While They Were Sleeping

Dow (4.00 / 3)

Astonishing quote:

The Indian government, fearful of scaring away foreign investors, has not pushed the issue with American authorities. Dow has used a kind of blackmail with the Indians; a 2006 letter from Andrew Liveris, the chief executive, to India's ambassador to the United States asked for guarantees that Dow would not be held liable for the cleanup, and thanked him for his "efforts to ensure that we have the appropriate investment climate."

Wonder what that was about? Well, from the Dow wiki,

Dow is also seeking to expand its R&D presence in Asia, adding 600 jobs in Shanghai by the end of 2007, and the company may open up a large R&D center in India.

The Liveris letter must have got Dow its free pass.

Dow Agrobusiness is a major CropLife member firm. The party line is, biocides are safe. Biocides in municipal water supplies are safe, biocides in wells are safe, biocides in the air are safe - they're just safe, that's all. Especially in India.

A big Dow Agrobusiness product line is organophosphate insecticides.

First registered in 1965 and marketed by Dow Chemical Company under the tradenames Dursban and Lorsban, chlorpyrifos was a well known home and garden insecticide, and at one time it was one of the most widely used household pesticides in the US. Facing impending regulatory action by the EPA, Dow agreed to withdraw registration of chlorpyrifos for use in homes and other places where children could be exposed, and severely restricted its use on crops. These changes took effect on Dec. 31, 2001. It is still widely used in agriculture, and Dow continues to market Dursban for home use in developing countries. In India, Dow claims Dursban is safe for people, and its sales literature claimed Dursban has "an established record of safety regarding humans and pets."

In 1995, Dow was fined $732,000 for not sending the EPA reports it had received on 249 Dursban poisoning incidents, and in 2003, Dow agreed to pay $2 million - the largest penalty ever in a pesticide case - to the state of New York, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General to end Dow's illegal advertising of Dursban as "safe".

The victims and survivors should be fairly compensated, although darned if I know what fair compensation could be. I have no sympathy for the Indian government in this matter, however. If they let Dow skate on its abominal record, just so Dow will invest a paltry few bucks, they should at least man up and do the cleanup job themselves.

Off topic, how about this:

A body burden study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found n TCPy-a metabolite specific to chlorpyrifos-in the urine of 91% of people tested. An independent analysis of the CDC data claims that Dow has contributed 80% of the chlorpyrifos body burden of people living in the US. A 2008 study found dramatic drops in the urinary levels of chlorpyrifos metabolites when children switched from conventional to organic diets.

Back on topic, regarding whether Dow should pay for the cleanup, $500 million is the estimated cost to do the job right. Spread it out over 25 years, that's grind click whirr...$20 million per year. Let's note this, again from the Dow wiki:

Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris called 2005 the company's "best year ever" with operating profits of $5.4 billion, a jump of 56.5% compared with the previous year. Net income rose more than 60% to $4.5 billion, on sales of $46.3 billion. 2006 looks as if it could be even better, with first-quarter net earnings of $1.2 billion. All this is occurring in the context of adverse operating conditions, caused by high energy and raw material costs, and the effects of two damaging hurricanes.

Dow's bullshit propaganda excuse that they never owned nor operated the Bhopal plant is gossamer. Refusal to pay damages is just standard Dow operating policy.

Until the late 1970s, Dow produced DBCP (1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane), a soil fumigant and nematicide sold under the names the Nemagon and Fumazone. Workers at Dow's DBCP production were made sterile by exposure to the compound. These male reproductive effects were consistent with animal experiments showing that DBCP sterilized rabbits. The workers successfully sued the company, and most domestic uses of DBCP were banned in 1977. Amid growing concerns over the chemical's effects on male workers, Dow ceased production and reclaimed DBCP that had been shipped to its users. Despite warning from the company about its health effects, Dole Food Company, who was using the chemical on its banana plantations in Latin America, threatened to sue Dow if it stopped DBCP shipments, so Dow shipped half a million gallons of DBCP to Dole, much it reclaimed from other users. Plantation workers who became sterile or were stricken with other maladies subsequently sued both Dow and Dole in Latin American courts, alleging that their ailments were caused by DBCP exposure. While the courts agreed with the workers and awarded them over $600 million in damages, they have been unable to collect payments from the companies. A group of workers then sued in the United States, and, on November 5, 2007, a Los Angeles jury awarded them 3.2 million dollars. Dole and Dow vowed to appeal the decision. On April 23, 2009 a Los Angeles judge threw out two cases against Dole and Dow due to fraud and extortion by lawyers in Nicaragua recruiting fraudulent plaintiffs to make claims against the company. The ruling casts doubt on $2 billion in judgments in similar lawsuits.

More:

From 1951 to 1975 Dow managed the Rocky Flats Plant. Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons production facilty which produced plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs.

Contamination from fires and radioactive waste leakage plagued the facility under Dow management. In 1957 and 1969 fires burned plutonium dust in the facility and sent radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The fire in 1969 was the costliest industrial accident to ever occur in the United States up to that time. 3,500 barrels of lubricants and solvents, laden with plutonium leaked into the ground in 1967. Management of the facility was handed over to Rockwell International in 1975. A class action lawsuit was filed against Dow and Rockwell in 1990. In 2008 a federal judge ordered Dow and Rockwell to pay a combined $925 million in damages to citizens.

I wonder if Dow paid that judgement.

Another line about chlorpyrifos:

In June 2000, Dow withdrew registration of chlorpyrifos for use in homes and other places where children could be exposed...

I believe Dow withdrew the registration for home and garden use because of Clinton-era legislation that said, if infants and children were potentially exposed to an agricultural chemical, the chemical must be proved safe to infants and children from all exposures, not just the ag use. Dow couldn't do that. Now I'm wondering what happened to that legislation. Was it repealed? Is it just not being enforced? I think Jill and Jay both have mentioned reports showing major contamination of water supplies by ag chemicals such as atrazine. Has Syngenta shown atrazine in drinking water is safe to infants and children? No. Instead, resource-strapped water agencies spend millions of dollars a year on activated charcoal filtration to reduce the levels, and people with contaminated wells buy bottled water. WTF?

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by: count @ Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 17:25:18 PM UTC

A tragic mess all around... (4.00 / 3)

And yeah, the Indian government's hands are by no means clean, either.

As far as fair compensation, hell... they've never even offered an apology.  Bhopal is a city of 1.4 million people.  Imagine what would have happened to Union Carbide or Dow if they had done this in Houston or Phoenix in 1984?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 17:50:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

how could you even begin to compensate people (4.00 / 4)

for putting them through that hell? It's atrocious.

You are on-target about atrazine too.  

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by: desmoinesdem @ Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 19:19:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]