BS : Bucket brigade takes on polluting cos : Sept 11, 2007
Bucket brigade takes on polluting cos
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi September 11, 2007
Global Community Monitor trains people in Cuddalore’s industrial area to
identify the levels of pollution.
Parashuram works in the electricity office in Sangoli Kuppam village in
Cuddalore’s Sipkot (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu)
area. Shivashankar and Paramashivam work in the local panchayat office of
Sangoli Kuppam.
But early in the morning on some days, one can catch them together on their
cycles, with a bucket each. They are on a mission to trap the air of the
industrial area in their buckets, manipulated to function like gas bags.
They are the bucket brigade of Cuddalore.
There are 50 people in the group and more are joining. However, their
activism does not stop here. After trapping the polluted air, they send the
samples to the Columbia Analytic Laboratory in the US. The test costs Rs
25,000 and is paid by Global Community Monitor (GCM), an international
agency, which has helped to develop the special buckets.
The agency has worked with many communities since 2002 on establishing
successful air testing programmes.
The report of the test is then splashed in the media. Corporates concerned
are then forced to take measures to rectify the problem.
The activism of the bucket brigade has been engendered by the ills the
people in the area have suffered over the years since the Tamil Nadu
government decided to set aside the area for industrial units.
That a river was flowing right next to the sites and that people lived on
both sides did not deter the government or industry. Soon fishermen who
lived off the catch from the river Uppanar discovered what would be their
destiny.
Arul Selvam, one of the activists of the Sipcot Area’s community
environmental monitoring system and also the brain behind the bucket brigade
in Sangoli Kuppam, says, “The death of an industrial worker, Radhakrishnan,
was an eye opener for many. He was working with Tanfac a supplier of
Fluorine chemicals.
“One day, he lost consciousness and died. Now there is no one to take care
of his two children. However, the company did not respond. He died after
cleaning a tank. He had inhaled sulphuric acid fumes. It was a protected
area and needed skilled labour. Newer units kept opening but people were
helpless as they did not know how to deal with the pollution caused by them.
They had no scientific data to confront the companies with,” he adds.
Selvam further says, “It was after this incident that activists like
Madumita Datta and Nityanand in Chennai, who have worked with Global
Community Monitor, stepped in to start community monitoring of pollution in
the area.
“We identified community leaders and trained them at the Dehradun People’s
Science Initiative. We trained 50 people like Shivashankar and
Paramashivam,” says Arul.
“That was three-and-a-half years ago. Now they take samples of water in
front of the community and test it for 11 parameters. The results are shown
to the district pollution board and the district collector. Then we call the
media,” say an activist of the area.
“We did not know how to get rid of the pungent odours that was let off from
the industrial units. The Global Community Monitoring network helped us to
resolve the problem,” Arul says.
GCM expert Denny Lawson taught people how to relate odour with pollution and
find the source. “A lay man knows only about smell and smoke. He cannot link
it to storage, transportation, processing and discharge,” says Arul.
Now when the activists go on weekly bucket patrols, they look for smells and
try to identify them, as each smell is linked to a different chemical.
“We observe the after effects of a particular odour on inhalation. And then
we see if loading or unloading is happening at that time and if it is safe
or not, if parking is safe or unsafe and if tanker with chemicals is parked
in unsafe areas,” another activist says.
He points at a ditch and says that a month ago Spic Pharma released a thick
yellow discharge into it making people puke and faint.
Thankavel and Bhupathi, members of the bucket brigade, say, “Earlier we used
to get a lot of fish. But not even half remains now. Fish die during the
rains when more effluent is secretly released by polluting industries.”
The villagers don’t even have access to drinking water. “We take water from
Kudikat, a neighbouring village. We don’t get clean drinking water in
Sangoli Kuppam,” complain villagers.
One of the latest recruits in the bucket brigade of Sangoli Kuppam is
Tilakavati, 33, a mother of two children. She is part of the community
monitoring team, which is on its newest project: a health survey of the
people of Sangoli Kuppam to document the effects of pollution in the area.
Tilakavati herself is a case study as she says she feels breathless all the
time. Her children also suffer from breathlessness. “We have invested all
our money in this house. How can we leave it? No one will even buy it,” she
says. So she has decided to join the fight rather than quit like scores of
others in the village.
Publication : BS; Section : Social Enterprise; Pg : 13; Date : 11/9/07
URL :
http://www.business-standard.com/bsonline/storypage.php?leftnm=3&autono=297549