[sacw] TS:Living in the deadly shadow of uranium

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
Harsh Kapoor
(South Asians Against Nukes)
----------------------

The Toronto Star
October 10, 1999

Living in the deadly shadow of uranium:
India's huge uranium mining complex threatens health of thousands of
villagers

By Azizur Rahman
Special to The Star

BIHAR STATE, India - BORN WITH only one eye and a deformed head,
7-year-old Gandhar Karmakjer cannot stand or speak, and is the size of a
6-month-old baby.

Malati Singh, 9, was born with a withered leg and a deformed foot. Her
father and grandmother have skin cancer.

And 8-year-old Neelu suffers from a serious blood disorder.

These children and their families live close to the huge Jaduguda
uranium mining complex in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, within
metres of ponds containing radioactive uranium tailings.

For years, the thousands of villagers living in the shadow of the
sprawling complex shrugged their shoulders at the appallingly high rate
of illness and deformities in their midst. But now, as researchers and
environmental activists arrive in Jaduguda, the villagers are beginning
to believe that the mines, the factory and the open tailing ponds just
might be to blame for their many woes.

The vast ponds emit radiation many times above the limits considered
safe, and thousands of the poor and ignorant people are forced to eat,
drink and breathe uranium, anti-nuclear activists charge.

Ringed by a horseshoe of mountains, the mines and mill operated by the
Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. (UCIL) is the sole source of uranium
for India's 10 nuclear power stations.

While most of the uranium is separated from the ore during the milling,
more than 85 per cent of the radioactivity lands in the tailings,
according to sources with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Every
year, more than 2,500 tonnes of radioactive waste is dumped into the
ponds.

The three tailing ponds at Jaduguda are unfenced, despite international
norms that recommend burying nuclear waste deep underground and putting
treated, low-level waste in well-fenced tailing ponds far from human
habitation.

The Jharkhand Organization Against Radiation (JOAR), a group fighting
for the victims of Jaduguda, claims at least 30,000 people in 15
villages within a five-kilometre radius of the tailing ponds are exposed
to varying levels of radiation.

-----------------------
`Some (miners) with serious health problems were removed from the mine
and granted permanent leave - I know they are going to die within a few
years'
- Mangal Soren,
former Jaduguda uranium miner
---------------------------------
JOAR has nearly 3,000 members in the form of a strong network in the
affected villages. Its members are outraged by the disorders plaguing
the residents, and by the denials from the mine's operator that it is in
any way to blame. They are convinced that huge numbers of people are
suffering from radiation-induced diseases and they want medical help and
compensation from the government-owned corporation.

Any help will probably be too little and too late for the likes of
Neelu, whose village is just 300 metres from the 100-hectare tailing
ponds. His father is a mill worker.

Ranjit Lohar, who works in one of the massive mines, complaints of acute
joint pains and often cannot work. His 3-year-old son suffers from a
blood disorder and needs regular transfusions.

Malati Singh's father is a contract worker who used to load nuclear
waste drums. Since he is not on staff, the company did not provide
medical treatment to the family.

According to a JOAR survey of seven villages within one kilometre of the
ponds, 47 per cent of the women have reported disrupted menstrual cycles
and 18 per cent said they suffered miscarriages or stillbirth in the
past five years. Nearly all complained of fatigue, weakness and
depression. Nearly one-third of the women could not conceive, the survey
found.

The survey revealed that villagers also suffer from high rates of skin
diseases, cancer, bone and brain damage, kidney damage, hypertension,
disorders of the central nervous system, congenital deformities,
insomnia, nausea, dizziness and joint pain.

JOAR president Ghanshyam Biruli suspects that the waste materials
released into the pond are posing a hazard to human and animal health.
``When we first raised our voice against the ecological and health
hazards of radiation, we were branded agents of Pakistan's Inter
Services Intelligence.''

Biruli says radioactive waste from other nuclear facilities have been
dumped in the UCIL tailing ponds since 1982. ``Since the tribals
(villagers) are seen as poor, illiterate and not politically active,
(other facilities) have started dumping nuclear wastes from all over
India in our courtyard.''

Two years ago, agitation by JOAR forced the mining company to conduct a
medical survey under the supervision of Bihar state health officials. Of
712 people in two villages closest to the ponds, the survey found 32
suffering the ``possible effects'' of nuclear radiation. Despite this,
Uranium Corporation chairman and managing director J.L. Bhasin denies
the existence of radiation above permissible levels.

``The radiation level in the villages around the fenced area of the
tailing ponds is of the order of the local natural background. Radiation
exposure to the villagers is within prescribed limits.''

However, company officials take no chances - they get their food from a
farm 44 kilometres away.

A health unit of the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre at the complex
monitors the workplace and personnel, as well as the environment and the
management of waste, says Bhasin. ``The radiation level in the
surrounding area is low and unlikely to cause any deleterious effect.''

The company is protected by the Atomic Energy Act which allows it to
keep its test results and employees' health records secret. Although
each employee wears a radiation-measuring device, the readings are
seldom made known. Moreover, when an employee falls seriously ill, he is
treated at the company hospital and his health records are retained by
the authorities. JOAR alleges that by doing so, the company is denying
its employees their right to information.

At Dungridih village, 36-year-old miner Rajen Maji lies on his cot, a
bundle of bone and skin. With acute chest pain and a constant fever, he
has been in bed for the last six years. ``When I started working inside
the mine, sometimes I had pain in my chest and I vomited blood,'' he
says. ``But other miners said it was common if we work at the mine and I
should not worry. UCIL hospital gave me medicine and at times I went
home on short leaves, to return to the mine after two or three weeks.

``But this time, I cannot return to work any more, I am sure . . . . I
have lost 20 kilograms of weight - I have to die.''

Pain is palpable in his face as he gasps for breath. ``Working in the
mine for four years without any mask, like most others, I had to inhale
lots of dust and it has wreaked havoc on my body. Some people who
visited me from Delhi recently said they wanted to take me to a big
hospital in Bombay. But the company doctors won't allow me to go
elsewhere for treatment.''

Maji is on a long medical leave granted by the company. Once a month he
has to report to the UCIL hospital where he gets some medicine which, he
says, isn't working.

Since he is still a UCIL employee and entitled to half of his salary, he
cannot afford to infuriate his employer by going for medical treatment
anywhere else on his own.

The family of Mangal Soren celebrated three years ago when he got a
miner's job at UCIL. But working deep in the mine, he began to suffer
from breathlessness and pain in his chest within one year. He was
treated at the company hospital and returned to his job after a short
leave.

Soren appealed to the company to post him to any job outside the mine.
But UCIL did not oblige, so he quit.

``Masks and special protective suits are meant only for the senior
supervisors; most of us - the miners and loaders - were never provided
protection against radiation inside the mine,'' he says. ``Almost all of
my colleagues working amid thick uranium dust there complained of
different types of physical sickness.

``Some with serious health problems were removed from the mine and
granted permanent leave - I know they are going to die within a few
years. I had no idea about the danger of working inside a uranium mine;
but now, after coming out of the company, I have come to know how UCIL
is playing with the lives of its workers inside,'' says Soren, 27, now
an activist with JOAR.

At the prompting of JOAR, the environment committee of the Bihar
Legislative Council recommended major changes last December after a
two-year probe:

* A study of the extent of the radiation effect in areas near the mines.

* A foolproof method to ensure existing and future tailing ponds do not
pose any radiation hazards.

* Rehabilitation of affected people in accordance with the national
policy.

* Measures to save arable land from radiation, and a detailed health
survey.

* No human settlement within a five-kilometre radius of the ponds.

The committee said it was shocked at the lack of safety at the pond
site. ``The people and cattle have free and unchecked access to the area
around the mines. The dumping ponds are unfenced. No proper means for
restricting entrance is there.

``The waste material which contains traces of radioactive materials
should be taken to the effluent treatment plant by pipes. It was found
by the team that the water from the dumping ground is returned by open
drains . . .''

The committee feared this could lead to radioactive materials seeping
into the soil and causing a long-term hazard because uranium and highly
radioactive gas - radon - are easily soluble in water.

The company's Bhasin says ``treated water free from pollutants'' is
discharged into a nearby stream. But the committee's probe team detected
0.2 millirem per hour of radiation in ``flowing water exposed to the
public.'' The International Committee for Radiological Protection (ICRP)
puts the maximum safe exposure level at 500 millirems per year. In the
areas tested by the committee, people were exposed to more than three
times that limit.

According to ICRP, an area within a 15- km radius of a uranium mine
poses a radiation danger. In Jaduguda, this area encompasses nearly
75,000 people in 42 villages. The villages of Dungridih, Tilaitand and
Chatikucha, with a total population of 1,600, lie sandwiched between the
main uranium mine and the three tailing ponds.

JOAR activists also suspect radiation-polluted water could be finding
its way into the Subarnarekha River system, a source of drinking water
for people in Bihar and also in the neighbouring state of West Bengal.

Several scientists at the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre and the Saha
Institute of Nuclear Physics say the disposal process in Jaduguda is far
from safe. ``We knew from the very beginning that this system was going
to create problems. But what can you do in the face of government
decision?'' says one, formerly with the centre.

India has its Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to supervise nuclear
power-related establishments, including the Uranium Corporation. But
being subordinate to the Department of Atomic Energy, it is crippled,
says former chairman A. Gopalakrishnan.

``Radioactive waste disposal technology development in India is lagging
way behind international levels,'' he says. ``There is considerable
danger from the tailings at those ponds, no matter what UCIL or (the
energy department) claims. The whole point is that no one conducts any
tests at Jaduguda at regular intervals. . . . Unnecessarily, we are
mixing up very crucial public safety issues with politics and scientific
pride.''

While villagers living near the mines are believed to be suffering, the
state of the miners is suspected to be as bad. Although the Uranium
Corporation claims that no effects of radiation have been seen among its
7,000 workers, JOAR cites an abnormally high death rate among miners. In
three years beginning in 1994, the only period for which records are
available, 81 miners died. JOAR alleges that miners inhale uranium dust
and radon gas in the absence of protection.

International guidelines suggest that workers at uranium plants wear
special plastic clothing. But at Jaduguda, miners and loaders wear
ordinary cotton uniforms provided by the company and, to compound the
problem, the miners carry their uniforms home once a week, where the
clothing, containing radioactive uranium dust, is washed by their wives
and children.

India's nuclear sites are not open to international inspections and
because of the Atomic Energy Act, Indian scientists and politicians
cannot speak openly against the the country's highly secretive nuclear
program or the condition of the uranium mines.

But some local political parties are demanding tighter monitoring of the
mines and their operations. If they don't get it, they say, they will
campaign to have Jaduguda closed down.

As the flexing of nuclear muscles continues in the Indian subcontinent,
Jaduguda's uranium has become more precious, and anti-nuclear activists
wonder if they can clinch a healthy compromise between national nuclear
ambition and the well-being of the villagers near the mines.

In some advanced countries, radioactive waste is buried deep
underground, using glassification technology. India does not have this
modern know-how and, since it is not a signatory to the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, no other country is going to help it in the field of
nuclear technology.

After India exploded nuclear devices last year, the doors to advanced
nuclear facilities in the West (including Canada's) have been closed to
Indian nuclear scientists.

In this situation, India can't get help to upgrade its nuclear
technology, including modern and safer methods of radioactive waste
disposal.