Plea to remove Toxic waste from Sipcot industrial estate

A monthly consultation meeting regarding pollution prevention measures in Perundurai Sipcot industrial estate was held at the district office of TN Pollution Control Board at Perundurai on Tuesday under the leadership of District Environmental Engineer  G.Udayakumar and Assistant Engineer C. Muthuraj.

Welfare Association for the people affected by Sipcot pollution problem co-ordinator S. Chinnaswamy,  executives V.M.Kandasamy, O.C.Shanmugam, P.Sivakumar, K.Mani, D.Jayaprakash Narayanan, Palanichamy and others participated in the meeting. 

They pleaded to officials to give details of action taken on complaints and petitions of the Association regarding pollution prevention and regarding safe disposal of contaminated soil and contaminated water dumped in the oxidation pond near Sipcot Effluent Treatment Plant.

They sought the details of the water samples, quality of air pollution, disposed toxic solid waste and mixed salts, and the amount of water supplied to the factories every month, etc, and appropriate action regarding the stagnant water near Komarapalayam, near Sipcot. 

They said they inspected the area last week and found that the soil mixed with toxic waste, removed  from the Odaikattur pond, dissolved in the rain and accumulated as polluted water near Komarapalayam.  The polluted water has a salinity of more than 10000 TDS.

Also, this polluted waste water goes into Odaikatur pond. Then from there it reaches Vaipadi - Kannaigadu Kuttai and from there to Palathozhuvu Pond.  Due to this, there is a risk of groundwater becoming stagnant for several kilometers. 

Therefore, they pleaded to remove about 5000 tons of soil mixed with toxic waste dumped in the oxidation pond, remove the polluted toxic water accumulated there and prevent it from mixing in the water bodies.