Several locations close to the now defunct Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal have reported higher concentrations of different heavy metals in groundwater, 39 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, according to report submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) by the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA).
The CGWA conducted the testing of the groundwater after the NGT took cognisance of an article by The Hindu in December 2023 that hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste was dumped by the UCIL within their factory premises from 1969 to 1984, but despite court orders and warnings, it has not yet been cleared by authorities. Stating that the new report raises “substantial issue” relating to compliance of the environmental laws, the NGT had issued notices to the CGWA, the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board, and the Central Pollution Control Board.
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“Zinc contamination was minimal, with only one location exceeding the BIS [Bureau of Indian Standards]-acceptable limit but remained under the permissible limit (15 mg/L). Arsenic concentrations were generally below BIS limits, except for one location,” the report dated March 14 read.
The area surrounding UCIL premises is affected partially by manganese pollution as 8.33 % of locations (three out of 36) recorded manganese concentration that is more than the BIS’s permissible limit of 0.3 mg/1, and these locations were associated with deeper aquifers, according to the report.
“Notably, strontium concentrations, which are not regulated by BIS, ranged from 0.198 to 2.223 mg/l, with an average of 0.833 mg/l,” the report said.
The water samples were taken from sites within a 5 km radius of the UCIL factory premises, including residential areas.
The factory premises has about 11 lakh tonnes of contaminated soil, one tonne of mercury, and nearly 150 tonnes of underground dumps, according to a study commissioned by the government in 2010.
However, “The CGWA study is an example of incompetence and is a deliberate attempt to undermine the contamination as they have not even bothered to test for pesticides organochlorines and persistent organic pollutants that have been found in the groundwater around the Union Carbide factory in earlier studies,” Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an NGO that is part of a monitoring committee appointed by the Supreme Court on the gas tragedy, told The Hindu,
Ms. Dhingra said that CGWA testing for only heavy metals and physical elements shows that CGWA has not even done basic literature review of earlier studies and has failed to understand and address the problem at hand. “While the contamination finds new victims, government agencies have not carried out any meaningful study since 2018,” she said.
Over the years, many studies have found groundwater in different residential areas outside the factory contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic substances, which could lead to cancer and other diseases. Now, experts say there are chances of the groundwater contamination spreading to more areas as the toxic waste is not yet removed.
In 2018, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras Professor, appointed by the Supreme Court to check the water contamination in the area, tested 20 samples of water outside the factory premises and told the court in an affidavit that the analysis of groundwater samples indicated the presence of “several toxic chemicals known to cause cancers and health damage”, including chlorobenzene that is known to cause damage to the brain, liver and kidneys.
