consumes natural resources to maintain the combat effectiveness and combat readiness of troops. Secondly, it negatively affects the environment, polluting it with waste and initiating various deliberate changes. And thirdly, he himself is exposed to environmental factors arising as a response to the processes of development and environmental pollution.

The problems of the rational use of natural resources are associated with the large material and resource intensity of military facilities, the complexity of the disposal of products, equipment and structures that have served their service life, and insufficient use of the secondary resources released in this case. For modern army characterized by the rapid replacement of weapons and military equipment, the use of materials and technologies that have an adverse effect on the natural environment.

The total area of ​​land allocated for the daily activities of troops in Russia is 0.2% of the country's land fund. Environmental pollution is associated with the formation of waste and emissions as a result of the daily operation of weapons and military equipment, vehicles, life support systems of military facilities. Sources of possible environmental pollution in the military unit are quite numerous. They are subdivided into types depending on their characteristics. Organized sources of pollution are sources that are equipped with engineering devices for the release of pollutants into the environment. Examples of such sources are a jet engine nozzle, sewer outlet, ventilation deflectors, etc. Accordingly, in the absence of special devices, the sources will be considered unorganized. These include construction sites, landfills, train stations, field pipelines, and many other facilities. According to the mode of operation of a military facility, pollution sources are divided into continuous and permanent ones. One military facility can contain dozens of single and group, point and area, stationary and mobile sources of pollution. Areal sources of pollution include the bases of the fleet, launch sites of cosmodromes, airfields, vehicle fleets, office buildings and structures, barracks and residential towns. At each source of pollution there is a unit, device, element - a source of the formation of pollutants.

The common and most typical sources of pollution for all military facilities are boiler houses, catering facilities, medical institutions, bath and laundry facilities, general purpose vehicles, fuel and lubricants depots, and places for collecting household waste.

The direct impact of the source of pollution on the environment is carried out through emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere, discharges into water bodies and burial of waste in the soil. Accordingly, emissions are gaseous pollution and aerosols, soot and dust generated during the transportation and storage of fuel, as a result of fuel combustion in boiler houses, engines of vehicles and other installations, the operation of construction mechanisms and industries. Discharges are household and industrial wastewater coming from service points of military equipment and technological facilities, from barracks, hospitals, residential and public buildings, treatment facilities... Waste is understood as solid polluting materials and substances generated during the operation of military facilities, in the residential area of ​​military camps and at public catering establishments.

Many of these wastes are toxic. Others contain pathogenic bacteria that cause bacteriological contamination. Decomposition of waste in the environment can generate new pollutants, sometimes more toxic than the original ones, causing secondary pollution. An example is the release of organophosphorus compounds and dioxins during the combustion of household waste, the fallout of acid rain.

Depending on the severity of the consequences of environmental conflicts, environmental emergencies, environmental disasters and catastrophes are distinguished.

Ecological emergencies are manifested in persistent negative changes in the natural environment, the state of natural ecological systems, genetic funds of plants and animals. An objective sign of an environmental emergency is a stable change in the qualitative parameters of the environment in relation to normal values, which, as a rule, are the result of anthropogenic impacts. Emergencies mostly lead to chemical, radiation and biological contamination of territories, to a deterioration in the living conditions of people, significant social implications, environmental and economic damage.

The ecological disaster is associated with profound, irreversible changes in the environment, which entailed a significant deterioration in the health of the population, disruption of the natural balance, destruction of natural ecological systems, degradation of flora and fauna. Ecologists judge the depth of ecological contradictions by changes in integral indicators, such as ecological diversity, incidence rate, life expectancy, etc.

An environmental catastrophe is usually called the consequences of natural anomalies (drought, flood, space cataclysms, etc.) or accidents

technical devices that have led to large-scale acutely unfavorable changes in the environment, mass death of people and

living organisms. Environmental disasters in a broad sense are associated with the onset of irreversible changes in the environment, incompatible with the existence of pre-existing forms of life. Examples of events of this kind in the history of the earth are ice ages, the formation and advance of deserts, the drying up of the seas, the sinking and rising of the land relative to the level of the world ocean, as well as the possible consequences of a global thermonuclear war, if it happens. In the military field, many types of activities are environmentally hazardous.

The total effect of the impact of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the environment in peacetime, according to some estimates, is comparable to the impact of one of the medium-sized industries.

The military sphere also encompasses a large group of industrial sectors engaged in the production of weapons for warfare. They are characterized by high technologies, good organization production, constant control by environmental authorities, which in general allows to ensure an appropriate level of environmental safety. Despite the large volumes of production and the location of enterprises mainly in large industrialized centers with an acute ecological situation, the contribution of the defense industry to air pollution is about 1% of the total emission of industrial sources in the country.

Despite the complexity and existing problems in ensuring the environmental safety of various types of military activities, the environmental situation in the army and navy cannot be considered hopeless. Environmental training and professionalism of the Armed Forces personnel, high quality weapons and military equipment, completeness and timeliness of environmental protection measures aimed at preserving natural resources are the basis of the principles of rational environmental management.

Environmental requirements represent a set of restrictions on the parameters of products, materials and technological processes used in military affairs, as well as the limiting values ​​of their quality characteristics, composition and conditions of hazardous waste emissions, which ensure the environmental safety of military activities.

Environmental requirements should take into account all the environmental features of a military facility and the possible adverse consequences of its functioning and simple existence for the environment. Requirements are set during the development of weapons, they are carried out and controlled during their manufacture and operation through a system of quality indicators. Traditionally, the quality of man-made objects was defined as a set of properties that are useful from the point of view of their intended purpose.

To prevent environmental emergencies, it is necessary that the real levels of all types of possible impacts of an object on

the natural environment did not exceed scientifically grounded permissible limits.

Therefore, the maximum permissible levels of harmful effects are an integral part of the environmental requirements for any technogenic object.

In practice, the degree of environmental safety of an object is most often judged by the actual emissions of pollution. From an economic point of view, the environmental safety of an object is characterized by the share of the costs of eliminating the environmental consequences of its functioning of the total operating costs.

The list of basic environmental requirements for the most dangerous types of technogenic activities includes:

• - the obligation to plan and implement comprehensive measures to protect soils, water bodies, forests, vegetation and wildlife from the side effects of the use of complex military equipment, special materials and substances; rational use of land, preservation of the fertile soil layer, economical consumption of water, protection of natural resources from depletion;
• - increasing the efficiency of energy use of all types and the development of energy-saving technologies;
• - ensuring complete radiation safety;
• - compliance with the rules of storage, transportation and use chemical substances, explosive and hazardous materials;
• - creation of the most favorable conditions for life, work and rest of personnel and population;
• - preservation of monuments of nature, history and culture;
• - informing the authorities responsible for ensuring radiation and environmental safety about all cases of exceeding the permissible environmental impact standards;

Complete and immediate elimination of the environmental consequences of industrial accidents.

During operation, ensuring the environmental safety of military facilities should be based on a deep knowledge of the personnel of the environmental requirements and features of weapons and military equipment, strict adherence rules and technologies for the operation and maintenance of military equipment, the organization of environmental monitoring and control.

For the destruction of retired weapons and military equipment, technologies should be used that have received a positive conclusion from the State Environmental Expertise at the development stage, and are safe for the environment, personnel and the population. Destruction technologies should be low-waste, material and resource-saving, with minimal impact on the environment. In areas of destruction of weapons and military equipment containing toxic and radioactive substances, monitoring of the state of the environment should be organized in order to control its possible changes.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are one of the largest environmental users. In accordance with the law "On Defense", lands, forests, waters and other natural resources provided to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations and bodies are in federal ownership.

Lands, forests, waters and other natural resources owned by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, local authorities, in private ownership, may be withdrawn for the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations and bodies only in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Rocket and space activities of the Armed Forces are a serious source of environmental pollution. Over the many years of operation of the test sites in a number of regions of the Russian Federation, pockets of pollution have formed from the fall of separating parts of missiles with the remains of components of liquid rocket fuel.

The radiation and environmental situation remains difficult in the areas where the Northern and Pacific fleets are based and in the seas washing the northern and Far Eastern coasts of the country, as a result of the activities of the nuclear fleet and operation nuclear reactors, dumping and disposal of radioactive waste at sea. At the coastal technical bases of the Navy, a large amount of spent nuclear fuel, solid and liquid radioactive waste, submarines and surface ships with nuclear and power plants decommissioned from the fleet has accumulated.

An acute problem for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the pollution of the environment with oil products. About 50% of warehouses and their equipment are outdated. As a result of leakage, oil products enter surface waters and into subterranean horizons, where lenses form. A lens of petroleum products has been formed and require elimination in the garrisons of Mirny, Kotlas, Bologoye, Teikovo, Kostroma, Yoshkar-Ola, and others.

Due to the shortage of vessels collecting bilge and ballast water, as well as onshore (floating) stations for their processing, the level of sea pollution at the fleet base remains high (5-10 MPC).

A serious problem is the state of the waste treatment facilities in the military garrisons. Approximately 28 million cubic meters are being cleaned. m of wastewater discharged by the facilities of the Ministry of Defense. Planned targets for the commissioning of treatment facilities in garrisons are not being fulfilled from year to year.

Due to the saturation of the RF Armed Forces with radio equipment, the problem of protecting the population from electromagnetic radiation arose.

Currently, a particularly acute problem for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the elimination and disposal of a large number nuclear and chemical weapons, weapons and military equipment carried out under international treaties and agreements. The complexity of solving these problems is determined by the lack of optimal disposal technologies that would fully take into account the requirements of environmental safety.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION FROM MILITARY ACTIVITIES

Any military formation - from a separate unit to an operational-strategic association - can be considered as a specific ecological system, the main elements of which are the personnel (with weapons and military equipment) and the environment of the points (areas) of deployment. A distinctive feature of the activity of such an ecological system is the clear priority of combat training and combat operations, which is rather difficult to combine with environmental protection measures. And at the same time, there are ways to solve this difficult task.

3.1. MILITARY OBJECT AND MILITARY ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEM

Military facility- these are troops located in the areas of deployment, concentration, on the march, at the initial firing and launch positions, airfields, naval bases, warships and transports, command posts, communications centers, radio-technical systems for detecting guidance and weapons control, rear services, enterprises, institutions, and organizations of the Armed Forces and other troops, as well as other objects that are the place of their military activity.

Military ecological system- This is a natural-anthropogenic (disturbed) system, including personnel, weapons and military equipment, military facilities of troops and forces and their environment in areas and points of permanent or temporary deployment and performance of training, combat and other tasks.

The military ecological system also includes the territory on which military facilities are located, troops operate, natural objects are located and the local population lives.

When organizing and implementing environmental protection measures in the troops, the ground unit (initial element) for ensuring environmental safety is taken as military City- as a stationary military object or any military formation - as a movable (mobile) object.

Military City- this is a certain territory with buildings and structures located on it, designed to accommodate one or several military units, one or several institutions, military educational institutions, enterprises of the Armed Forces.

Usually a military town consists of service and barracks, technical and residential zones. Staffs, barracks, classrooms, guard rooms, soldiers' canteens, clubs, and first-aid posts are located in the service-barracks zone. In the technical area there are parks with combat and special equipment, warehouses, workshops and other special facilities. In the residential area there are houses for officers, warrant officers, civilian personnel and their families, as well as consumer services. Training fields, shooting ranges, training grounds, tank courses, autodromes, as a rule, are located outside the territory of the military camp.

Thus, in the military town, the living and working zones are clearly distinguished. Both of them, in one way or another, pollute the environment, habitat. At the same time, the first is a source of household pollution, and the second is a source environmental pollution of all types. But it is in working area most of the day, the personnel of the military facilities are located and operate. And since the preservation of human health is a priority task of ensuring environmental safety, then, therefore, the main efforts should be aimed at creating for them normal conditions existence within the framework of military objects (while excluding or reducing its own harmful effects military facility on the environment), as well as to protect both man and nature from harmful technogenic loads.

3.2. POLLUTION SOURCES AT MILITARY FACILITIES

An object that emits (discharges) pollutants, energy radiation and information into the environment is called a source of environmental pollution.

Sources of pollution at military facilities are generally:

the point of emission of the pollutant (chimney, building lantern, ventilation device, etc.);

economic or natural object that produces a pollutant;

the region where the pollutants come from.

Sources of environmental pollution at military facilities are usually:

public utility facilities;

objects of life support;

areas and places of combat training;

weapons and military equipment.

The objects of the first two of the named types belong to the sources of pollution common to all military units. The next two types of objects can have significant specificity, depending on their belonging to different branches of the Armed Forces and branches of the armed forces.

Sources of pollution common to all military units (regardless of belonging to a particular type of the Armed Forces and branch of the armed forces) can be called:

barracks and housing stock;

boiler rooms, catering units, first-aid posts, bath and laundry facilities;

sewerage systems, treatment facilities;

subsidiary plots;

general purpose vehicles;

points of maintenance and repair of vehicles and special equipment;

filling stations, battery charging points, compressor stations;

warehouses for fuel and lubricants;

collection points for household waste and garbage.

These are sources that operate constantly and are not associated with the belonging of a military unit (military facility). Therefore, they can be conventionally named military household sources. They differ little from similar sources for civilian agencies. At the same time, these sources should be classified as the most unfavorable in terms of the frequency of their violations of environmental legislation.

The reason for this phenomenon lies in the low ecological culture of the service personnel and all military personnel, which is manifested in the lack of due attention of the leadership to the creation and maintenance of environmental and nature protection structures at military facilities - on the one hand, and in violations of environmental requirements by subordinate personnel in everyday life, during the operation and maintenance of equipment, in field exercises and exercises - on the other.

It should be noted that violations of the requirements of environmental legislation can be eliminated to a large extent by measures of an educational and educational nature. They are generally allowed not out of malicious intent, but due to a lack of relevant knowledge, skills and habits. Of course, purification of waste gases, waste water, recycling water supply, etc., require certain financial and material costs, without which, in principle, nature protection structures cannot be created during the construction and modernization of military facilities.

It will be much more difficult to solve the problem with specific impact factors (the factors of impact on the environment here mean any abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic impact that affects the processes, phenomena or state of this environment), inherent only to military objects.

3.3. SOURCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AT A MILITARY OBJECT DURING THE DAILY ACTIVITIES OF THE TROOPS

Let us consider in more detail the impact of military facilities on the environment using the example of the functioning of one of them. The most typical object can be a motorized rifle regiment, which in one way or another includes almost all kinds Ground forces and special troops.

The motorized rifle regiment (MSR) in its daily activities continuously has an impact on the environment, and, unfortunately, mostly negative. To identify and consider this impact, it is advisable to single out two groups of measures that together make up the content of the regiment's activities: measures for household activities and measures for combat training.

Household activities associated with creating and maintaining necessary conditions life and everyday life of servicemen, providing them with all types of allowance, maintaining the military-technical means and communications of the regiment in good working order. These activities include:

equipment and operation of the barracks, administrative and housing stocks of the military town, structures, systems and devices for communal, household, medical, material and technical and environmental purposes;

ensuring the necessary conditions for the life of the regiment personnel and the population of the military town;

maintenance and repair of weapons and military equipment (AME);

creation and maintenance of educational facilities.

An analysis of the measures of household activities in the SME shows that this activity in units of motorized rifle troops has practically the same content as in units of any other combat arms.

Combat training activities constitute the main content of the daily activities of a motorized rifle regiment in peacetime. Combat training is organized and carried out in order to train servicemen, subunits and units to successfully complete combat missions in any situation. Carrying out such activities as field exercises, shooting, driving combat vehicles, combat coordination of subunits, tactical exercises, requires the advancement of troops to training centers, placement in them and the implementation of specific combat training missions. In the course of these activities, the divisions of the regiment have a harmful effect on the environment.

Sources of harmful effects on the environment are weapons, military equipment and unit personnel.

The range of weapons and military equipment in a motorized rifle regiment is quite diverse and is divided into groups according to various criteria:

for the transport base - for wheeled vehicles and tracked vehicles;

by type of weapon - for small arms, artillery, tank, anti-aircraft and engineering weapons;

by the nature of environmental pollution - for weapons and military equipment generating electromagnetic pollution (communications and radar), creating acoustic pollution (tanks, artillery pieces, mortars and other equipment) and causing chemical pollution (special processing machines and devices, tankers, etc.);

for the purpose of technical means - for smoke masking means, air regeneration means, etc.

The transport base of weapons and military equipment is the main source of environmental pollution. Here, there is a connection with such forms of pollution as chemical pollution of the atmosphere (due to emissions of toxic exhaust gases), damage and destruction of vegetation, destruction of soil cover, noise and vibration. Pollution levels depend on the intensity, on the spatio-temporal scale of the use of tracked vehicles (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled guns, anti-aircraft guns) and wheeled vehicles (armored personnel carriers, special and transport vehicles). Therefore, combat training plans should be drawn up taking into account the provision of an even load on the environment during the academic year. It should also take into account the time and presence of permanent breeding grounds for wild animals, birds, for young animals of which the total impact anthropogenic factors caused by harmful emissions, radiation and destruction of plant and soil cover, destructive.

During field exercises and exercises, there is significant pollution of vegetation, soil, water bodies with oil products and oils during refueling, maintenance, washing and operation of equipment - as a result of leaks and spills of fuel and lubricants.

Extremely bad influence on vegetable and animal world provides the use of flamethrower-incendiary ammunition, degassing, decontaminating substances and solutions, other chemicals and means of air regeneration. Regenerative cartridges of insulating gas masks are explosive, fire hazardous, and their contents, falling into water or soil, destroy all living things. It is strictly forbidden to throw away spent air regeneration means, destroy by flooding or use for washing floors and processing products, since all of these harmful substances ultimately end up in wastewater and pollute water sources and water bodies.

As already mentioned, the sources and types of pollution for military units of all branches of the Armed Forces and combat arms in their daily activities are practically identical. For the considered example of a motorized rifle regiment, objects that are sources of pollution and the most common pollutants (pollutants) are summarized in Table. 3.1.

Table 3.1

Sources of pollution and typical pollutants from daily activities of troops

3.4. POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CLEANING OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

The main tasks in environmental protection are pollution prevention her harmful products human activities and cleaning environment-forming natural components from emissions and discharges, if pollution has already taken place.

Priority should certainly be given to the fulfillment of the first task: to prevent pollution of one's own habitat.

Unfortunately, the satisfaction of the material needs of society, at least at the present time, cannot be carried out without causing some damage to the environment. However, this damage should be as minimal as possible, since the existence of a person as a biological species depends on the preservation of the habitat. Each of us should try to find such opportunities for satisfying our needs that would not harm nature, but, on the contrary, would help maintain ecological balance, would help its sustainable development.

The Armed Forces cannot stand aside from solving such a complex and urgent task, especially since they have a colossal nature-destroying potential capable of destroying the existing ecosystems of the Earth in the event of armed conflicts.

Prevention (warning) environmental pollution is necessary both in emergency situations at military facilities and during their normal operation, when, for one reason or another, the values ​​of the established permissible emissions, discharges and waste disposal limits are exceeded.

Prevention (prevention) of environmental pollution due to the activities of military facilities can be largely carried out by measures of both organizational and technical nature.

Organizational measures include the following activities:

planning measures to reduce the harmful impact on the environment during military activities;

planning measures to maintain technical means of preventing pollution in good working order;

compliance with the modes of operation of the specified technical means;

compliance with the rules for working with potential contaminants in accordance with the current instructions;

elimination of spills and leaks of oil products;

collection and disposal of oils, acids, alkalis and other technical fluids;

collection, sorting and disposal of industrial and household waste;

exclusion of violations of vegetation and soil cover and pollution of water sources during movements and actions of troops on the ground;

minimizing the idling time of engines of combat, special and transport vehicles;

establishment of modes and directions of radiation during the operation of radio engineering systems, communication and navigation systems;

cessation of operation of sources of electromagnetic, laser, radiation radiation and exclusion of emissions of hazardous chemicals exceeding the established limits.

TO technical measures include engineering methods and methods for cleaning emissions and discharges from operating energy, industrial, utility facilities and systems from harmful components before they enter the environment.

Mechanical, physicochemical, chemical, biochemical, thermal methods and various means are used to clean them.

For the purification and neutralization of waste gases, a variety of technical devices and installations: "dry" and "wet" mechanical dust collectors, filtration installations, dust collection chambers, centrifugal structures, foam gas cleaners, shock-flushing dust collectors, ultrasonic devices, inertial dust collectors.

In order to purify waste and sewage waters, the following technical devices are used: water sedimentation tanks, grate-filtering plants, sand traps, oil traps, drum-vacuum filtering plants, centrifugal structures, dispersed plants, foam separators, ultraviolet plants, degassers for removing dissolved gases, oxidizing plants.

Prevention of soil and land pollution at military facilities is carried out in the following areas:

destruction, neutralization and disposal of solid and liquid household waste;

destruction, neutralization and utilization of agricultural waste;

land reclamation.

Mechanical and thermal methods are used to destroy solid waste. The main technical means are mechanical crushers and special furnaces. Liquid waste is usually disposed of in so-called plowing fields.

Land reclamation provides for leveling soil damage and sowing it with plant crops, overlaying productive new soil on damaged areas.

The nature of the impact on the environment of various military facilities, differing in their purpose, the type of tasks performed and other characteristics, is not the same.

The most environmentally hazardous are potentially dangerous military installations. Such objects include:

radiation hazardous - power nuclear installations; warehouses and bases with elements of nuclear weapons; nuclear research reactors; storage facilities for liquid radioactive waste; storage of solid radioactive waste; spent nuclear fuel storage; burial sites for radioactive waste;

chemically hazardous- storages and warehouses of chemicals, including chemical munitions(cassettes) with chemical warfare agents; storage facilities and warehouses for chemical warfare agents; places of destruction and burial of chemical warfare agents; storage facilities and warehouses for propellant components;

explosion and fire hazard - bases, arsenals, storage facilities and warehouses of various types of ammunition, weapons and military equipment; storages, warehouses and bases of fuel and lubricants, corrosive liquids, compressed air volumes.

Negative impacts on the environment are associated with the operation of these particular facilities, with violations of technological processes and accidents at them.

The activities of the nuclear fleet, for example, are characterized by the accumulation and storage of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste at onshore technical bases and special floating craft. For nuclear installations, it is characteristic that, even with a trouble-free mode of their operation, fission products (gaseous and volatile isotopes of krypton, xenon, iodine) enter the external environment through microscopic leaks and pipeline defects.

Nuclear weapons tests carried out in the atmosphere, space, under water lead to global radioactive contamination of the atmosphere and the earth's surface.

At such facilities as warehouses and bases of fuels and lubricants and other special fluids, with an annual turnover of materials and substances exceeding 50 thousand tons, the corresponding leakage is 5-6 percent, that is, at least 2.5-3.0 thousand tons. As a result, this leads to significant pollution of soil and groundwater.

Question cleaning and restoring the natural environment acquires particular importance in conditions when an emergency situation arises at the facility associated with the disruption of technological processes or their out of control.

Into the complex common activities on the restoration of the natural environment in case of accidents at radiation and chemically hazardous military facilities include:

assessment of the type, nature and source of the accident;

determination of the scale of the accident and damage to the natural environment;

determination of a set of measures to eliminate the consequences of the accident and restore the natural environment.

The complex of measures for the restoration of the natural environment in case of accidents at radiation hazardous military facilities also directly includes localization of the source of the accident and treatment of the contaminated area.