Fifteen years on, the silence of the grave

Where else can we go?'' asks Javed, a resident of Ayub Nagar, a rundown slum settlement near the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopa...

Where else can we go?” asks Javed, a resident of Ayub Nagar, a rundown slum settlement near the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal as he queues up in front of a hand pump. No one in the crowd, fighting for a bucket of water, seems to be deterred by the warning board put up near the pump saying “This water is unsafe for drinking.”

Two members of Javed’s family died during that calamitous night of December 3, 1984, when the leakage of MIC from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory killed thousands of hapless citizens living around the factory premises. His chronic illness following the world’s worst industrial disaster forced him to give up a better-paid but more demanding job. He has now set up a small tea vend in his shanty and uses the same filthy water to prepare tea for his customers.

Like Javed, few of the 1.5 lakh people residing in J.P. Nagar, Chola, Shakti Nagar, Annu Nagar and other slum settlements around the killer factory know about a survey report by UK-based environment group Greenpeace International released on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas tragedy establishing “ substantial and, in some locations, severe contamination of land and underground water” in and around the factory.

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But they know that they have been drinking polluted water.“It always smells of DDT and there is an oily layer floating on its surface,” says Ram Prasad of Shankar Nagar. Fatima of J.P. Nagar is outraged but helpless. “For the last 15 years we have been forced to drink this poison from the Carbide factory, but what has the government done about it?” she asks.

The question, and the Greenpeace scientific survey’s conclusion that “overall contamination of the site and immediate surroundings with chemicals has resulted either from routine processes during the operation of the plant, spillages and accidents, or continued release of chemicals from materials which remain dumped or stored on the site” underlines a comparatively neglected aspect of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

As Abdul Jabbar, convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan puts it,“It shows how a mighty multinational corporation can continuously defy the local laws relating to the safety of mankind and its environment with impunity. It also shows how toothless governments in developing countries like India become in protecting their citizen from such law breakers.”

Jabbar quotes from a case study of the Bhopal Gas tragedy prepared by experts of the Harvard Law School which says that the “Union Carbide Limited of India was able to operate its deteriorating plant in Bhopal because industrial safety and environmental laws were not strictly enforced.”

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The $475 million settlement between the Union Carbide and the Government of India of 1989 steers clear of any compensation for any environmental degradation caused by the factory, he points out.

Rashida Bi, another unrelenting crusader for the rights of the Bhopal gas victim, points out that the Central and the state governments have tended to play down the impact of continuing environmental degradation caused by the Union Carbide in Bhopal.

“Despite the expenditure of over Rs 70 crores on environmental rehabilitation, basic amenities such as clean drining water and sanitary facilities remain unavailable to the majority of the gas-affected community,” she says.

Ironically, the Central and state governments have all along denied reports that the chemicals dumped or stored at the UCIL factory site were resulting in soil and water degradation in Bhopal. Local organisations assert that the following facts belie the central and state government’s claim that they are ignorant of Union Carbide’s toxic legacy:

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In April 1990 and later in July 1991 after testing land and water samples collected from in and around the factory site, Citizen’s Environment Laboratory, Boston, had found “high levels of toxic materials in the samples”.

A collaborative investigation by Arthur D. Little Inc. of the USA (retained by the Union Carbide Corporation, USA) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (retained by UCIL) confirmed these findings and recommended a fuller investigation for better assessment of environmental contamination and corrective action.

The opening paragraph of Bhopal Municipal Corporation’s Rs 8 crore Kolar water supply plan for the 10 gas-affected wards which forms part of MP Government’s Action Plan II 1997 admitted that the calamitous leakage of MIC gas from the factory “ polluted not only the environmental status of the locality but also polluted underground water reserves, i.e. dug wells and tubewells which are the only sources of drinking water in these localities.”

A recent report by MP Government’s Public Health Engineering Department after testing ten samples of underground water collected from the area in November 1996 recorded an “extremely high degree of chemical pollution”.

Significantly, the report adds: “Five years ago also this laboratory had tested water samples from the same area and found the presence of toxic chemical elements even at that time” and recommended “immediate steps to prevent consumption of this water for drinking purposes.”

The rub is that despite these reports by its own agencies and the international scientific community, the government allowed UCIL to cover its tracks and wind up its Bhopal operations in July 1998, leaving huge chemical waste dumps for the government to take care of.

The only good news from Bhopal is that the surviving gas victims have not given up their fight.

“We want the Union Carbide Corporation to clean up the contamination of the ground water and soil in and around its Bhopal factory and the Government of India to claim damages from UCC for the environmental damage caused by it,” insists Balkrishna Namdeo, convenor of Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha.

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These organisations also want the MP government to ensure the immediate supply of drinkable water to the communities living around UCIL’s abandoned site and an exhaustive scientific inquiry into the soil and groundwater contamination caused by the UCIL.

They know that getting their demands fulfilled will not be easy. In a class action suit filed recently in a New York Federal Court on behalf of the surviving gas victims, they have made specific allegations of continuing environmental damage by Union Carbide through the contamination of ground water and soil in the vicinity of its Bhopal factory and the latter’s attempts to cover up these details and escape liability.

The November 1999 Greenpeace International report only strengthens their case. It states clearly that given the nature of the plant and the chemicals it handled, stored and later dumped,“communities living around former UCIL site are still exposed to hazardous chemicals on a daily basis”.