By Madhumita Dutta

Sukinda valley in Orissa has made it to the top ten of the world’s 30 most polluted places. Seventy years of intensive open-cast chromite mining have resulted in a scarred landscape, toxic water and soil, ruined agricultural fields, degraded forestland, and populations that are being slowly poisoned

Sukinda valley, tucked away in northern Orissa’s Jajpur district, is a place not many have heard of. Very few people know that this small area contributes over 97% of India’s chromite ore -- an important ingredient in the production of stainless steel, plating metal surfaces, glassware, leather tanning, catalysts, and alloys. Many of these items end up in our homes and kitchens as expensive cutlery and gleaming glassware.

A report jointly published in September 2007 by the US-based Blacksmith Institute and the Swiss group Green Cross Switzerland places Sukinda in the top 10 list of the world’s 30 most polluted places. One look at its scarred landscape confirms why it deserves such a dubious honour.

Seventy years of intensive open-cast chromite ore extraction have resulted in massive holes in the ground, mountains of ‘overburden’ (waste rock and soil), toxic water and soil, ruined agricultural fields and large tracts of degraded forestland. And the people have been slowly poisoned over the years, as in many mining areas around the country.

Over 30 million tonnes of hexavalent chromium (Cr+6)-bearing overburden, generated by 13 chromite mines, have completely altered the landscape of the region. Many of the mines here do not have an environmental management plan; untreated or partially treated waste water from the mines, generated while washing the ore, and excess water from the mine pits is let out into the open fields of the surrounding villages. It eventually drains into the Damasa river, a tributary of the Bramhni that empties out into the Bay of Bengal.

The Bramhni is the lifeline of an estimated 2.6 million people in the district. A study by NORAD’s Orissa Environment Programme, revealed high levels of Cr+6 in sediment from the Bay of Bengal, which has been attributed to chromite mining in the Sukinda valley. A 2002 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General called Sukinda a “highly polluted area”.

In a statement in 2002, the government of Orissa admitted that “it (hexavalent chromium pollution) is unique, it is gigantic and it is beyond the means and purview of the (Orissa Pollution Control) Board to solve the problem”. A known human carcinogen, Cr+6 also causes respiratory tract irritation, nasal septum ulcers, irritant dermatitis, rhinitis, bronchospasm and pneumonia.

Although the Orissa Pollution Control Board has called the Blacksmith report an “exaggeration”, its own findings showed dangerous levels of Cr+6 in the mine overburden and surface water. Between 2004 and 2005, the Board monitored levels of Cr+6 in the Damasa river, as part of a study funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) titled ‘Environment Study and Preparation of Action Plan for Abatement of Chromium Pollution in Sukinda Valley’. The study revealed the presence of Cr+6 in the range of ‘0.018-0.172 mg/l in summer season’ and higher levels during the monsoon -- up to ‘0.201mg/l at village Ostapal’, which far exceeds the prescribed standard (0.05 mg/l) for Class B and C categories of inland surface water. The study also found hexavalent chromium and total chromium content in the overburden, in the range of 12-311 mg/kg and 3,589–14,486 mg/kg respectively.

According to the Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Bhubaneswar, one tonne of chromite mining generates around 10 tonnes of overburden which is diverse in its chemical and mineralogical character. In most areas of Sukinda valley, the overburden is predominantly nickeli ferrous laterite, containing 0.7% nickel. RRL estimates that about 7.6 MT (metric tonnes) of overburden stored per annum has the potential of releasing 11.73 tonnes of Cr+6 per year into the environment.

“Not only is our water poisoned, but these mines are also draining all our groundwater by going deeper every year. With the mine pits lower than the water table, all the water is draining into the mine pits. We have experienced acute water scarcity in the area for several years, especially the last four years. And the jharna water gives us a skin rash,” says Nand Kishore Mahanto, a resident of Bhimtangor village, adjacent to the TISCO mines.

The villagers allege that water scarcity due to large-scale mining has severely affected agricultural production. Most villagers own small pieces of land (between one and two acres) and depend on subsistence farming. “With the loss of agriculture, the people have no option but to do menial jobs in the mines on daily wages,” says Kalindi Mallik, an activist working in the area. The government claims that the mines provide direct employment to over 7,000 people; much of this is contract labour, say the villagers.

A 1996 study by RRL Bhubaneswar showed that Cr+6 had entered the foodchain as well. It was found in edible plants, especially paddy and mango, and in meat and fish. The study also documented extremely high levels of Cr+6 in mine water at TISCO’s Sukinda Chromite Mines in Kaliapani, as well as the South Kaliapani wells of the Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC).

In 2001, a study published in the international journal Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, by a scientist from Delhi University, reported extremely high levels of Cr+6 in the surface and groundwater near the chromite mines. It was stated to be as high as 52 mg/l in the effluent channel coming out of TISCO’s plant. In all, 70.37% of surface water samples analysed contained Cr+6 in excess of the safe level of 0.1 mg/l. The study found that the drinking water being supplied by the mining companies, also the water in borewells, also contained unsafe levels of Cr+6. Almost 61.11% of the drinking water samples had high concentrations of Cr+6. The study concluded that the reasons for such high levels of Cr+6 contamination in the area were indiscriminate discharge of untreated water from the mines and workshops, rainwater running off large overburdens, and dumps collapsing and mixing with water in the river.

Nothing has changed since these studies, as a reporter from Down To Earth, a New Delhi-based environment and science bimonthly, found out in April 2007. Samples collected and tested by the reporter showed the presence of Cr+6 in water from a drain flowing out of TISCO’s mine dump and in almost all waterbodies in Sukinda.

Mahanto alleges that untreated mine water and run-off from the TISCO overburden has destroyed agricultural land in the area. Large tracts of once-fertile agricultural land in Bhimtangor village are now covered with mine overburden. Residents of Kakoria village, where TISCO has in the past one year leased forest land and started dumping overburden, have protested the dumping as the mine waste runs off into their fields during the monsoons.

While studying the impact of mining and related industries in the Sukinda valley, the Orissa Remote Sensing Applications Centre highlighted large-scale degradation of forestland in the last two decades. There has been a net increase of degraded forest area, from 731.88 ha in 1974 to 1,828.98 ha in 1994.

Despite all the evidence, however, there has been no comprehensive health impact assessment of exposure to Cr+6 done in the region.

A survey carried out by the Orissa Voluntary Health Association (OVHA) in 1995, funded by the Norwegian government, reported that 84.75% of deaths in the mining areas and 86.42% of deaths in nearby industrial villages occurred due to chromite mine-related diseases. People living less than a kilometre from the sites were the worst affected, with 24.47% of inhabitants suffering from pollution-induced illnesses, said OVHA. It concluded that “the pollution and health hazards related to hexavalent chromium are acute, causing irreparable (damage) to human health”.

“Residents of 10 villages downstream of Damasa, especially Borogazi, Kalrangi, Rasul, Kustanpur and Khusksa, all complain of skin irritations and TB. And there is an acute dust problem in the area. Especially during the summer we cannot stand in this area without getting fully covered in dust. It irritates our skin, nose and throat; people suffer from asthma,” says Mohanto.

And, says one villager, given the water scarcity, many villagers are forced to bathe in water that accumulates in the abandoned chromite mine pits.

“We kept meeting people with dermatitis. We saw a woman bathing a child covered with sores all over his body, in a stream that was apparently contaminated with mine water discharge. We talked to her about it and she said she knew that the water caused it, but there was no alternative water source,” says Mahalakshmi Parthasarthy, a researcher from Bangalore who conducted a field visit in the area in 2001. Parthasarthy met women washing utensils in the contaminated water downstream of the Damasa, who said that they used the same water for drinking.

“Working conditions in the mines are dangerous, with most of the mines damp and slippery,” said a worker at the Saruabil mines. For women workers, the work conditions are not just back-breaking but also highly exploitative. “There are a few men in the area who enjoy the patronage of the ruling political party and have control over most of the mines. They exploit the women workers, and there have been a number of cases of rape and murder in the mines. But who will report it to the police? The police cannot do anything. These mafias control the area,” says Mohanto. The Sukinda mines saw a lot of trade union rivalry and violence in the 1990s.

By its very nature, mining is a violent activity -- to the environment and to humans. Sukinda’s mutilated landscape, its once-vibrant fields, its poisoned rivers, its wetlands, its brutalised local population, all bear testimony to this ugly fact. But perhaps what makes Sukinda stand out is the avarice with which the mining companies have plundered the place without any qualms or amends.

(Madhumita Dutta is a Chennai-based activist and a member of Corporate Accountability Desk-The Other Media)

InfoChange News & Features, December 2007

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