Message from Barry Castleman on Asbestos Campaign in Bihar, India

[gopal krishna]

Message from Barry Castleman on Asbestos Campaign in Bihar, India

From: Barry Castleman <barry.c...@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Subject: Asbestos Campaign in Bihar, India

This is a request for support in getting authorities in the state of Bihar to close down a notorious and polluting Ramco asbestos-cement products plant in Bhojpur district.  

1)  We start with background on the situation in Bihar, and request List members to support action at the Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB).  

2)  This background is followed by a message last month from BC to the Chairman of the BSPCB, focusing on the need for the authorities to compel reporting on asbestos waste disposal by all companies making asbestos-cement products.  The emphasis on wastes can be used to raise the profile of waste disposal in environmental campaigns against the asbestos-cement factories everywhere.  As long as these plants are allowed to operate, there should be public disclosure of what they do with the asbestos wastes.

List members are asked for specifically support on these points in writing to the Chairman of the BSPCB

1. Now that BSPCB has conclusively reached the conclusion that Ramco company has been in violation of environmental laws, it ought to urgently reiterate it's order whereby it had ordered closure of the factory. 

2. Ramco should decontaminate the site of the factory, its site of waste disposal, and the villages in the vicinity of the Ramco's units. 

3. BSPCB ought impose costs on Ramco. 

Supporting statements should be addressed to Dr. Ashok Kumar Ghosh, Chairman of BSPCB, bs...@yahoo.com   

Copies of these supporting statements should be sent cc or forwarded to Gopal Krishna   1715k...@gmail.com  

Background 

Successful public struggles have blocked proposed asbestos-based factories in the districts of 1) Muzaffarpur, 2) Vaishali, 3) Madhubani, 4) West Champaran and 5) Bhojpur in Bihar.  Some cases are still pending.  Bihar is the first state in India where new asbestos plants were barred due to local campaigns. 

Statements and letters of peoples' movements, trade unions, student unions, progressive parties, international ban asbestos secretariat, global ban asbestos networks, and renowned asbestos experts expressing solidarity with the struggle strengthened the anti-asbestos movement in Bihar.  In reaction, the asbestos industry association acted to derail and defame the struggle through strategic legal actions against public interest activists.  Villagers were arrested on fabricated charges.  

One unit of Tamil Nadu based Nibhi lndustries which was set up in Bhojpur district was stopped on environmental grounds by Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB).  Nibhi's repeated efforts to get relief from Patna High Court failed because the State Government supported the stance of BSPCB in the Court.  But the factory and its asbestos waste remain in the 15-acre factory premises located immediately adjacent to an educational institution.  

In responding to the anti-asbestos struggles, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar assured the State Assembly in July 2019 that no new asbestos-based factories would be allowed in the state.  But Ramco Industries continues to operate in the Bihiya Block of Bhojpur adjacent to a temple, amidst several villages and agricultural fields.  Even the Chairman of Bihar Legislative Council expressed his disapproval of the Ramco operations, which he called "cancer factories".

Taking a consistent position against these asbestos plants and pursuant to a complaint against the company, Vivek Kumar Singh, Chairman of Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) canceled the operating permits (Non-Objection Certificates) given to Ramco.  Ramco appealed against the cancellation.  Their appeal protested that the Appellate Authority happened to be same Vivek Kumar Singh himself who as Chairman, Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) had canceled their permits.  The company used this as a technical basis to seek relief from the Patna High Court and got it.  Instead of confirming its order asking the state government to simply rectify the error by appointing another person as Appellate Authority and unmindful of the fact that the fact of violation of environmental laws had not been disputed, the High Court allowed the company to operate its plant. 

Meanwhile, Appellate Authority has been changed and now the High Court has asked the new Chairman, Bihar State Pollution Control Board to act after examining the complaint against it.  If the BSPCB and the Appellate Authority can be approached by concerned experts and global ban asbestos network, the decision process can be expedited.  BSPCB can easily set matters right by restoring its earlier order by asking the Appellate Authority to hear the appeal and decide the matter to safeguard public health and ensure environmental justice by closing the plant.

Relief in the case would set a good precedent for all Ramco's factories which are dumping asbestos waste indiscriminately through corrupt means (e.g., manipulating invoices) in other parts of the country and endangering unsuspecting communities.

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[from Barry Castleman to Dr. Ashok Ghosh, Chairman of Bihar State Pollution Control Board, April 1, 2020, calling for mandatory public reporting of asbestos waste disposal by Ramco] 

Ramco -- Reporting on Asbestos Waste Disposal to the Environment

Dear Dr. Ghosh,

I have long taken an interest in asbestos and public health in India.  My paper "Double Standards: Asbestos in India" in New Scientist and a follow up in Economic and Political Weekly were published in 1981 (attached).  Back then, leading US and British global asbestos enterprises were running operations in India that grossly violated the regulations of their home countries.  I have continued to work with people in India on asbestos and appeared at a conference in Patna in 2012.  The Bihar government and BSPCB's efforts to ensure compliance with environmental laws have been important in responding to the need to protect public health and to public opposition to the asbestos industry.

The last global asbestos enterprise was Saint Gobain, which continued to run asbestos mines and factories in Brazil after France banned asbestos in 1997.  In 1999, the French company sold the mines and converted its manufacturing plant to making fiber-cement using safer plastic fibers (polyvinyl alcohol, polypropylene) instead of asbestos.  

The asbestos industry in India today is run by Indian companies, the foreign corporations who might have been embarrassed by my accusations have been replaced by national companies.  The businessmen who run these companies I regard as the bottom of the corporate food chain, they are running discredited hazardous industries.  They only remain profitable by minimizing their costs for the prevention and compensation of occupational and environmental illness and death.  

I have been investigating toxic corporate crime for 50 years.  By this term, I refer to businesses that are criminal in the great burden they extract from society for their blood money.  These are businesses no global corporation would run;  this company Ramco sells a material that leading multinational corporations have policies to avoid using.  From a public health point of view, discredited hazardous industries do not deserve the rights of ordinary businesses.  The World Health Organization addressed this in the case of tobacco.  Government authorities were admonished by WHO to have nothing to say or do with tobacco interests, except for the purpose of better restricting tobacco use and reducing illness in the population.   

The picture of Ramco's operation in journalist Smita Kumar's report in 2013 in The Telegraph is consistently appalling, in the practices described, the suffering caused, and the arrogant lies of the plant manager.  Has that changed?  It is certainly time for the BSPCB to extract some degree of accounting of damage occurring, particularly off the site of the plant.  Surely, the Board has the means to compel disclosure about the fate of the plant's voluminous wastes.  These wastes are a design feature of asbestos cement plants, and their fate should be disclosed to the public environmental authorities.  Appropriate regulation can then be imposed.

I was inspired to begin work in air pollution control by Jean Schueneman.  He was an old air pollution hand who had worked for the federal government.  He decided Maryland would be a good state to set up a model program and in 1968 he set up the state air pollution agency.  One of the useful things the state did was complete a registration form for all companies, including what went in and out of each plant that could have environmental effects.  Similarly, I think the BSPCB should require reporting every three months from the Ramco plant about the volume and fate of the tonnage of their broken asbestos-cement wastes.  These reports should be immediately available to the public.  This information should be seen as necessary for BSPCB to ensure that people are protected against environmental exposure to lethal asbestos where these wastes are transported and dumped.

--

Barry Castleman, ScD

Environmental Consultant
MAIL: P.O. Box 188
DELIVERIES: 4406 Oxford Street
Garrett Park, MD, USA, 20896
Cell: 301-752-8070

Tel: 301 933 9097
Email: barry.c...@gmail.com