Activism needed against cross-border hazardous waste

NO amount of activism or media campaign seems able to shame the polluters into stopping the draining or dumping of industrial or other wastes into vital water sources and fertile land. Add to it all the 'sharing' of waste from the upstream, given the fact that Bangladesh shares over fifty common rivers, big and small, with neighbouring India. The most to be feared is from its nuclear industry, according to Shining India's own anti-nuclear activists. The biggest threat is from the spent fuel from their reactors because of the apparent carelessness in the disposal of radioactive waste. Under the latest US-India deal, 24 light water reactors (LWR) would be imported and another 12 home-made ones, with pressurized heavy water, are to be installed along the Indian coasts. But virtually nothing is mentioned about the intractable problems that further generation of nuclear waste is going to pose for the region, or how it is going to be dealt with. The Indian nuclear industry's callousness in waste management is not unknown. Its handling of the uranium mining zone in arid Jadugoda, for example, situated in the depressed state of Bihar, should send shivers through the spine of those who know what it entails. Ever since mining and milling began in the mid sixties, Jadugoda and its neighbouring villages have been open to poisoning by heavy metals and radiation due to UCIL's (Uranium Corporation of India Limited) shoddy production and waste disposal methods. Tens of thousands have been living there steeped in radioactive uranium tailings (waste) left behind after the fissionable material is extracted and forwarded to Hyderabad to be turned into fuel rods. Since India gained the status of an atomic power, production of yellowcake or raw uranium, has gone up significantly. A 1990s report said more than 2000 tonnes were mined every day, meaning huge piles of 'tailings' building up. Depending on the concentration of the fissionable uranium, some 200 to 40,000 tonnes of these are said to be generated per tonne of uranium oxide extracted. UCIL reportedly dumps this waste into an open pond, which dries up too often, allowing uranium dust to blow with the wind and pollute nearby villages. People, according to the above report, were found using the pond, unaware of the health hazards. Another report about a decade ago found that barely a third of the workers at the uranium drying plant wearing the mandatory masks, meant to prevent inhalation of the carcinogenic dust. Over the past forty years or so Jadugoda has turned into a nuclear nightmare. Researchers studying the health effects of radioactive pollution suspect that the incidence of congenital defects, miscarriage, stillbirths, blood, bone, lung and skin cancers and other unidentified diseases reported from this area have something to do with radiation and heavy metal poisoning. The suspected links are of course dismissed by UCIL and the government of India. Some years ago, anti-nuclear activists and local inhabitants had made news protesting UCIL's plan to set up another nuclear waste dump in the area, which is about 250 km from Kolkata, and not too far away from Bangladesh. Considering the wind, rain and common waters, how could cross-border contamination, and with it the burden of radiation-induced morbidity and illnesses, be ruled out? The US Atomic Energy Commission had recognized as early as 1957 that uranium mill tailings, not properly managed, are extremely hazardous both on account of the radioactivity and the chemicals used in the extraction process, such as, cyanide, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons which contaminate the environment ---- by leaching, seepage and blown dust ----- getting into groundwater, streams and rivers and drinking water supplies. Citizens' groups from both sides should educate themselves and wake up to the terrible hazards threatening the neighbourhood.