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M.P. Govt.'s plan for toxic waste disposal flayed

Staff Correspondent

"Will cause catastrophe at dumping sites"

BHOPAL: Leaders of four survivors' organisations active on the issues of the December 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal condemned the Madhya Pradesh Government's plans for disposal of 386 metric tonnes of hazardous waste at Ankleshwar in Gujarat and Pithampur near Indore.

According to the leaders, both the facilities are unsafe for disposal of toxic waste and the State Government's plans will cause irreparable damage to the environment and people in both these places.

Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information and Action, Rashida Bi and Champa Devi Shukla of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh, Syed M Irfan of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha and Shahid Noor of Bhopal ki Aawaaz addressed a press conference here on Sunday to raise this issue.

They demanded that the State Government must implement the recommendation of the technical sub-committee of the task force set up by the High Court on this matter.

According to them, the technical sub-committee made up of government and non-government scientists has unanimously and clearly recommended that as the first option the government must make Dow Chemical carry the hazardous waste from Bhopal to USA or other OECD countries that have facilities for safe disposal.

Mr. Sarangi pointed out that 386 MT of hazardous waste that the State Government is attempting to dispose in an unscientific and unsafe manner is actually less than 1 per cent of the total load of poisonous material that needs remediation.

He said that, given the impending monsoon in June it is most urgent that hazardous waste that lies half buried and exposed to the elements is contained in a safe manner so that leaking of poisons into the ground water can be reduced.

The leaders representing the people's organisations charged that the State Government had no scientific plans to deal with thousands of tonnes of toxic waste and contaminated soil and ground water in Bhopal.

Citing the report of Eckart Schultes, consultant in an Indo-German collaboration project the organisations pointed out that the incineration of Bhopal hazardous waste in Ankleshwar would emit mercury and chemical pollutants, including dioxin and toxic dust, causing irreparable damage to the environment and to the health of over 100,000 people of Ankleshwar. They said that the Gujarat Pollution Control Board has just last year categorised Ankleshwar as an "environmental hotspot".

The four organisations also presented a critique of the Treatment Storage and Disposal Facility, or Landfill, being built in Pithampur near Indore.

The appraisal by Joseph Jackson, a senior consultant with 6 years of industry specific experience of contaminated land in Britain, points out that the landfill being built on top of a hill at Pithampur is a very unstable location and could collapse.

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