Radioactive matter found at thermal plant site

Traces of radioactive substances which can be harmful to people in the longer run have been found in fly ash at the Chandrapur thermal power plant in Maharashtra. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 18, 2011, 23:52:34 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan

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Traces of radioactive substances which can be harmful to people in the longer run have been found in fly ash at the Chandrapur thermal power plant in Maharashtra.

A study of fly ash by the public sector Nagpur based National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning has found traces of radioactive thorium and uranium in the fly ash lying at the plant.

“The radioactivity is within the permissible levels,” said P Raja, the lead author of the study based on samples of fly ash tested at the bureau’s laboratory. “If the radioactive substances are not removed it can lead to contamination of air and ground water and prove environmentally hazardous”.

In the study, radio-nuclides were estimated in fly ash samples collected from the economizer, aerator and electrostatic precipitator of the power plant. In all samples, presence of radioactive substances was below the level prescribed by Atomic Energy Board, the regulator for radioactive safety in India.

What the study fails to answer is the key question whether radioactive substances in the fly ash have affected people living near or working in the plant. “No such study has been done,” Raja said, while arguing a need to analyse local population for radioactivity living near Chandrapur thermal plant.

Radioactive substances are formed when coal is burnt at very high temperatures at thermal power plants. Recent studies in Russia have shown high presence of radioactive substances in waste generated from burning of coal which can impact local population.

But in India presence of radioactive substances from thermal plants has not been discovered, but the study says its presence is a cause for environmental alarm. “It shows weak implementation of environmental norms,” the study said, apparently agreeing with anti-nuclear activists who have been claiming that enforcement of radioactive laws in India are extremely weak.

The finding comes at the time when anti-nuclear activists are demanding scrapping of the Jaitapur nuclear power plant on the possible impact on local population from radioactive rays generated at the plant.

“We are saying that poor implementation of environmental norms which can prove disastrous in the longer run,” Raja said. The study, which has been peer-reviewed, will be published in the next edition of the Indian science journal Current Science on Monday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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