Kerala - Kochi   

High level of contamination in Eloor-Edayar belt

KOCHI: A study has shown that vegetables, fruits and poultry grown on residents’ lands in the industrially polluted Eloor-Edayar area have high levels of pesticide and heavy metal residues that are harmful to human health.

Residues were found in food articles such as milk, fish, chicken and duck meat, coconut, banana, papaya, curry leaves and a host of other items produced by Eloor residents in their homes and backyards. The study, prompted by the complaints of heavy environmental pollution caused by the chemical factories in the area, was conducted by the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) and the NGOs – Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samiti and Thanal – under the supervision of N. Chandramohan Kumar, head of Cusat’s Chemical Oceanography Department.

“We wanted to verify the locals’ complaints of contamination of their land and water bodies through a scientific study,” Dr. Chandramohan Kumar, said.

The study, which used only food items produced in the area, showed that there were ‘unacceptably high levels’ of heavy metal contamination in these food items. The levels of lead, cadmium, zinc, chromium and nickel were very high in the samples used for the analysis.

For instance, in the samples of curry leaves there was 2.364 mg/kg of cadmium; 584.2 of zinc, 8.044 lead and 5.433 of nickel. In chicken liver, the residues of these metals were 1.388, 42.88, 4.0,0.715 and 0.255 respectively. In the milk samples, there were 8.72 mg per litre of chromium and 2.688 of zinc.

“These metal residues had got into the foods from the contaminated soil of Eloor,” Dr. Chandramohan Kumar said.

“The heavy metal and pesticide residues are much higher than the tolerance limits prescribed by the World Health Organisation and the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB).”

C. Jayakumar of Thanal said the levels of organochlorine pesticide such as DDT, DDE, DDD and BHC were ‘alarmingly high’ which, had it been in Western countries, could have warranted immediate relocation of the residents.

He pointed out that BHC (benzene hexachloride) production had been banned in India way back in 1996. But in the chicken fat extracts examined for the study, the BHC level was found to be 0.372 mg/litre. “There is only one way of getting BHC into the poultry — from a possible leak in the HIL’s (the public-sector Hindustan Insecticide Limited) underground storage tanks.”

The study confirmed the fears of local residents, environmental activists and scientists that the industrial effluents let out by the chemical factories in the Eroor-Edayar area had got into the food chain.

The study outcome was expected to trigger extensive investigations by scientific bodies as well as Government agencies such as the PCB.

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