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More
than 5,000 people converged this month in the southern Indian state of
Tamil Nadu to protest a deal that set the stage for the state
government to appropriate almost 10,000 acres of land and hand it over
to Tata Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of India's largest
conglomerate. The June 2007 agreement allows the giant company to mine
ilmenite in Sathankulam, an agrarian pocket of India's coastal
countryside.
This ilmenite, when processed, yields titanium metal and
titanium dioxide (TiO2), both extremely valuable products. But many
locals are refusing to sell out of concern that the ilmenite mining
operations and loss of land will destroy their traditional way of life
and despoil the environment. At least 40 percent of the population --
the landless and those engaged in household industries -- depend on
farming palmyra trees for subsistence or supplemental income.
The Tamil Nadu government, has weighed in to side with
Tata, and is threatening to seize the land by eminent domain. "The
district administration, the state machinery and all its functionaries
are engaged as unofficial real estate agents for Tata, and these days
you'll see all of them trotting behind Tata officials trying to buy
land," says S. Anandraj, chairman of the local self-government in
Sathankulam. Anandraj is a member of the All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a bitter political rival of the party
ruling the state of Tamil Nadu.
What aggravates the locals even more is the lack of
transparency by Tata and the government. Tata has promised to act
fairly, but the June 2007 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between
Tata and the state, as well as the survey numbers of lands to be
acquired, remain closely guarded secrets.
Titanium Conflicts
Both
titanium mining and processing have had a contentious history. In 1999,
the indigenous people in the Okefenokee reservation in the southern
U.S. state of Georgia, successfully fought off Dupont's 1999 attempt to
mine titanium. In August 2006, villagers in central Vietnam forced
titanium mining operations to halt after mining resulted in groundwater
contamination and depletion. In the Kwale coastal area of Eastern
Kenya, indigenous tribes have been fighting a pitched battle with
titanium giant Tiomin to prevent it from mining titanium on ancestral
lands.
In August 2006, the Nanjing Titanium
Chemicals company in Jiangsu province of Eastern China was ordered shut
after it released 3,000 tons of untreated wastes into the Nanhe River.
The wastes virtually killed the river and caused sickness among the
residents of a nearby town. In February 1999, a leading manufacturer of
TiO2 in the UK released 8,000 tons of effluents containing 37 tons of
concentrated hydrochloric acid from a damaged pipeline. More than 17
acres of land was affected with irreparable damage in the near-term. |
The
Tamil Nadu Department of Industries denied this reporter's request
under the Right to Information Act for a copy of the MoU. "Tata Steel,"
the department replied, "has raised their objection on the ground that
it is an exclusive, privileged document of confidential nature and the
disclosure of such information shall harm the commercial confidence and
competitive position of the company."
National Priority?
Some
96 percent of the ilmenite extracted will be turned into titanium
dioxide, which is extensively used as a pigment in plastics, paint, sun
screen, food coloring and biomedical applications. The remainder is
purified to titanium sponge, an intermediate which is further processed
to titanium -- a corrosion-resistant metal that is half the weight of
steel, but twice as strong and is especially valuable for applications
in aircraft, space and other high-tech industries.
India's ilmenite resources are estimated at more
than 21 percent of global deposits, but much of it has not been tapped.
Instead the country imports most of its annual consumption of 70,000
tons of TiO2 as well as the titanium metal it uses for defense and
space research. Meanwhile global demand for the metal is rising, indeed
other big industrial countries -- like the U.S. and Russia -- have
already stockpiled large quantities of the strategic metal, says Dr.
Placid Rodriguez, visiting professor at the Indian Institute of
Technology in Madras.
Rodriguez, who has headed various departments within
India's nuclear and defense research establishments, says that India
should tap into this growing market. "Our economic growth in this
century will depend on bauxite, iron and titanium," he says.
Realizing the potential for future production should
the sector open up, DuPont, the market leader in titanium dioxide
pigment, already has set up outposts in India. And companies like
Boeing have also started to look to India as a source of titanium
metal. (Boeing's aircrafts are nearly 15 percent titanium in weight.)
For its part the Indian government is contemplating
deregulation that would allow 100 percent foreign direct investment in
mining and processing. This potentially lucrative new opportunity
quickly attracted the attention of Tata, one of India's oldest and
biggest companies. (According to its website, the Tata Group's
businesses are now spread over seven business sectors, 98 companies and
six continents. "It employs some 246,000 people and collectively has a
shareholder base of over 2 million and market capitalization of $70
billion as of October 2007.")
The company sees titanium mining is an important
opportunity for diversification. "For 100 years, Tata has remained a
single mineral company with its emphasis on steel," explains Dr. S.
Asokan, Tata Steel's executive-in-charge for the Titania project.
Tata's Plans for Sathankulam
But
before Tata can proceed with the $625 million titanium project, it
needs to secure the land and displace thousands of local farmers and
small business people. As currently envisioned, the mining project
involves land spread over six villages in Sathankulam, a 24-square mile
area about 35 miles from the southern port city of Tuticorin; Tata
hopes to expand by an additional 12 square miles over a 30-year period.
The complex operations will include a mineral
processing plant to produce titanium dioxide pigment and a coal-fired
thermal power plant. A seawater desalination plant to supply 16 million
liters a day of fresh water, is planned for Kulasekarapattinam, a
seaside fishing hamlet about 12 miles from the mining site. Tata will
also set up tailing ponds that will hold up to 85 percent of the
material mined in the form of slime (very fine sand) and coarse sand.
Each year, Tata plans to remove 500,000 tons of
ilmenite-rich sands, with 53 percent titanium dioxide, from slightly
more than half a square mile. For the first year, the operation will
require more land to accommodate tailings ponds.
"Government will consider land acquisition [through
eminent domain],"
says Tamil Nadu government Industries Secretary Shaktikanta Das, "but
we'll try to arrive at a fair negotiated price. And we're urging Tata
to directly negotiate as well."
That negotiation depends on the value of the
property, and the people and the corporation have different ways to
measure worth. "We selected the site, because there is no cultivation,
it is barren and there is no water," says Tata Steel's Asokan. "When we
demarcated the area, we excluded residences, buildings, etc."
The Magic Palm
Palmyra
is also known as the "friend of the poor." It grows even under adverse
water conditions in all kinds of soil, and is often planted on open
plains as a windbreak.
Virtually every part of the tree can be
used, value-added, and sold. Several millennia ago, alcohol from palm
sap was exported from India to places as far away as Egypt. Today, the
sap makes a healthy drink and a base for palm sugar and jaggery (a
traditional Indian form of unrefined sugar), as well as an intoxicant.
The fruits, seedlings and tubers are edible and the fronds are widely
used as roofing material. Leaves can be cut in strips and woven into a
variety of useful articles such as mats, boxes and toys. The thick and
sturdy mid-rib of the leaf is used as fence posts and the fiber inside
the trunks can be stripped, processed and used as bristles in brushes
and brooms.
Palmyra also has medicinal uses long
exploited by locals and explored in the Journal of Economic Botany.
"The young plant is said to relieve biliousness, dysentery, and
gonorrhea. Young roots are diuretic and anthelmintic, and a decoction
is given in certain respiratory diseases. The ash of the spadix is
taken to relieve heartburn and enlarged spleen and liver. The bark
decoction, with salt, is used as a mouth wash, and charcoal made of the
bark serves as a dentifrice.
Sap from the flower stalk is prized as a
tonic, diuretic, stimulant, laxative and anti-phlegmatic and amebicide.
Sugar made from this sap is said to counteract poisoning, and it is
prescribed in liver disorders. Candied, it is a remedy for coughs and
various pulmonary complaints. Fresh toddy, heated to promote
fermentation, is bandaged onto all kinds of ulcers. The cabbage, leaf
petioles and dried male flower spikes all have diuretic activity. The
pulp of the mature fruit relieves dermatitis." |
Government
spokesperson Das concurs: "Barring the few patches, and some
horticultural plots, the entire land is barren and not fit for
agricultural use." Only 345 acres are irrigated, he says.
Land Value Disputed
Locals
disagree, pointing to irrigated patches and to stretches of cashew nut
and palmyra trees that protect against drought by deterring wind
erosion and retaining rainwater. They call their lands theri nilam -- a
Tamil phrase for the sweeping swathes of red sand dunes that can reach
40 feet high. Some of the more prosperous farms are fenced off, with
productive open and bore wells. Others have coconut saplings, and drip
irrigation. Cashew, palmyra, acacia bushes and thorny scrub make up for
the rest of the vegetation. Vegetable crops, horticulture and palm
products add to the agricultural economy.
The palmyra or toddy palm tree is closely associated
with the local economy, culture and folk medicine. Members of the
predominant Nadar caste are famed palmyra workers, controlling the
myriad businesses arising from this versatile crop. While many
well-to-do Nadars have moved into trading and business, the community's
poor live by the palmyra.
"Everybody finds something meaningful and
remunerative in the palmyra," says Poongani, a woman well into her 70s.
As she speaks, her fingers deftly weave dry fronds into a mat that will
end up in a local market. Each mat takes less than 20 minutes to
complete, and will yield her three rupees ($0.08). She doesn't own palm
trees, she explains, but everyday she weaves 30 mats she can earn
enough to make ends meet.
While most residents say they will never sell their
homeland to Tata, the few willing to consider that option are balking
at the price. Out of 14 people from the project area CorpWatch
interviewed, the only one thinking about selling called the quoted
rates a "joke."
The steel giant is offering land owners roughly
$1,250 per acre. Tata has set aside two percent of the project cost
($12.5 million) for acquiring the 10,000 acres. The offer is generous,
Tata says, since the officially notified value for land in the project
site "varies from Rs. 18,125 ($435) to Rs. 116,000 ($2,900) per acre,
with an average value of Rs. 40,315 ($1,000)."
The government is actively promoting land sales. In
August, it organized a public hearing led by the Tamil Nadu Minister of
Mines, K. Ponmudi. "The Committee had open sessions in all six
villages. In all villages, there was overwhelming support for the
project among landowners. Seventy to 75 percent are in favor of the
project," says Das.
This assessment of support, if accurate, has not
translated into more land for Tata. "In two and a half years, we have
only acquired 17 acres," says Tata's Asokan. "The government has told
us that they will get land for us by March-June 2008."
J. Saravanaraj owns a 22-acre farm in Thisayanvilai
town that employs 210 people. He may spare 10 acres that are under
cashew for Tata, but wants $3,750 per acre. "It is false to say that
these lands are empty. Even the 10 acres I'm willing to give has cashew
stands. Each acre of cashew will yield Rs. 10,000 - 15,000 ($250-$375)
with zero maintenance," he explains.
On the remaining 12 acres, he has planted coconut,
sapota, mango, lemon and guava, and invested in two wells costing Rs.
300,000 each ($7,500). He has also invested Rs. 1.5 million ($37,500)
in a palm fiber mill and exports the processed fiber used in brushes
and brooms.
"We can't give up these lands. We may get
compensation, but the workers won't get anything, and some have worked
with us for 20 years," Saravanaraj points out.
Cultural and Environmental Impact
The
indigenous people of the region also believe that few economic benefits
will flow to them and worry that Tata's operations will envelope
homesteads, schools, cemeteries, graves, farmlands and roads and entire
villages. "[Tata's] needs will wipe out our histories. What will I say
where I'm from, if my entire village -- where I was born and brought up
-- is wiped out?" asks S. Devadas, a landless farm laborer from
Edachivilai, a hamlet in Arasur 1 village in the project area.
They also fear that the mining will destroy their
environment and health. Ilmenite mining involves removal of vegetation
and extraction of several meters of soil. Besides the immediate
implications of soil erosion because of wind and rain, the large-scale
deforestation could also induce local climate changes.
Tata's Asokan counters that mine reclamation will
actually improve local hydrology and soil fertility. However, his
presentation to CorpWatch failed to identify and address several
potential hazards including radiation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists
titanium as "Mineral ores known to have TENORM [Technologically
Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive] associated wastes." TENORM
has natural radioactive content that is increased by technological
processing using acid leaching, solvent extraction, electro or pyro of
magnetic processing, or intensive use of water.
The extracted sands are first concentrated to
isolate the heavy minerals -- ilmenite, zircon, silmanite, monazite and
rutile -- by washing the sands in large quantities of water, and
letting the heavy mineral content settle. The various minerals are then
separated using magnetic and electrical separation processes. Waste,
including radioactive minerals, is returned to the mining site along
with sand tailings and slime. Every 100 tons of heavy mineral sand
isolated from the theri sand yields about 53 tons of ilmenite and 5
tons of radioactive monazite, according to Tata Steel.
Nor did Asokan offer specifics about the complex
variety of other potentially toxic emissions generated during
production. Tata is planning to process the sands using a
pollution-intensive method involving chlorine that, according to the
United Nations Environment Program, creates dioxin. Listed under the
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, dioxins are a
potent carcinogen that bioaccumulates and magnifies up the food chain
to affect top predators such as birds of prey, large fish and humans.
In addition to dioxin, the process also emits
hydrogen chloride, chlorine, acidic sludge, sulphur dioxide, carbon
dioxide, heavy-metal laden solid wastes, acidic
organochlorine-contaminated effluent and particulate matter. Aluminum,
antimony, arsenic, lead and molybdenum are trace emissions from TiO2
plants. Every ton of TiO2 processed through the chlorine method will
yield 2.4 tons of solid wastes, 90 kilograms of sulphur dioxide, and 3
kilograms of acidic and trace-metal-tainted effluents.
Other dangerous releases also cannot be ruled out.
Titanium tetrachloride reacts violently with water to release deadly
hydrogen chloride fumes that can hug the ground and spread over large
areas, causing death and destruction.
The biggest local concern, though, is water. Located
in a rain shadow region, the area receives sparse rainfall. Farmers,
though, swear by the Theri sands that "are like sponges. They store
water during the rains, and release it during dry seasons," says G.
Sivaganesakumar, a farmer in Naduvukurichi, a village that sits in the
project area. "It doesn't matter what the price of the land is. It
doesn't matter whether Tata mines the land or the government does. What
matters is that if it is mined, the titanium will disappear in 30
years. If not, the land will yield water forever. You decide: Titanium
or Water?"
Selling Off the Future?
Within
that long-term context, locals see Tata's pledge of 1,000 direct, and
more than 3,000 indirect, jobs as part of a squeeze to get farmers out
of farming, without a clear roadmap for absorbing them into new
industries. The landless are even worse off since, as Secretary Das
confirms, there is no compensation package for them. "Landless people
will get preference in wage-earning jobs, in mine reclamation and
revegetation," Das adds.
"We are being squeezed out from all sides," says
Anandraj, who also runs a wholesale vegetable store in Chennai, Tamil
Nadu's state capital. "We're farmers and traders. On the one hand, Tata
is squeezing us out of farming. To escape that if we go to the cities
to set up shops, Reliance and Walmart are there making life miserable
for small traders."
Just in the last decade, more than 100,000
debt-ridden farmers have killed themselves in some of the most
prosperous agricultural areas of India. The communities in Tata's path
live in the shadow of that despair.
Trouble follows Tata
While
this is Tata's first titanium operation, the company's operations
around India have a history of sparking opposition and violence (see
Stolen for Steel: Tata Takes Tribal Lands in India
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13620). In January 2006, Orissa
state police gunned down 13 tribal people who were protesting the
takeover of land for a Tata Steel project in Kalinganagar.
And for the last two years, Singur -- a
fertile farming economy about 25 miles from Calcutta in West Bengal --
has been a hotbed of violence. The Communist Party (Marxist)-led state
government has resorted to baton and tear gas attacks, and harassment
of those opposed to the takeover of land for a Tata Motors' car project. |
"We're
illiterate," says K. Sakthivel, a landless laborer from Vemmankudi
village, less than 10 miles from the project site. "The land provides
dignified livelihoods for illiterate people. I don't understand Tata's
motive behind wanting everything. Why not do their business on some
land and leave some for us to survive? What use am I going to be for
the Tatas? They will want engineers. A few of us may get jobs as
laborers. But what after the Tatas leave, after the minerals are
exhausted, after the land is dead?"
This is not the first time that the people of this
part of Tamil Nadu have faced mighty odds and fought back. In the 18th
century, Veerapandiya Kattabomman, a local chieftain, refused to cede
land taxes to the British East India Company. He was finally caught and
hanged in 1799, but not before the company suffered massive losses in a
battle that sowed the seeds for the independence struggle.
Again, "People are angry, very angry," says S.
Anandraj, chairman of the local self-government in Sathankulam, and a
member of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the
ruling party's political rival.
"If the government paid as much attention to
agriculture as it did to industry," says local farmer G.
Sivaganesakumar. "This place would blossom."
But Tamil Nadu is faced with the threat that Tata
could take its business elsewhere. Tata Steel managing director B.
Muthuraman has warned it that Tata "will have alternative plans if
things don't work out in Tamil Nadu."
Indeed, India has titanium-rich ilmenite deposits in
the beaches of its west coast, and the eastern seaboard states of
Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, as well as in Tamil Nadu.
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