TRIVANDRUM, 16 December 2003 — Greenpeace yesterday released new evidence which indicates that the continued production of DDT at the Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL) factory in Eloor, near Cochin in central Kerala, is resulting in severe pollution of the Periyar, Kerala’s largest river, due to the unabated release of toxic and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

A follow-up study to Greenpeace’s 1999 toxic hotspot investigations, the sediment samples tested for “Pollution from HIL and other Factories in Kerala” by Greenpeace Research Laboratories at University of Exeter show distressing contamination caused by organochlorines, particularly DDT and its components, a Greenpeace statement here said.

Ruth Stringer, a senior Greenpeace scientist, who is co-author of both reports, said: “It is appalling that HIL, which runs the last ‘official’ DDT manufacturing facility in the country, should ignore the scientific evidence of pollution caused by the production of the world’s deadliest pesticide. DDT and many of the other organochlorines that we found in our samples are toxic, highly persistent and can build up in the food chain. Additionally, people could be exposed by working in the factory, handling the pesticides it makes, or by eating contaminated fish, meat, milk or eggs.”

Stringer along with other campaigners of the environment watchdog visited the area yesterday and intensified the awareness campaign among local residents.

For over four years now, Greenpeace India has been campaigning with local groups in Kerala, investigating and exposing instances of toxic pollution caused by industries in Eloor that is responsible for impacts both on the environment and health of the local population.

“It is clear that the Indian government should phase out and substitute DDT immediately as required by the POPs Convention. And the state government should ensure that zero discharge and clean production measures are put in place to check the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the region,” Greenpeace India’s toxics campaigner Sanjiv Gopal said.

Local campaigners said they had made several representations to the state ministers but to no avail. They are now planning to spread the campaign at the national level.

According to Greenpeace, Eloor industrial belt on the banks of the Periyar alone is the seat of 137 factories, all nonchalantly pouring out their refuse and industrial wastes into the river.

The river is today a water body of tea-brown waste that is no longer a home to the 500 species of fish that villagers aver they found in it. Sand mining goes on unabated digging deep trenches in the riverbed.

The effluents make the river unfit for fish to thrive and the farmlands have become barren.

Agriculture is no longer a possible occupation given the nature of the soil that has been subjected to taking in all the waste and chemicals over these years.

People living around this area have innumerable health complaints, having had no choice but to drink this water and subsist on the fish catch from the perilous water body.

Even the seemingly harmless coconuts and duck eggs, when tested, had toxic elements in them.