[sacw] June 25, 1999 - NUCLEAR FALLOUT

[Harsh Kapoor]

August 2, 199
FYI
(South Asians Against Nukes)
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>From Asiaweek

http://www.pathfinder.com/asiaweek/99/0625/feat5.html

NUCLEAR FALLOUT

An Indian uranium mine is blamed
for a spate of horrifying illnesses
afflicting local villagers

By Soutik Biswas / Calcutta

SURUMAJHIAN IS A URANIUM miner in Jaduguda, in the northern Indian state
of Bihar. He says he has been suffering from body aches and fever for the
past six years. Another miner, Mohan Soren, has an eight-year-old daughter
whose legs became paralyzed three months after she was born. Laxmi Saman
Muran's one-year-old son is suffering from tuberculosis of the brain. And
18-year-old Simoti Majhi struggles through life with a hunched back and a
useless right hand.

What is going on at Jaduguda? On the face of it, the 30,000-strong
community looks like any cluster of Indian villages, with its fields, ponds
and young women gliding here and there with pitchers of water balanced on
their heads. But this is no pastoral idyll. In environmental circles,
Jaduguda is known as India's Chernobyl, after the Soviet nuclear reactor
that malfunctioned in 1986 and spewed radioactive contamination across
great swathes of Europe. According to activists and local politicians,
wasteliquid flowing from the sprawling Jaduguda uranium complex is
radioactive, endangering the health and lives of the local population.
"There is poison in Jaduguda's air and water," says Shamu Majhi, a miner.

A recent report by Bihar's Legislative Council, composed of the state's
elected politicians, says people living within 15 km of the mine have been
stricken with cancer and leukemia, with many suffering impotency and
deformation of limbs. Some 100 residents of a miners' housing project have
died of cancer in the past decade, and almost 90% of those now there have
acute arthritis. The council's environment committee has evacuated 46
families, affected by leukemia and other problems, from the mining areas.

Another report, by the militant Jharkhand Organization Against Radiation
(JOAR), says 47% of village women have complained of disrupted menstrual
cycles, and 18% say they have suffered either miscarriages or given birth
to stillborn babies in the past five years. Other reported problems include
skin ailments, kidney damage, hypertension, central-nervous-system
disorders, insomnia and nausea.

Environmentalists and politicians blame shoddy management at the
government-owned Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. (UCIL), whose Jaduguda
mine supplies uranium for the country's 10 nuclear power stations. The
company is a key player in India's independent - and highly secretive -
nuclear-power program. Ore from the mine is processed at Jaduguda into a
substance called U308 - commonly known as yellow cake - and then sent to
the Nuclear Fuel Complex in the southern city of Hyderabad, where uranium
fuel rods are produced.

The principal danger for people living near Jaduguda, say
environmentalists, is a 40-hectare "tailing" pond used to hold liquid and
solid waste produced in the processing of the ore into yellow cake. JOAR
president Ghanasyam Biruli says the incidence of health problems in the
area is too high to be explained by natural factors. In his view, the waste
material released into the pond is radioactive.

India's Atomic Energy Act states that there should be no habitation within
five kilometers of dumping grounds or tailing ponds. Even though Jaduguda
has been in operation for more than 30 years, as many as seven villages
still stand within one and a half kilometers of the danger zone. One of
them, Dungardihi, is just 40 meters away. Another complaint: Liquid waste
piped from the plant periodically floods a local road, forcing villagers
and cattle to wade through it.

Regulations specify that the tailing pond has to be permanently covered
with water. This rule is not always respected, but when it is, children and
women often bathe in the water and even carry it back to their homes for
use. Locals complain that there is no perimeter fence. When the pond dries
up, dust blows through villages and on to fields. Local politician Suresh
Handsa says rice production has fallen because padi are contaminated .

The mine operators also dump dry tailings at the site. Occasionally they
contain what villagers say is yellow cake - though why so precious and
potent a substance should be thrown out has not been explained. Whatever
the truth of that, a doctor attached to nearby Jamshedpur's Tata Main
Hospital has no doubt about the consequences of the mine's operations. "The
whole area has become unfit for habitation," he says. The doctor asked not
to be named.

Miners complain that safety standards are ignored in the pits and in the
processing unit. Workers are sometimes not supplied with respirators for
handling and cleaning the yellow cake. JOAR alleges that in these
circumstances, employees could be inhaling uranium dust and radon gas.
International guidelines say staff at uranium plants should be issued with
protective clothing. But miners and loaders at Jaduguda wear ordinary
cotton uniforms provided by the company. They take these uniforms home for
washing.

UCIL denies all the charges leveled against it. Its chairman and managing
director, J.L. Bhasin, says: "There is no health hazard in and around
Jaduguda caused by our uranium mines." Radiation levels are "well within
the stipulations" laid down by the International Commission on Radiological
Protection, he says. And the guidelines of the International Atomic Energy
Agency are "strictly followed." However, under the terms of India's Atomic
Energy Act, the company does not have to reveal its test results or
employees' health records.

Bhasin cites a medical survey of more than 3,000 residents, organized by
the Bombay-based Bhabha Atomic Research Center, in December last year. It
found that villagers suffering from poor health and deformities showed
"congenital anomalies and diseases due to genetic abnormalities, chronic
malarial infection, malnutrition and alcohol consumption." Bhasin insists:
"The cases examined had no relation to radiation."

The mine boss also denies allegations that the public has access to the
tailing pond. "It is well engineered," he says. "No person can take a bath
or wash their clothes in the pond water." Some reports have, in fact,
suggested that locals cut their way through the perimeter fence. Even so,
say environmentalists, the company should take its responsibilities more
seriously and ensure that security guards are in place to prevent
trespassing.

Local politicians do not accept the company's explanations. They want
tighter monitoring of the uranium mine and its operations. If they don't
get it, they say they will campaign to have the place closed down. That may
be beyond their power. When India exploded five nuclear devices last year,
Jaduguda's uranium ore became that much more precious. But somewhere
between nuclear ambition and the wellbeing of the villagers living in the
shadow of the mine, there has to be a healthy compromise.