A branch of the river Tamirabarani has been found carrying the effluents of the mercury used by the Tuticorine based DCW Company. This is happening despite there being a worldwide ban on it. The peasants and farmers from Perumalpuram and Arumuganery are suffering from suffocation at night and in the early mornings, whenever effluents come into contact with the air. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has been requested to conduct an enquiry and take further steps by meeting the local people who know how irritations and domestic animals have been affected, informs Rayan of East Coast Research and Development.

In November 2002, civil society groups come together and demanded an urgent investigation in the two units of company DCW. The first unit called Dharangadhara unit, produces soda ash, ammonium, bicarbonate, calcium chloride, liquid bromide, soda bicarb. Its second unit called, Sahupuram unit produces rayan grade castic soda, lye [solid and flakes],trichoroethelene, beneficiated ilemenite, utox, pvc resin and liquid chlorine.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Even at very low levels, it can cause subtle but permanent damage to the central nervous system. At higher levels it tends to damage the lungs and kidneys. The more common exposure is through the diet and depending upon the local mercury pollution load, additional contribution may occur through air and water. Mercury levels are extremely high in working environments like those of chlor-alkali plants etc.

According to the International Chemical Safety Council of United Nations, an organic form of mercury- methyl mercury is one of the six most serious pollution threat to the planet. The administration has accepted that mercury is being used from 1956, as it was not banned earlier. Its anthropogenic emissions from chlor-alkali industries are a known fact. Most of the mercury released into the environment by human activity is in either elemental or inorganic form but biological processes convert inorganic mercury into highly dangerous forms of organic mercury, such as methylmercury. It is the most harmful to humans and wildlife due to its ability to bio-accumulate in the food chain. It biomagnification through mercury cycling in the environment is a complex phenomenon depending on various environmental parameters. Once in aquatic systems, mercury can exist in dissolved or particulate forms and can undergo a number of chemical transformations. Mercury due to its bio-accumulative nature builds up as it goes higher across the aquatic food chain from planktons to predator fish, such as sharks, eagles, vulture’s etc, these can have mercury concentrations over a million times higher than the surrounding.

The company is also for producing pvc powder which emits one of the most poisonous gases called v c m [vinayal chloride] through the red lorries from the Tuticorin harbour in open place through the streets and roads which is not allowed according to environment laws is the raw material for the production of pvc powder. There are strict rules to the effect that vcm should not be carried in open but the company carries it through the road without fire engines of the tanker lorry sans any caution. Two years back there was an accident near the SPIC factory in Tuticorine in which this lorry caught fire and the entire road was filled with foam. Goats moving around the effluent water from the company are loosing their hair. Turtles, rare species, once prominently noted are not been found in the river anymore. Despite such accidents the local authorities seem to be hand in glove with the company unmindful of any preventive steps to ward off any impending catastrophe to the health and ecology of the city. TNPCB is enquiring on the effluents in the river of Tamirabarani.

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A typical 100-megawatt coal burning thermal power plant would emit approximately 10 kg of mercury a year. That doesn’t sound like much until you consider that it could take the addition of only 0.9 grams of mercury -- 1/70th of a teaspoon -- to contaminate a 25 acre lake to the point that the fish in that lake are unsafe to eat.

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In Japan, mercury poisoning occurred when Chisso Corporation, a fertiliser, petrochemical, and plastic maker dumped at least 27 tons of mercury compounds into Minamata Bay and River from 1932 to 1968. It moved through the food chain and was consumed by villagers in fish taken from Minamata Bay. The "Minamata Disease" affected thousands of people between 1953 and 1973.

One of the worst cases of reported mercury poisoning comes from Iraq. In 1971- 1972, hundreds of people died and many more were hospitalised after eating bread made from imported wheat seeds. The bread was made from 90,000 tonnes of seeds that were intended for planting and had been treated with alkyl mercury fungicide. The bag of seeds had a warning not to be eaten, but the warning was in Spanish. Iraqis used the wheat seed to make bread and ate it. The bread contained on average 7.9 ppm of methylmercury. Many ingested lethal doses of mercury, but did not experience any symptoms for weeks after they ate the bread. Once the symptoms began to appear, the damage was already done to the brain and the nervous system. Motor functioning and changes in sensation were most often reported. Sixty-five hundred Iraqis were hospitalised and 459 died from mercury poisoning.

Mercury Availability Sans Awareness

Just walk into Tilak Bazaar, a market in Delhi and you can easily find Mercury. All the traders in this market buy the required amount of mercury from importers in Delhi and later supply it to all the major consumers in India.

This market is situated in Khari Baoli, Chandni Chowk area of Delhi. The workers and people working here are unaware of hazards of mercury. The concept of chemical safety is an academic issue, which is studied but never put in practice.

There is a lack of awareness about mercury and its ill effects on human health among workers and labourers (like any other chemical). At the shops one can see boys pouring mercury from one flask to other with their bare hands and uncovered face, as if they are pouring water from one jar to another jar! The boys and the trader there seem unaware of toxicity of mercury. This is a gross violation of Indian Standard: 7812 (1975) 'Code of Safety of Mercury'.

Tilak Bazaar mostly caters to the demand of mercury in North India. All the major thermometer companies, especially those industries using mercury on small-scale basis, buy the required amount of mercury from this market. Besides industries, many schools, colleges and laboratories do the same.