A section of senior Madhya Pradesh bureaucrats along with several NGOs believe the solution to the outstanding issue of toxic waste from the Union Carbides factory in Bhopal is to send it back to the United States. They cite the precedent of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) having ordered Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL)
to send back 289 tonnes of waste material including mercury which had been dumped in scrap yards and forests and send it back to the US for recycling and disposal.
Dr Claude Alvares, member of the Supreme Court monitoring committee on the Bhopal gas leak, pointed out how pressure from local NGOs forced HLL to send this material to Pennsylvania from the Tuticorin port in May 2003.
In the case of the Bhopal gas leak, the toxic chemicals found by both the Central Pollution Control Board and by the Centre for Science and Environment in a survey undertaken in 2009 include mercury, chromium, carbaryl, aldicarb and lindane which has spread over 35 hectares of land in the heart of the city. The contamination has spread to the ground water and would require pumping out vast quantities of polluted water as well.
A senior state bureaucrat pointed out, “There is 390 tonnes of stored waste lying in the factory itself and relates to the factory when it was in operation. The state government does not possess the expertise to conduct urgent site remediation including the removal of deep aquifers. The state should follow the example of the TNPCB and send it back to the US.” Sunita Narain, director of CSE agrees. She cites the example of US President Barack Obama who has insisted that BP pay over $20 billion to the people as compensation even though under US law, BP’s liability for damages because of an oil spill is capped at $75 million.
“The Indian government cannot be seen as hiding behind legalese to protect Dow Chemicals especially since the waste relates to the Union Carbide factory when it was in operation. Dow bought over the assets and cannot deny liability now,” Ms Narain pointed out.
The MP state government’s lack of expertise in dealing with this remediation issue came to the forefront when the Madhya Pradesh state pollution board sought to incinerate some of the waste at Beil, Ankleshwar in Gujarat. The Gujarat state government went into appeal against this order which had been passed by the Madhya Pradesh high court.