Other States - Madhya Pradesh   

“Ground water near abandoned Carbide plant contaminated”

BHOPAL: Three organisations working for the victims of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster here came up with a disturbing revelation on Monday. They said quarterly monitoring reports on ground water quality from October 1996 to July 2007 show that the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board had been suppressing information about the presence of highly toxic chemicals and heavy metals in the ground water near the abandoned Carbide plant. This water was being used by over 25,000 people. The revelation was made at a press conference by Rachna Dhingra and Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, Rashida Bi of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh and Syed M. Irfan of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha.

They told media persons that reports obtained by the organisations through the Right to Information Act show the ground water near the Carbide factory to be contaminated with such chemicals as Trichlorobenzene, Lindane, Benzene Hexachloride, Heptachlor and heavy metals, including Mercury, Nickel and Cadmium. These are known to damage the liver, kidney, brain, reproductive, immune and other systems as well as cause cancers and birth defects.

The organisations said not only had the Pollution Control Board suppressed this vital information for as long as five years, it had deliberately stopped testing samples for certain chemicals once the problem had been identified. Thus after Trichlorobenzene was found to be in eight times higher concentration than the limits prescribed by the World Health Organisation in November 2005, none of the samples collected in the eight quarters in 2006 and 2007 was tested for this chemical. The three organisations accused the Pollution Control Board of scientific dishonesty and cast doubts on the veracity of its test results. They said several chemicals such as Lindane, Dieldrin, BHCand Sevin which were identified in the ground water samples in 2006 were all found to be "not detectable" in 2007. “Such deliberate suppression is also evident in the fact that ground water sampling points where samples tested positive in 2006 were not included in the 2007 quality monitoring,” they added.

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“Ground water near abandoned Carbide plant contaminated”

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