29 December 2013 - The Factory Today

A few days ago I went to visit the factory site, so, as a final post in 2013, maybe there is nothing better than to review that.

Heidi, who is here volunteering and doing some research for her PhD, had been to get the permission. That sounded as though it was a feat in itself as she told me the story of arriving at the building and going to the office and being directed to another office where the appropriate person was out at lunch so she had to go back to the first office and then away again and return an hour later and then wait for about an hour while they completed all sorts of forms and wrote documents. A legacy of British bureaucracy?

When we arrived at the site the 6 or so guards took at least 10 minutes to scrutinise the pieces of paper, two of them with copies of our passports, before letting us in with the mandatory guard in tow.

 

Much has been cleared up now, at least on the surface and it is reverting into a natural park.Someone once joked that the only good thing about a motorway is that it is bio-degradable. That process is quite clearly well under way here with trees and green colonising the walls, the surface concrete breaking down and the tarmac roads disintegrating.

We even saw what looked like a fairly wild pig wandering around – but he or she did not hang around for us to inspect. A family of small puppies was not so reticent about our presence but still nervous.

Somewhat like Chernobyl, I suspect, surface appearances are not always telling the truth and I just wondered what we were walking on. I suspect that most of the surface soil is OK except in the places where waste was continually dumped or containers stacked. There the soil and everything below will be highly contaminated and, ideally, those places would be marked. Samples have been taken from many places and the scientists must have marked them during their investigations, if only for their final reports, but where are those markings now?

 

It is not just within the walls that the contamination occurred, even while the factory was operating. Waste ponds were built outside with plastic liners meant to contain the poisons while the water evaporated. But, even then, during the rainy season there was no control to prevent them overflowing and so beginning the long task of polluting the very ground-water.

For that, we can discuss for ever who might have been responsible. The US directors who made the decision that this was the best method for liquid waste removal; the local managers who agreed and allowed it to happen, despite knowing local conditions; the engineer who sized the ponds; the staff who filled it to a level where they could guess it would overflow during the rains and said nothing? It will do no good and can not bring back the past and change it.

What should be done with the site? Various buildings still stand, elegantly decaying, bare metal structures redolent with rust, concrete cracking, plants intertwining with structures. The huge batch storage tanks, rotting cylinders, stand exposed their insulation coats decayed and frayed, all trace of concrete protection gone. Suggestions have included a memorial and a park. How quickly was the site of the ‘twin towers’ changed? If India can send a rocket to Mars, maybe they could send one here?

 And sometimes the Indian Government denies there is any pollution or contamination at the site. (See the Bhopal Marathon, p156)

Some proposals have been made to clear up the site, seemingly ending in controversial argument with nothing being done, such as the offer (in 2006/7) by Cherokee Investment Partners and the attempt in 2002 by locals and Greenpeace of a partial clean-up when they were evicted by guards and police. It would, of course, be a massive undertaking and must include areas outside the factory walls as well. So argument continues not only about what should be done and the extent, but also who should do it and more importantly, who should fund it. The local campaigns are strident in demanding that the “polluter pays”. That was Union Carbide India Ltd, and where is that now? The arguments, legal and political go on and on incessantly about the responsibility of Dow, with lawyers being the only ones to benefit.

There are examples, of course where a company taking on another has accepted continuing liabilities for the health and injury to employees of the old company. It would of course be nice if Dow would do something similar for the people of Bhopal but they have shown no inclination since that take-over (or merger) in 2001. I guess it could be argued that was one reason for the take-over? I wonder how much pressure there is from other chemical companies that Dow should not give in? I have no evidence whatever for suggesting that of course but we all know things go on behind the scenes.

Sometimes I think that principle is getting in the way of practicality. Who is considering what is best for the people who now live and work in the surrounding area? The local authority now owns the site and manages access to it with a permanent presence of guards who have to watch all the holes and breaches in the wall and not just the gate. In any case it would be very easy to climb the walls and I have seen boys and young men playing cricket inside and it would be somewhat amazing if the guards did not know 20 or 30 people were playing cricket just through the trees. It is, after all, the only decent level playing area close to the surrounding bastis big enough for a game. What boys would ignore that?

In an argument nearly 30 years old and continuing, there are no all correct or all wrong answers.