[Assam] What have you been doing for the last 40 yrs APCB? Apply tight time frame NOW to stop pollution to the accepted International Standard and if the standard is not met, SHUT all activities down.

[umesh sharma]

good report.
   
  Umesh

Bartta Bistar <barttabistar at googlemail.com> wrote:
            Oil industry blamed for polluting Assam state 
      http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=143&art_id=qw1167321602773B253 
   
          
    December 28 2006 at 06:20PM 
       
   
          By Biswajyoti Das

Joypur - Oil companies in India's north-eastern state of Assam are responsible for polluting rivers and destroying rainforests and have been told to clean up their act or face closure, authorities said on Thursday. 

Following an investigation in August, Assam's Pollution Control Board found the oil industry had for over four decades been destroying resource-rich areas through deforestation and preventing tree regeneration by not cleaning up spillages. 

Pollution control officials also found that oil companies were contaminating groundwater by dumping sludge in ponds and polluting a major river by discharging untreated effluents, posing health risks to millions of people. 

"For more than 40 years, oil companies have been polluting the state like anything," said Jawahar Lal Dutta, chairperson of the Assam Pollution Control Board.

Assam produces about 15 percent of India's onshore crude - with state-owned exploration companies, Oil India Limited and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited supplying crude oil to state-run Indian Oil Corporation's refineries. 

Dutta said the investigation found refineries were discharging bio-chemical waste such as oil and grease, phenolic compounds and sulphide into the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries, well above permissible limits. 

The Brahmaputra, home to the endangered Gangetic dolphin and other marine life, originates in Tibet and runs through Assam and Bangladesh before flowing into the Bay of Bengal.

India's economy has been growing at an average 8 percent over the past three years and the country is hungry for more energy, leading to state oil and gas firms stepping up exploration efforts in new areas. 

Conservationists are concerned about new moves into Assam's rainforests by oil companies and say trees are felled by the industry to construct roads and access drilling sites.

They say the forest canopy is rapidly being destroyed, adversely affecting birds and primates like the Hoolock Gibbons. 

Oil industry officials admit that they have been responsible for some of the damage but say they are trying to clean up pits and are also modernising to stop hurting the environment. 
   
  
  
  
   
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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, 
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740 

1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
 		
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