VV MINERAL, a two-decade-old company, has been mining beach sand that
includes radioactive minerals on the Kanyakumari coast. The company says it
doesn’t have the technology to separate thorium from monazite, a rare earth ore
found in the area — a claim verified by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
(AERB). It admits it extracts and exports garnet and ilmenite to 20 countries,
including Australia and the US. The question is: what happens to the four
percent monazite known to be present in the sand? Since uranium is scarce in
India, nuclear scientists have been working on an indigenous technology to
utilise thorium, widely available on the southern sea coast, in nuclear power
plants.
Though VV Mineral claims it doesn’t process monazite, it would be
automatically generated during the mineral separation process in the form of
tailings. AERB recommends that when the quantity of tailings generated is large
and the monazite content in the tailings is relatively low (less than 5
percent), the tailings have to be disposed of by mixing with silicarich sand
and backfilled at the mined out site. If the monazite content in the tailings
is high (more than 5 percent) and the quantity of tailings generated is
comparatively less, then it has to be stored in trenches and topped with
silica-rich sand to bring it to the background level.
It is precisely this that worries Dr RS Lal Mohan, former
principal scientist at Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi.
“Indian Rare Earth Ltd (IREL), Manavalakurichi, uses the sand from the same
area and produces thorium, so what happens to the monazite in the VV mines?
Does the company follow the procedure recommended by the AERB?” he asks.
A REPORT by a committee of top district officials constituted by the
District Collector of Kanyakumari, Rajendra Ratnoo, has in fact concluded that
VV Mineral has been mining without proper regulatory clearance and has been
involved in mineral separation, a process that emits high radiation, without
fulfilling AERB norms. “Based on the report, we stopped issuing permits to the
company. However, they have challenged the matter in the High Court,” says
Ratnoo. The committee, which included the assistant director of mines,
tehsildars of Vilavancode and Kalkulam and Revenue Division Officer (RDO)
Padmanabhapuram, found out that the company has no plan for the safe and
scientific disposal of waste from the mineral separation facilities.
VV Mineral, however, rubbished all these grouses as a ‘set-up’ by
officials of IREL’s local unit in connivance with the district collector. “We
have established a mineral separation plant and approached the AERB for a
licence, which is awaited,” says S Vaikundarajan, Chairman and Managing
Director of VV Mineral. He even claims that IREL has illegally mined in VV
Mineral’s land and has indulged in other questionable practices. “No authority
is ready to take action based on our complaint. Hence we approached the High
Court,” he adds. In an email to TEHELKA, the regulatory body gave a clean chit
to the company in this respect.
The effect of sand mining on the environment and people has been a
major issue along the coastline of southern Tamil Nadu and Kerala for the past
few decades. VV Mineral has been active in five seaside villages — Kurumpanai,
Keezhmidalam, Midalam, Melmidalam and Helen Nagar — in the Vilavancode taluk of
the Kanyakumari district.
“From 2004, it started buying and leasing hundreds of acres in
these areas. The villagers initially had no clue that their seashore land was
productive. Much later, they realised their land was worth crores,” says a
church official.
The company is storing sand mined from the shores of Keezhmidalam
in its separation facility in Midalam. “We do get jobs due to mining,” concedes
Thankappan, former president of the panchayat, “but there are health issues
involving radiation from the minerals.” Church records show an average of 10-15
cases of cancer in every village. “It’s absolutely not true that this area
already had high levels of cancer. It has increased in the past few years since
the increase in illegal sand mining,” says a church official. Cases of Down’s
Syndrome and impotence have also been reported.
But money power is making a dent on the villagers’ ability to put
up a united fight. Some of them told TEHELKA that mining companies have divided
the villagers by hiring the powerful elite of the villages as sub-contractors.
“We never had cases of violence before,” says Subha (name changed), “But
nowadays, whoever disagrees with the company faces violent attacks.”
The traditional livelihood of the sea coast has also been hit.
“There is no place for spreading our fishing nets or equipment. We can’t even
dry our fish. The sea has eroded our village as sand is being removed from the
shore,” says Meiyance (name changed).
Meanwhile, VV Mineral has filed two writ petitions on the matter,
which are pending in the Madras High Court. Locals fear this could become
another ‘green case’ caught in a vicious cycle of allegation and
counter-allegation.