IOC polluted river despite being given channel to sea
Ahmedabad   05-Nov-2011

The unprecedented river-on-fire incident could have been avoided had IndianOil (IOC) followed the protocol laid down in the Effluent Channel Project (ECP), started in 1983, to help Vadodara's chemical firms dispose treated effluents safely in the Gulf of Cambay instead of polluting the rivers.

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) said that IOC's Gujarat Refinery (GR) plant has almost stopped using the ECP for disposing its effluents over last few years.

"IOC says it has its own effluent treatment plant (ETP) that treats the effluents which are reused. Hence they have more or less stopped disposing the effluents through ECP. But, the recent incident of fire in Mini river has shown that they do have excess effluent or oil sludge. But the refinery is diverting the sludge to the river through a storm water drain instead of using the ECP pipeline," said GPCB regional head, R B Trivedi.

"The idea of initiating ECP was to prevent industries from releasing their waste in Mahi River. IOCL too is a member of the ECP but it is releasing its waste in the Mini River that flows into Mahi River. If they have the ECP facility, there is no reason why they are disposing the effluents in this manner," Trivedi told TOI and added that on Wednesday too effluents were flowing out of outlet channel of GR plant.

An IOC spokesperson said, "We use the ECP facility occasionally as we have our own ETP facility and most of the discharge is reused. We use ECP only when we have excess effluents that are to be released."

The GPCB on Wednesday issued a notice to IOC directing them to remove the sludge from Mini River and also carry out remediation measures. The state pollution watchdog has demanded an explanation from the PSU over the fire in Mini River within 15 days. The GPCB is monitoring the cleaning operation at the river on daily basis. Environment activist Rohit Prajapti said, "The Mahi River is facing contamination danger due to regular release of such effluents. And the treated effluents released through ECP too are far above the permissible levels."