5-min boil that wreaked environmental havoc

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Kiri Afghana (Gurdaspur), May 24

A few minutes past the midnight of May 15-16, Munesh Pal, unit head of Chadha Sugars and Industries Private Limited, was jolted from his sleep with the news that “things were getting out of hand as thousands of quintal of molasses had got overheated and was threatening to spill over in both lagoons.”

Pal alerted the plant and production heads, as well as other mill officials living in a guest house in Qadian, a town nearby. But by the time the officials reached the site, the lagoons were already overflowing, and Punjab’s single-largest environmental disaster in recent years was under way.

Molasses is a thick dark-to-light brown liquid that is separated from raw sugar in the manufacturing process. It is a byproduct (and not a waste product) of sugar-making. Experts say it heats up automatically; and when it does, it threatens to overflow the tanks (or lagoons) it is stored in.

Speaking to The Tribune, Munesh Pal claimed, “A spillover can be delayed, but not averted, by using various techniques, including one called ‘circulation’, which was tried that night. Once it gets heated, it acts like lava, and becomes difficult to control. And that night it overflowed from the lagoons and seeped its way through the earth (not over-ground) into the Kahnuwan drain passing by the premises boundary. The drain further leads to the Beas, less than a kilometre away.”

More than 1.4 lakh quintal of molasses was stored in the lagoons. It is commonly measured in quintals, and not litres, because of its high density.

Concrete vs steel tanks

Experts say the catastrophe, which has disturbed the ecological balance of one of the main rivers of Punjab, could have been averted had the liquid been stored in the two steel tanks meant for it. However, a mill official claimed: “We have two steel tanks. While one was already full, there was danger of molasses getting damaged due to infection in the other tank. So we moved the entire stock to the two lagoons. This is a legal practice. In UP there are at least 50 mills which store molasses in lagoons.”

That night three JCB machines were pressed into service for transporting earth to “barricade” the lagoons. Attempts were also made to raise earthen walls; even as some headway was made, one of the walls collapsed due to the force of the “lava”, mill officials claimed. Efforts were also made to build barricades near Bhutanpur village to save agriculture fields. While that worked, the flow could not be prevented from reaching the river.

A five-minute “boil” of 10,000 quintal of molasses led to the state’s biggest environmental catastrophe, even as 200 of the mill’s 350 permanent employees attempted to save the situation. Lessons from a similar calamity on April 28, 2015, had obviously not been learnt by the management.

Dead fish

On May 16, before sunrise, somebody from nearby Bhutanpur village informed officials that “some” fish had turned up dead in the river. By noon the realisation dawned that it was thousands of fish. PPCB officials landed at the mill and sealed it. The management has now called in teams of engineers and chemical experts from the National Institute of Sugar, Kanpur, to investigate the exact cause of what has been declared an accident. The teams are likely to reach next week.

Overload?

While no mill official was willing to go on record on this, but an administration officer claimed that farmers were pressuring the administration to not stop the crushing even as the mill was full to capacity. And mill officials could not find ways and store the extra stock. Deputy Commissioner Gurlovleen Singh Sidhu, however, said it was normal practice for officials to ask the mills located in their respective areas to take in extra load whenever there is a bumper crop. “How can we be faulted? It is for the mill to devise ways and means to take care of the extra molasses,” Sidhu questioned. As of now, production at the state’s only mill that produces refined sugar has been halted.

CM forms panel

Chandigarh: Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has constituted a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of Environment Minister OP Soni to suggest measures for cleaning rivers in the state. The committee, tasked with suggesting ways to ensure supply of clean potable water, has been asked to submit its report within 10 days. The Chief Secretary has been directed to work out modalities for making funds available for this project. The CM has also asked the Water Supply and Sewerage Board to give a detailed presentation on cleaning Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana. TNS