Published April 25, 2002 in the Midland (MI) Daily News

By Beth Medley Bellor

It’s been 4 1/2 months since Greenpeace came to Midland, showing video and driving a decorated van about town, demanding justice from The Dow Chemical Co. for the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India.

So far, nothing has changed.

Greenpeace came to Midland in early December to mark the anniversary of the five-ton poisonous gas leak. The environmental organization launched a global campaign to “gain justice for the Bhopal victims,” and staged simultaneous activities at Dow sites in India and seven other countries in South America, Asia and Europe.

Even before that, Dow had been meeting with the National Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. Those meetings began more than a year ago, said John Musser, Dow public affairs spokesperson. The company has not made any commitments yet on humanitarian gestures and is not ready to promote one possibility over others, he said.

The pressure was stepped up last week. An April 15 letter to Dow President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Parker requests a meeting May 8, the day before Dow’s annual stockholder meeting at the Midland Center for the Arts. The letter is signed by 12 people representing the NCJB, Greenpeace and other groups.

“Several survivors of the 1984 chemical catastrophe, including a physician from Bhopal, plan to be in Midland for Dow’s annual meeting on May 9th. They are very anxious to share with you the latest information on current conditions in Bhopal,” it reads in part. “The overarching goal of this meeting would be to establish a dialogue to resolve the issues that the NCJB and other groups have previously raised with other Dow representatives.

“Although meetings with representatives from Dow in India and in Midland have been held over the last year, it is now time for Dow’s ultimate decision-maker to resolve the ongoing suffering and environmental devastation faced by the people of Bhopal,” it continued.

The signers, who expected about five people to meet with Dow, said they were not interested in a “meeting for meeting’s sake,” but wanted to begin a “finite process with measurable benchmarks with Dow officials empowered to address the issues of the Bhopal tragedy.”

Musser said the group might be frustrated because the company is not heading in the direction it wants. Dow does want to exemplify good citizenship, he said, but will “not take any responsibility, legal or otherwise.”

Greenpeace purportedly is representing groups Dow has been meeting with directly, Musser said. However, the company would be receptive to meeting with Greenpeace if the organization wants to provide some ideas in a humanitarian vein, he said. The company has offered such a meeting, but has not yet heard a reply.

The NCJB and others say a $470 million settlement paid by Union Carbide Corp., with which Dow merged last year, and subsidiary Union Carbide India Ltd. is grossly inadequate. They say in addition to the 20,000 people who have died so far, more than one survivor dies each month from exposure-related illnesses and more than 20,000 people who live in the neighborhood of the abandoned factory are drinking water from contaminated wells.

“From a moral point of view, we’ve said two things,” Musser said.

First, even though Union Carbide was not operating the plant in question, it stepped up immediately and accepted responsibility. Second, the responsibility of Dow and other companies is to understand the incident and ensure it never happens again, including through the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program.

“I would say we’ve got ample evidence that we’ve taken that responsibility very seriously,” he said.