Everyday Scientist

Let’s Be Fair to Dow

October 9, 2007 at 1:30 pm | Charles | news, science and the public, science community

[Editor’s note: This is a follow-up of a previous post. Apparently, Charles disagrees with me. -Sam]

Let’s be fair to Dow here.

The Bhopal pesticide plant explosion was a horrible incident by all accounts! The disaster caused around 8,000 immediate deaths. 12,000 deaths have been linked to the disaster, and another 100,000 or so people suffer lingering health risks.

To start with, let’s see what Union Carbide has tried to do to rectify the situation:

1. The day of the explosion (December 4th, 1984), Union Carbide sent material aid and medical experts to Bhopal to assist with treatment.
2. Carbide donated an immediate $2 million into the Indian Prime Minister’s disaster relief fund within 1 week after the incident (December 11th, 1984).
3. 3 months after the incident (February 1985), Carbide established the “Employee’s Bhopal Relief Fund” which raised more than $5 million for immediate relief.
4. 5 months after the incident (April 1985), Carbide paid for Indian medical experts to take part in training of treatment techniques.
5. Less than 3 years after the incident (August 1987), made an additional $4.6 million for humanitarian relief.
6. In 1989, Carbide settled with the Indian Government in the Indian court system for $470 million. The settlement was paid in full almost immediately. In the settlement it was agreed that the state government of Madya Pradesh would take full responsibility for the site cleanup.
7. In April 1992, Carbide sold 50.9% of it’s shares of UCIL (Union Carbide of India Limited – the subsidiary responsible for the incident) to fund a $90 million trust fund for the establishment of a Bhopal hospital treating heart, lung, and eye ailments. As of 2001, when the hospital opened it’s doors, the trust had amounted an estimated $100 million.
8. In addition, Carbide provided $2.2 million to Arizona State University to establish a vocational-technical training center in Bhopal (which was later closed) and $5 million to the Indian Red Cross.
9. Carbide developed the “Responsible Care” system with other members of the chemical community to “help prevent such an event [as Bhopal] in the future by improving community awareness, emergency preparedness, and process safety standards.”

So, over the course of the 20 years between the incident and the purchase of Union Carbide by Dow Chemical, Union Carbide had spent almost $600 million towards the cleanup and relief efforts.

Now, let’s compare the 1989 $470 million dollar settlement ($686.2 million in 2007 dollars) against other U.S. settlements by chemical companies:

The largest Superfund site in the U.S. today is the Hudson River, in which over 500 tons of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been dumped over the course of 80 years (most by GE in the last 30 years). The estimated cost is $500 million. GE has formed an agreement with the EPA to pay a total of $7.62 million and donate scientists and manpower to the initial sampling and cleanup effort. Unknown population affected over 80 year period. PCB’s have been linked to cancer, although GE denies that there are increased cancer risks in the area.

The 2nd largest settlement in Superfund history, and the largest settlement involving a chemical company, was the Sikes Disposal Pits near Crosby, an illegal toxic waste dump used by a variety of petrochemical companies, which has affected an estimated 10,000 people. 30 chemical companies were sued successfully for an estimated $120 million in cleanup costs.

The Love Canal incident in 1953, which prompted the creation of Superfund, occurred when the Hooker Chemical Company covered area over a toxic dump with dirt and sold it the city of Love Canal for $1 an acre. Numerous houses and a school were built on the site. Unknown numbers of people were affected, but over 221 families were evacuated by 1981. People from the area suffered larger than average rates of birth defects and miscarriages. The government finally sued and won around $129 million for cleanup costs in 1995.

Of course, the scale of the disaster in the Bhopal case makes these other cases pale in comparison. That’s why criminal charges are proceeding against 6 UCIL members (including the former Chairman of UCIL, the Managing Director, the Vice-President Functioning in charge, the Works Manager, and the Production Manager). That’s also why the parent company of Union Carbide paid out so much both to the Indian Government (which it HAS to work through for environmental cleanup) and directly to the victims (around 20% of the money Carbide spent went to medical training, immediate humanitarian aid, and the establishment of hospitals and medical trust funds).

And also, granted, much of the money (specifically the $470 million) did not reach the victims families and was not spent on cleanup, but that’s due to the incompetence and/or corruption of the Indian government. In April 2005, the Indian Supreme Court ruled the government had to release remaining settlement funds to the victims and their families. After taking into account accrued interest, the remaining settlement amount is estimated at $330 million (See NYT article cited below). It is certainly NOT Union Carbide or Dow’s fault that the Indian government and sat on the money instead of using it for cleanup or victims reparations. Remember, part of the $470 million settlement was that the local government be responsible for cleanup (presumably using part of the settlement for cleanup).

Now, Union Carbide can’t take what happened back – I’m sure they would like to if they could. No one wants to be responsible for up to 20,000 deaths. But they can’t, so they spent more on the cleanup efforts than any other single U.S. corporation for a chemical spill or dumping in the short history of corporate environmental responsibility. Not only more, but almost 5 times more (6-7 times more in current dollars).

So where is the justification, legal or moral, for the Indian Government to sue Dow, who was NOT responsible for the incident, for $22 million when they are sitting on $330 million from the initial settlement? Why should Dow pay for the cleanup when Union Carbide already paid for the cleanup as part of it’s 1989 settlement, and paid more than any other single U.S. corporation in history (that I could find) for a chemical spill!

If Dow were to accept any responsibility, it would set a very dangerous precedent. Can you imagine a world where a company is sued by a government and settles: the case is closed. That company is acquired 15 years later. The government now sues the new corporation even though the previous acquisition has already fulfilled its legal and financial obligations. That’s legally and morally irresponsible, especially considering the goverment in question has 70% of the intial settlement still on-hand.

Bhopal Sources:

Wikipedia Article on Bhopal with Citations

Union Carbide Bhopal Information Center

New York Times Article from 2004: “Bhopal Victims Not Fully Paid, Rights Group Says.”

Other Sources:

EPA: Hudson River Superfund Site

EPA: Sikes Disposal Pits Superfund Site

DOJ: Fiscal Year 2001 Accomplishments (Including Sikes Disposal Pits Settlement)

EPA: Love Canal History

DOJ: Press Release on Love Canal Settlement

the inhuman element

October 3, 2007 at 11:03 am | sam | lab safety, news, science and the public

Is anyone else sick of Dow’s Human Element campaign? I know I’m not the first to note the irony. Dow bought Union Carbide and now refuses to take responsibility for the cleanup and liability of a terrible chemical accident in Bhopal many years earlier.I know that it is a complex issue—legally, politically, and ethically—but Dow is a little disingenuous to claim that they care so much about humankind. If Dow were human-conscious, the problem might become simple: Union Carbide shirked on its responsibility to clean up a disastrous chemical spill; Dow bought Union Carbide; along with the benefits of owning Union Carbide come the responsibility of correcting a financial and moral wrong. Instead, Dow only points out that it didn’t own the plant when the accident occurred. But that ignores that fact that today Dow is still benefiting from Union Carbide’s escaping responsibility.I say that Dow just pay for the cleanup (which other companies are willing to help with). Maybe even pay some liability settlements to the poor people harmed by the spill and contaminated lands. Then Dow can show ads like the following with a clear conscience.

[google -5925107796437659727 nolink]

To learn more, you can read a book by a PhD chemist from Union Carbide: The Black Box of Bhopal. I haven’t read it. I’m nowhere near an expert on this topic. Maybe I’m way off in my opinions: It’s just a gut reaction at this point. Other viewpoints?

buy gold now

September 16, 2007 at 8:55 pm | sam | news, science and the public

The weight of the official kilogram is decreasing. That means that, if you wait even one day, you will get less absolute mass of gold for the same official weight.

This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity. It’s not every day that the drifting value of a definition can mean BIG BUCKS for you and your family. You need to hurry to take advantage of this situation before it is rectified by scientists. Already there is talk about changing the definition of the kilogram to an unvarying value.

The only better investment on the planet is those collectible plates that may go up in value.

the cheap way to get rid of chemicals

September 13, 2007 at 8:22 am | sam | lab safety, news

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

SEATTLE — A University of Washington professor who dumped an extremely flammable solvent down a laboratory sink to avoid the $15,000 disposal cost needn’t go to jail but must pay a $5,000 fine, a federal judge has decided.

Admitting what he called “a stupid mistake,” Daniel Storm, 62, pleaded guilty in March to violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by dumping roughly a gallon of ethyl ether. He was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to three years of probation and 80 hours of community service.

“I will never ever do anything like this again,” he told Judge James L. Robart, who rejected a recommendation by government lawyers for a $20,000 fine.

To avoid the cost to his lab operating fund, Storm, a pharmacology professor who has been with the university nearly 30 years, used an ax to break open metal containers and poured the solvent down a sink on June 25, 2006, according to his plea agreement.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends that anyone cleaning up a spill of ethyl ether wear protective gear.

A university disciplinary review is continuing.

So he found the cheaper way to dispose of ethyl ether. In case the judge didn’t notice, 5000<15000.

a little literature roundup

September 4, 2007 at 2:34 pm | sam | literature, news, science and the public

Because I’ve found several cool tidbits in the world of scientific literature, I’d summarize them here in a little roundup:

Baby Einstein makes you dumb:

I read this piece in Nature News: Disney is all flustered about a study (here’s the Journal of Pediatrics paper) coming out of University of Washington that casts doubt on the educational effectiveness of making infants watch some expensive garbage. The study found that babies who watched Baby Einstein videos were less verbally endowed than those who didn’t. This is probably correlation—not necessarily causation—but hilarious nonetheless.

How to unboil an egg:

Daniel Liu at Harvard has devised a way of unboiling eggs. Well, not exactly. But his lab did just come out with a JACS paper about modifying the surfaces of proteins so that they are far less likely to aggregate.

The modified GFP proteins in the figure above do aggregate and turn off when boiled. But when subsequently cooled, they return to their native state. The unmodified protein (left epi tubes) remain boiled.

Molecular thermometers:

In another JACS paper, some Canadian researchers (eh?) used the blinking rates of GFP molecules to measure temperature in a tiny reaction chamber. It’s been known for a while that the blinking rates of individual GFP fluorophores are temperature and pH dependent, so I’m not exactly sure what makes this a breakthrough. Nevertheless, I like the calibration and the attempt to make something practical out of a some complicated scientific data.

gearing up for acs boston

August 16, 2007 at 9:53 am | sam | conferences, news, science and the public, science community

I’ve been scanning the Technical Program for ACS Boston, and I’m super excited! Should be some great talks in the single-molecule biophysics field: days and days of fun!

 In all my reading of the program, this session seems the most … well, erotic? (At least the talks after the intermission, depending on what you’re into.) These talks put the “sex” in Technical Section.

From “publish to perish” to “patent and prosper”

July 25, 2007 at 12:35 pm | ilya | everyday science, grad life, literature, news, science community

Hey folks,

I recently came across a very interesting retrospective in the Journal of Biological Chemistry written by Howard Schachman, who’s been engaged in biochemistry research in Berkeley for over 50 years.

Schachman lays out the changing nature of research and academic life as he’s observed them over the past 50+ years. I, for one, am always interested to read about how things have changed and where they’re heading. Here’s a particularly interesting quote:

In 1953, while McCarthyism was rampant, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began screening grantees. Based on FBI reports, Oveta Culp Hobby, as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) in the Eisenhower administration, interceded and ordered the cancellation of grants to Linus Pauling and other prominent scientists.

Read on to find out what happened! I guess that president Rove’s clumsy meddling isn’t as bad as it can get.

pi day

July 23, 2007 at 4:12 pm | sam | nerd, news

More bad news, everybody: We let another Pi Approximation Day (July 22, or 22/7) pass without any kind of celebration.

We’ll have to be more careful to remember next March 14. Or just celebrate a little every day at 3:14 AM.

(Thanks for the tip, Todd.)

quick! see if he’s in the phonebooth …

June 29, 2007 at 10:41 pm | sam | news

… or maybe he’s up this telephone pole!

Or maybe at the top of this ladder.

RIP de Gennes

May 23, 2007 at 5:45 pm | sam | news, science community

We lost a great scientist this month: Pierre-Gilles de Gennes. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1991 for his work to understand complex matter such as polymers. My research and studies as an undergrad involved a lot of polymer physics, so I learned to love his book Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics.

(Thanks for the heads up, Biocurious.)

breaking the 200k mark

May 6, 2007 at 10:04 am | sam | grad life, hardware, news

My 1995 Toyota Tercel broke the 200,000-mile mark this (Sunday) morning while driving in to lab:

before: after:

My little friend has taken me from Portland, ME to Chapel Hill, NC and back many many times. It also made if from Chapel Hill to Palo Alto, CA and back 1.5 times. And it’s still going strong!

NAS

May 1, 2007 at 1:10 pm | sam | news, science community

My advisor W.E. Moerner was elected to the National Academy of Sciences this morning. Two other science faculty members at Stanford were also elected new members: Mike Fayer and Steve Block. The departement will celebrate this afternoon with an ice-cream social. That’s nice…

sat-hexagon-urn

April 13, 2007 at 3:22 pm | sam | news

This isn’t chemistry, but isn’t this pattern at the pole of saturn wicked cool?

Watch the movie by clicking the image above. The source is NASA. We’re all going to die.

blog roundup for march/april

April 10, 2007 at 7:59 pm | sam | blogs, news

So I haven’t been perfect at this blog-roundup thing, but here’s another:

• Biocurious’ molecule of the month: Clathrin (for April) and zinc-fingers (for March)
• Kyle at The Chem Blog let’s us know how to grow crystals
• Propter Doc has a nice survival guide for working in lab (I like #4)
• Sujit at MetaDatta has nice summaries of some talks he enjoyed
• Paul at ChemBark has some interesting posts
  • understanding some strange actions of ordinary food products
  • what he would change if editor of JACS
  • and now he has ChemBark magnets (we have magnets, too!)
• Andre at Biocurious shows the popular cell movie, now with words
  • I really don’t like this movie, because it portrays the mechanisms of the cell as deterministic and driven, not random. It actually loses the true beauty of cellular mechanisms! (Actually, Andre seemed to have similar thoughts when he first posted this video.)

Until next time, enjoy the other blogs!

blogbirthday

April 9, 2007 at 5:11 pm | sam | blogs, news, open thread

I just realized that we all missed this blog’s birthday: March 23, 2007. We’re over a year old! Any suggestions of what to change for the coming year (if we make it that long)? I was thinking of starting an Ask EDS category, where people can ask us p-chem or how-the-world-works questions and we can try to answer them. Maybe…