Shocking warning from Argentina for India’s bioethanol distillery plans

By Rosamma Thomas*
A neighbourhood in the city of Cordoba in central Argentina was the subject of a scientific research conducted by the Nacional University of Cordoba, after local people requested the study. The scientists found 53% of the population suffered from respiratory disorders; 31% reported conjunctivitis; 27% had headaches; 23% suffered from dermatitis; 22% reported dyspepsia (digestion-related issues), 57% of children between 6 and 7 years old used bronchodilators, an indicator of asthma.
The study found that repeated chemical exposure was causing this high morbidity in the population, and that the condition would not improve without eliminating the exposure.
This study is vital for India – in 2018, India approved a National Policy on Biofuels. In 2023, the policy of blending petrol with 20% ethanol was piloted. To increase the production of ethanol for this purpose, the Union Food Ministry approved 11 more ethanol projects in 2023.
Farmers in Palakkad, Kerala, and Hanumangarh, Rajasthan, have been protesting proposed projects in their area, fearing that water used for irrigating their crops would be used up by these plants. While the groundwater extraction aspect of these projects has been discussed in the media, their health effects are not reported.
That is why this study from Argentina needs close attention in India.
Published in 2022 in the Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, the paper titled ‘Sick Neighbourhood Syndrome: Population with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Adjacent to Bioethanol Distillery’ by Eduardo Maturano and others details health concerns that have caused people to leave the neighbourhood “on the doctor’s advice”.
The distillery started functioning 10 years before this paper was published, in 2012. One lakh litres of bioethanol was produced daily. Liquor and bioethanol had been produced at the site since 1995, but the problems appeared only after a new structure was set up in the premises in 2012 to distil bioethanol through corn grinding and fermentation.
Residents of the neighbourhood faced problems without much time lag – in 2013, over 74% of the residents of San Antonio, the affected neighbourhood, reported frequent irritant disorders, including headache.
A local court requested a chemical expert assessment, and that report confirmed that the plant’s fermenters were emitting chemical substances – toluene, xylene, hexane, acetic acid, ethanol and formaldehyde – these were apparently at lower levels than considered dangerous under law in Argentina. The researchers note that WHO affirms that formaldehyde causes tumours in the rhinopharynx. Eight people in the area studied had tumours in the upper airways.
“Ambient air does not normally contain these chemical contaminants, environmental standards guidelines determine minimum values that are estimates of safety, although not certain,” state the researchers, who conducted fieldwork in 2016 and gathered information from 134 households.
Over half the population was asthmatic; over 30% had conjunctivitis; there was no conjunctivitis in the area before 2012.
Congenital anomalies in newborns had risen to over 28% (of seven babies born in that neighbourhood in the year prior to the study, two suffered congenital disorders); many respondents reported fatigue, depression and insomnia. While 66% of the population had at least one condition, 46% had two; children with two or more conditions were the worst affected.
The results “suggest there would be an extremely high risk of congenital anomalies for pregnant women who conceive their children and live throughout the pregnancy in this neighbourhood of the city,” the researchers found.
Some people who reported a persistent headache told the researchers that the headache would be gone once they travelled away from home. Some reported digestive disorders and nausea, and said they did not suffer these conditions before being exposed to the constant “smell” from the bioethanol plant.
Cancer rates had spiked, though mortality was not as high as expected – “when the study was performed, the population under observation featured a low prior burden of cancer and, therefore, low current mortality,” the researchers explain.
These plants can also contaminate groundwater, but since this particular plant emitted gaseous waste and liquid emissions were eliminated in the sewage system, that pollution was not studied.
Given this study and the robust plans of the India government to pursue biofuels, there is need for caution and greater assessment of potential risk to residents of areas near the proposed plants.

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*Freelance journalist

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