The World - News from Sept. 7, 1989

The Soviet Union, bowing to demands of local residents, has abandoned plans to complete a plant to dispose of chemical weapons at Chapayevsk on the Volga River, Tass reported. In a sign of an increasing willingness by authorities to listen to growing environmental concerns, the official Soviet news agency said that a government commission has agreed to suspend construction of what it called a “dangerous enterprise.” Moscow, now negotiating a treaty with Washington to ban chemical weapons, had intended to start using the plant later this year. It was not clear from the Tass report if an alternative would be found. Tass said people in the region where the plant was being built--about 500 miles southeast of Moscow--had protested its construction for a year.