MP wants DOW to clean up Carbide mess

‘‘We will ask that Dow be held accountable for whatever environmental damages have occurred because while inheriting the assets they also become responsible for liabilities,’’ he said.

This will be the first move to hold Dow accountable since Carbide’s merger with Dow Chemicals in Feb 2001. Dow had disclaimed any responsibility at the time of the merger. A similar case is also pending in the US.

The decision came after several NGOs challenged the state’s move to hire Canadian firm R.J. Burnside International Ltd to clean up contamination at the cost of Rs 100 crore, to be raised from the Canadian International Development Agency.

‘‘The government was attempting to use public money to fund this company. We argued against this and said the state should make every effort to collect the money for this purpose from those liable to pay,’’ Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS), a member of the State-Level Advisory Committee for Gas Relief which suggested this step at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, said.

The state government is already under attack for inordinately delaying any action on this score. The complex was first taken over by the state Commerce and Industries Department in 1998 and then by the local administration.

It then contained semi-processed chemicals and finished pesticides, waste materials, machinery for manufacture of MIC and other chemicals, an unprotected landfill and a solar evaporation pond.

After a series of meetings it was finally decided in July 2002 to take steps to check water pollution from waste materials and cover up the exposed landfill and solar evaporation pond.

The despite several reminders from Greenpeace and the Dehra Dun-based People’s Science Institute on behalf of BGPMUS pointing to rising levels of water contamination by metals such as mercury and various organic compounds.

Severe health affects have also been reported in surrounding colonies. But a senior official in the Gas Relief Department claimed, ‘‘There are no studies available to document health effects. The work done by NGOs is hardly serious scientific study and no such patients have come forward.’’

Similar studies by the Nagpur-based NEERI and the Hyderabad-based IICT and the State Pollution Department so established the presence of contaminants.