India revives its largest test for uranium contamination in groundwater -Jitendra

-Down to Earth

India's most comprehensive study ever is important in the face of the Centre denying health repercussions due to uranium contamination of groundwater

India has put its largest ever groundwater testing for uranium contamination on high gear. Started by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in 2014, the testing drive, which had slowed down, has again picked up in recent months. The drive is to be finished by 2019 and has a target of checking 0.12 million groundwater samples. Till early 2018, just 10,000 samples had been tested in the project where the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) is a key partner.

The project, which BARC is keeping under wraps, is crucial as several scientific reports have in the recent past pointed at rampant uranium contamination in India’s groundwater. It accounts for 85 per cent of the country’s drinking water supplies.

In May, scientists from the Duke University in the US, along with CGWB, Rajasthan Ground Water Department and Gujarat Water Resources Development Corporation, reported that water in around one-fourth of the 324 wells they tested in Rajasthan and Gujarat had uranium in quantities higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) standard of 30 µg/l. The study, published in the Environmental Science & Technology Letters journal, also reviewed 68 earlier studies and found uranium contamination in 16 states. Though a naturally occurring chemical, S K Srivastava, a scientist at CGWB and one of the researchers in the Duke study, says, “anthropogenic reasons would also be causing contamination of groundwater”. He adds that fast declining of groundwater table and high use of fertilisers are to be blamed. The study indicates a weak correlation between nitrate contamination, caused by overuse of fertilisers, and spread of uranium in groundwater.

A source in BARC says they have found an alarming 600 µg/l of Uranium in 0.8 per cent of the samples. The official, however, adds a pan-country inference can’t be made from this as it involved just a fraction of the total samples to be tested. Like any other contaminants, uranium in groundwater triggers health concerns. BARC’s current testing drive is a consequence of the consistent reports on such fear. Though once in awhile the Centre reacts to such public uproars, they are mostly in denial. In 2012, in its reply to Parliament, the Centre maintained that there were no evidence to correlate cancer with uranium in drinking water. In its reply, the Centre had cited studies from Canada and Finland where high uranium levels were found without any increase in diseases.

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