International Experts team call for immediate clean-up of the Bhopal site. Greenpeace calls on DOW to take responsibility

Feature story - November 4, 2004

BHOPAL, India — An International team of experts today urged the Indian authorities to immediately secure and contain the contaminated Union Carbide (UC) disaster site at a symposium organized by Greenpeace, under the banner of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB). The team has advised against long term storage of hazardous wastes in a ‘secure landfill’ at the current site, and recommended instead the export of the wastes to an industrialized country for further treatment. It has urged the Government to evaluate a variety of technologies for dealing with the toxic wastes from the site.

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The experts review the site of the Union Carbide plant.

"In addition to securing the site, the most urgent measure is to supply safe pipelined water to the local communities. The remediation of the site must include dismantling the existing building and plant, the excavation and pre-treatment of polluted soils and the containment of discarded stockpiles should be undertaken as a first step in the clean up process," said Professor Harald Burmeier from the experts' team.

Forty tons of lethal gases leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal on December 3rd 1984. However, the site also bears a deadly toxic legacy from years of routine plant operations, because of which deadly chemicals have spread throughout the local environment and ground water, including the drinking water supply. Experts agree that the most urgent measure is to immediately secure the site and to supply safe pipelined water to the local communities.

In the first ever exercise of its kind, the experts have suggested detailed technologies for the remediation of the site as well as the clean up of the ground water using internationally recommended standards. The contained waste and contaminated soils must be dealt with offsite to reduce the impact on the communities and because appropriate treatment technologies are not currently available in India. Following the containment, the experts recommend the shipment of the stockpiled chemicals and other hazardous waste from India to an industrialized country for treatment.

"A longer-term remediation angle that focuses on the clean up of the underground water is an essential process, though it will take years due to the complexity of the site and the unknown level of contamination," Burmeier added.

"After more than twenty years of contamination, there is clearly an urgent need to clean up the Bhopal site", said Vinuta Gopal, Greenpeace campaigner in India present at the Symposium. "The biggest obstacle has been the lack of corporate responsibility and the political will to make that happen. Clearly the responsibility of bearing the cost of the clean-up lies with Union Carbide's new owners, Dow Chemicals. The Indian government should enforce the `Polluter Pays' principle and ensure that Dow Chemicals does not escape its liability under the veil of multiple corporate entities."

The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal calls on Dow Chemicals to resolve its subsidiary's Bhopal liabilities by cleaning up the contaminated site and groundwater. It also demands that the Indian government acts swiftly to ensure clean-up and to ensure that the process of clean up and disposal does not pollute the environment in Bhopal or elsewhere.

Note to Editors: Interviews with the experts' team can be arranged on request.

Vinuta Gopal, Greenpeace Campaigner in India: +919845535418