and now - The Water

But what I reported on 3^rd Sept post (The Night of the Explosion) was just the beginning. Many of you reading this will not know about the pollution of the groundwater, sometimes dubbed “Bhopal’s Second Disaster”.

For years before 1984, the company was dumping toxic wastes around the factory site in inadequate containers.  In an affidavit to the New York court in 1999, one worker said that, since 1969, quantities of solvents, pesticides, by-products etc were dumped in and  around the site.

Despite warnings, the company built several large waste evaporation ponds as this picture by Andy Spyra shows. There were warnings and rumours and mysterious deaths of livestock; cattle died after drinking from the waste ponds. UCC denied any responsibility but unease grew as any land onto which the ponds overflowed had a drastic decline in fertility. Some years later, an increase in births of damaged babies was noticed.

 

copied from the Bhopal Marathon – picture by Andy Spyra

After the incident the site was abandoned to the elements and more containers of chemicals rusted or broke down spilling contents over the ground. With every rainy season these chemicals have been washed through the soil into the groundwater aquifers from where it has been pumped up for drinking, washing, cooking etc, even for children to splash around in.

Even though the local authority of Madhya Pradesh provides a limited number of tankers of water it can be spasmodic and does not reach all the people with affected water supplies. And a couple of years ago there was an ecoli scare from even that water.

It is estimated that over 100,000 people are chronically sick from the effects of that night and in addition 30,000 are ill from polluted water, including second and third generation children. Local campaigners estimate that about 500,000 people live in the area of northern Bhopal affected and that some 90+% are affected to a greater or lesser extent.

So what is in the water? Well, actually we don’t know with 100% accuracy, despite many tests including mass spectrometry. In fact UCC and now Dow Chemical refuse to disclose the information citing commercial confidence. They also will not list the possible gasses and compounds that could have been created by chemical reactions during the explosion

In 1989, UCC carried out some simple tests by taking samples of groundwater and also adding soil samples to clean water. Fish were placed in the containers. There was “100% mortality”, ie all the fish died! It was noted at the time that both types of sample were heavily contaminated with both naphthol and naphthalene*. Despite the dangers to health that both of these present, UCC did not issue any health warnings, and, in fact denied it,

* Naphthol can lead to abdominal pain, convulsions, diarrhoea and vomiting while naphthalene can cause anaemia, cataracts, retinal damage, liver damage, brain damage and possibly cancer.

In 1989 tests were carried out. The State Pollution Control Board (PCB) requested the National Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) despite that fact that it had almost no experience in this type of research. About the same time UCIL decided to conduct studies and internal memos show it found large scale contamination. UCIL offered to guide NEERI and in early 1990 the subsequent report found no contamination! This greatly pleased UCC. We can only speculate about the quality and accuracy of the published result.

However, in 1990 a further study was conducted by the Bhopal State Research Laboratory (BSRL), working with an independent USA laboratory, which found major contamination in lake sediment with pthalates, i-napthalene, benzene, other aromatic hydrocarbons and organochlorides including di- and tri-chlorobenzenes. Which caused an angry response from UCC at their AGM and in writing, see http://www.bhopalmarathon.org/letter-of-may-16-1990-from-subimal-bose-to-babu-lal-gaur/ Despite these findings being more in line with their own internal report, a fact not mentioned in the letter.

“During the monsoon, the areas receive rainfall, part of which moves out as surface run-off and the remaining percolates into the soil. The movement of the soil contaminates with surface run-off and water percolating under the surface is a matter of great concern in view of the environmental hazard potential associated with organic contaminants.”

So why the differences? UCC’s own study took samples from within the walls of the factory site. The NEERI and BSRL samples were taken from in and around the waste ‘lakes’, some 400 metres away from the factory site. The BSRL samples included sediment from the lakes, soil from around the lakes and samples from a well.

The Impact?:

 

Rehana lives near one of the ‘lakes’ where the locals jointly built a well. She was boorn in 1997 without a thumb on her left hand. Her growth is retarded, her mind weak, her vision poor, she is plagued by rashes and often breathless.

There are many children suffering similarly and many more waiting to be born.

 

 

 And now - the Promise