Buried hazardous waste from the union carbide plant has seeped into drinking water sources, debilitating the lives of people there. Will incineration finally close this sad chapter?
By Rakesh Dixit
Thirty years after the world’s worst industrial disaster took place in Bhopal, buried toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant is still creating havoc in the lives of people living around the plant. Lethal cyanide gas killed thousands and maimed lakhs on December 2, 1984. Even today, more than 50,000 people around the killer factory continue to drink water that has been poisoned by the hazardous waste.
This was found out in July 2004, when a voluntary organization moved a PIL in the Madhya Pradesh High Court after soil sample tests carried out in and around the closed Union Carbide plant revealed air and water pollution due to 350 tons of buried toxic waste. The waste can be found in pits in some 21 locations within the 68-acre site and also buried in wasteland outside. But despite petitions from the state government and NGOs, little was done to remove it.
INCINERATION TRIALS
However, nine years and several U-turns later, a 2005 order of the MP High Court to incinerate the waste at Pithampur industrial area in Dhar district of MP has finally been accepted by the center and the state government. However, doubts persist as to when the incineration will begin. RA Khandelwal, commissioner, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Relief and Rehabilitation Department, says the Supreme Court (SC) had in April 2014 ordered that 10 tons be incinerated at Pithampur on a trial basis. “However, due to technical glitches in the incinerator, the waste has not been sent to Pithampur,” he says.
“If the trial run goes through successfully, the remaining waste can then be incinerated over the next five weeks or so,” says Pravir Krishn, principal secretary, Bhopal gas relief and rehabilitation. A Mumbai firm has been tied up for this project at an estimated cost of Rs. 110 crore.
NGOs working among the survivors are skeptical about the government’s plan and anguished over the delay. “Why were so many years wasted in court wrangling?” asks Abdul Jabbar, convenor, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan. “For people near the factory, the tragedy isn’t over as yet, as they still face air and water pollution from the hazardous waste lying there,” he rues.
The flip-flop over disposing off the waste began in 2004. That’s when the MP High Court constituted a task force to make recommendations on its disposal after a petition was filed by Alok Pratap Singh, an activist. In June 2005, MP tasked Ramky Enviro Engineering at Pithampur to burn the waste.
STIFF OPPOSITION
But the move faced stiff opposition from NGOs, which claimed that waste disposal at the incinerator would harm Pithampur’s people and its environment. Even BJP leaders such as former union minister Vikram Varma and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan lent their support.
Subsequently, the high court amended the order, asking the state government to dispose of the waste at Gujarat’s Ankleshwar incinerator. This was resisted by NGOs from Gujarat. The then Narendra Modi government petitioned the apex court to review the decision. MP too moved the SC in August 2008. In October 2009, the task force took another U-turn and decided to recommend incineration at Pithampur.
The SC upheld this in its order in January 2010. However, protests again erupted in Pithampur, forcing the MP government to write to the center in August 2010 to reconsider the decision. The center, in turn, moved the MP High Court, seeking directions to incinerate the waste at a Nagpur facility of the Defense Research and Deve-lopment Organization. The court agreed.
But yet again, protests erupted, this time from the Vidarbha Environmental Action Group. The NGO managed to get a stay from the Mumbai high court in July 2011. To break the impasse, officials of the pollution control boards of MP and Maharashtra agreed that Pithampur would be the incineration site.
Meanwhile, a German company, GEZ, evinced interest in destroying the toxic waste in Hamburg. The center took this proposal to the SC for approval. It directed the MP government to send the waste to Germany in April 2012, only to revert the order following withdrawal of the offer by GEZ because of opposition to this in Germany.
In October 2012, a group of ministers (GoM), headed by then finance
minister P Chidambaram, once again decided that the waste would be destroyed at Pithampur. The GoM earmarked `315 crore for the project. The SC finally approved the GoM decision in April this year.
INSENSITIVE COURTS
“The courts have not been sensitive to the plight of the gas tragedy victims. Let us hope more judicial flip-flop will not happen,” Jabbar says. “There is a very high prevalence of anaemia, delayed menarches in girls and painful skin conditions. But what is most pronounced is the number of children with birth defects,” says activist Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Medical Appeal, which runs a clinic for gas victims.
While those directly affected receive free medical health care, activists say authorities have failed to support those sick from drinking the contaminated water. Baskut Tuncak, UN special rapporteur on human rights and toxic waste, said in a statement recently: “New victims of the Bhopal disaster are born every day, and suffer life-long from adverse health impacts.”
Sunita Narain, director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), says the waste dumped by Union Carbide is a serious problem and needs to be dealt with urgently. CSE had, in 2009, taken samples from around the factory site and found that it contained chlorinated benzene compounds and organochlorine pesticides 561 times above the national standard. The chemicals from within the site matched those in the drinking water in colonies outside, the report said.
Seventeen people living around the plant had also filed a petition in US courts to get Union Carbide to bear the cost of the clean-up.
However, a New York court in August this year struck down this case, ruling in favor of Union Carbide Corporation, saying the company could not be sued for ongoing contamination from the chemical plant.
Justice is not easy to come by.