The Sambhavna Trust Clinic, which works for Bhopal gas tragedy survivors, has claimed that the toxic waste left untreated in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory has contaminated groundwater in an additional 29 residential colonies in the vicinity.
These 29 colonies are in addition to the 42 colonies identified by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research in June 2018 that faces groundwater contamination due to Union Carbide toxic waste.
The Union Carbide factory had spewed toxic fumes (methyl isocyanate gas) on night intervening December 2/3, 1984, killing thousands and maiming lakhs for life. The gas-affected people continued to face severe fatal health complications over years. The Union Carbide company was taken over by Dow Chemical Ltd., later.
The next generations of the survivors of the tragedy were impacted by genetic effects of the gas as well as contamination of soil and water by the toxic waste dumps left over by the US multinational-owned pesticide factory on its premises as well as the nearby solar evaporation pond (SEP).
The members of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic, speaking on the eve of the World Environment Day (June 5), said in the last one year, samples from 34 colonies adjacent to the area reported to have contaminated groundwater by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, were tested at the lab of the clinic. “We found strong evidence of the presence of organo-chlorines in samples from 29 colonies," said Mahindra Kumari Soni, Laboratory technician.
Established in 1996, the Sambhavna Trust Clinic provides free medical care to the survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster and those exposed to groundwater contaminated by Union Carbide's industrial waste.
Speaking on the health hazards of chronic exposure to organo-chlorines, Deepa Mandrai, a community health worker at the clinic said, "The continuing presence and spread of organo-chlorines in the Bhopal groundwater is the second environmental disaster in this city. Organo-chlorines retain their toxicity for a long time, accumulate in the body and are known to cause cancers, birth defects and damage to the brain, liver, kidneys as well as the immunological, endocrine, reproductive and other systems. Almost all of the studies done on Bhopal groundwater have reported the presence of organo-chlorines in high concentrations."
"Testing of organochlorines in water can be very expensive. With help from one of our international volunteers, we developed a technique for qualitative testing of organo-chlorines in water that hardly costs anything. The testing of each of the samples from 34 colonies by this modified Bielstein test was carried out by two investigators independently. Samples were declared to be contaminated only when results of the two investigators matched. We found the presence of organo-chlorines in the ground water in 29 new colonies" said Chandrashekhar Sahu, community research worker.
Radhe Lal Napit, another community research worker at Sambhavna said, "Ours is the only clinic in Bhopal that provides free medical care to victims of chronic exposure to groundwater contaminated by Union Carbide's hazardous wastes. Nobody seems to care about the medical care of these victims or about stopping the ongoing contamination. Thousands of tonnes of poisonous waste lie buried in and around the factory till today and the contaminated area continues to spread, finding new victims everyday in Bhopal."
According to a report of the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, toxic waste was dumped in 21 spots on the abandoned factory premises. Waste was especially dumped in the solar evaporation pond made on 32 acre land from 1977 and due to breach in the plastic lining of the pond in 1982, toxic chemicals from the waste started seeping into the ground water. About 337 MT waste is kept in packed condition on the factory premises. Activists claim that this packed waste is just about five per cent of the entire waste and the solar evaporation pond itself contains as much as 1.7 lakh tonne toxic sludge.