Unproven Technology, Cost-Cutting, & Indifference

There is a fuller article in the Bhopal Marathon at www.bhopalmarathon.org, page 33 and documents mentioned are at www.bhopal.org/discoverypapers. 

When Union Carbide (India) Ltd (UCIL) was created, Eduard Muñoz was appointed MD. Later, in a sworn affidavit to a New York court he described how he had opposed the parent UCC plan to install three large storage tanks for methylisocyanate (MIC). His opinion, based on safety and economics, had been that only a small storage tank was needed.

He was overruled by UCC heads and so three large storage tanks were installed, and this, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was the most critical factor in the disaster. At times there would be 90 tonnes of methylisocyanate stored.

It started in 1974 when India passed a law that no foreign company could own more than 40% of a company in India. UCC had 60% of UCIL’s shares and managed to persuade the government that it should be exempted as it was aiding the so called ‘green revolution’. Thus exemption was granted and UCC retained overall control though with reduced share capital.

However, they decided that the proposed state-of-the-art facility was too expensive and installed what they themselves admitted internally had not been proven. This involved batch processing and a large storage capability. With poor harvests and monsoons demand for pesticides fell and the plant started losing money but UCC realised it would be impossible to sell parts of the factory because of the technology used.

Workers in the factory were continuously concerned about safety and in December 1981 Ashraf Khan was critically injured in the phosgene plant and died in hospital.

After this UCC sent in a team for a safety inspection. The report, in May 1982, identified 30 major hazards and 31 others. 10 of the major ones were in the phosgene/MIC unit. As a result UCC improved safety at its USA plant but not at Bhopal. In fact they increased cost cutting measures.

Between 1980 and 1984, the workforce was halved and a single operator had to oversee the control room with about 70 panels, indicators and controllers. Safety training was reduced from six months to two weeks and the manuals were in English which many staff could not read.

In a plant such as this, dealing with corrosive chemicals, all the pipes, valves and pumps should be inspected fortnightly and replaced every six months. Here, under directions from UCIL’s holding company in Hong Kong, inspections were rare, replacements could take two years and even then parts were recycled instead of new.

In February of 1984 a safety audit of the sister plant in USA raised concerns that a runaway reaction could occur and there would be no way to prevent catastrophic failure. Ensuring the tanks are kept at 0°C slows down the reaction and would thus give time for action and evacuation.

The plant in USA was improved but in Bhopal they did nothing and did not even pass on the warnings. Instead they actually turned off the refrigeration to save more money – about $37 a day.

Added to this, the factory site is in a densely populated area of northern Bhopal and UCC had no plan for the evacuation of people from their homes and there had been no training in this either.

Rajkumar Keswani, a local journalist, had been following progress at the factory and written several articles in the press as well as a letter to the Chief Minister which was ignored. His last article was published only weeks before the disaster.

So it appears that a trail of unproven technology, inadequate safety systems and storing a huge quantity of lethal gas compounded by ignored warnings, negligence and cost cutting endangered a whole city and led to the disaster on that night.

Even then, after the explosion, UCC immediately claimed that it had no authority or control over the plant’s design or operation and thus had no responsibility. They attempted first to put the blame on Sikh terrorists and then on an unnamed disgruntled employee. Both claims were rejected by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation which said it was “an attempt to obscure the material facts of this action with irrelevant facts, improbable detail and blatant misrepresentation.”

On the morning of the explosion, with doctors frantic for information, a senior magistrate had to go to the factory to be told the gas was methylisocyanate. The Chief Medical Officer Dr Loya claimed the gas was only an irritant and not fatal. He also said that if UCC had not hidden the dangers, the population would have marched against the factory.

Packing, Leaving and Visa

Sorry there has been a bit of a delay for this post. I attended a weekend conference in Manchester so that put me back a little and then there was a week of packing the contents of my room and gathering my few belongings from elsewhere. Following that I transferred all my earthly belongings (apart from the car and three massage tables) to the storage facilities of Britannia Squab near Leamington Spa.

The box is about 1½ by 2 metres and about 2½ metres tall and my estate doesn’t even fill half of it. But I am still looking to reduce my earthly footprint even further.

Now I have zoomed down to London where I am staying with my friend Sanjay in Stratford. And just to reiterate, that IS the Stratford in London and not the one I have just left.

And the visa  story is that when I applied for a 12 month tourist visa, they were going to charge £300! That seems excessive to me even allowing for administrative overheads. So I had a look at a 6 month option which would mean leaving in mid-November as I want to do a 4-week yoga course that ends in May.

But then I checked out the Employment visa option and discovered that it is much cheaper at only £92 for a 12 month visa. But I needed a founding document as well as an invitation letter. Sathyu was more than happy to provide both but as I contacted him was off to Italy to give some talks in the name of raising awareness and fund-raising. So it is only this week that I now have both and can get on with my application.

Then, as luck would have it, I have been suffering with a cold since Friday so have not done it yet.

Anyway, now I have started work on the next post about the factory standards, staffing and management which I will post over the next few days for the continuing story.

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