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Statement of Union Carbide Corporation Regarding the Bhopal Tragedy
The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal was a terrible tragedy which understandably continues to evoke strong emotions even 20 years later. In the wake of the gas release, Union Carbide Corporation, and then-chairman Warren Anderson, worked diligently to provide aid to the victims and set up a process to resolve their claims. All claims arising out of the release were settled 15 years ago at the explicit direction and approval of the Supreme Court of India. The Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide
India, Limited (UCIL), an Indian company in which Union Carbide
Corporation held just over half the stock. The other stockholders included
Indian financial institutions and thousands of private investors in India.
The plant was designed, built, and managed by UCIL using Indian
consultants and workers. In 1994, Union Carbide sold its half interest in
UCIL to MacLeod Russell (India) Limited of Calcutta, and UCIL was renamed
Eveready Industries India, Limited. After the disaster, plant owner UCIL
obtained permission from the government to conduct cleanup work at the
site. Later, Eveready Industries continued this remediation effort until
1998 when the state government of Madhya Pradesh assumed control of the
site and its remediation. As a result of the sale of their shares
in UCIL, Union Carbide retained no interest in — or liability for — the
Bhopal site, and Eveready Industries took exclusive possession of the land
under lease from the government of Madhya Pradesh. The proceeds of the
UCIL sale were placed in a trust and exclusively used to fund a hospital
in Bhopal, which now provides specialist care to victims of the
tragedy. Shortly after the gas release, Union Carbide launched an
aggressive effort to identify the cause. A thorough investigation was
conducted by the engineering consulting firm Arthur D. Little. Its
conclusion: The gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate
sabotage. Someone purposely put water in the gas storage tank, causing a
massive chemical reaction. Process safety systems had been put in place
that would have kept the water from entering into the tank by
accident. Union Carbide, along with the rest of the chemical
industry, has worked to develop and globally implement Responsible Care in
order to prevent any future events through improving community awareness,
emergency preparedness, and process safety standards. For more
information about Bhopal, see www.unioncarbide.com/bhopal. For
more information about Union Carbide, see http://www.unioncarbide.com/. Fore
more information about Responsible Care, see http://www.responsiblecare.com/
or http://www.icca-chem.org/. |
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