Steps being taken to contain industrial pollution in city, says APPCB

The AP Pollution Control Board on Wednesday said that it was taking timely action to contain industrial pollution.

Referring to the bad odour problem reported in the first week of November, it said in a note that a team of board officials consisting of the Joint Chief Environmental Scientist, Central Laboratory, Hyderabad, the Joint Chief Environmental Engineer, the Senior Environmental Engineer, Task Force, the Senior Environmental Scientist, the Environmental Engineer, Visakhapatnam, 40 scientists and engineers from all over the State had inspected different industries in the bowl area.

The officials had conducted a comprehensive monitoring of the chimneys. Based on the scientific observations, M. Dana Kishore, Member-Secretary, APPCB, had recently conducted a legal hearing with representatives of the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (Visakh Refinery) at the Collectorate here.

Dr. K.L. N. Reddy, Member of the Task Force Committee, Dr. K.V. Ramani, Joint Chief Environmental Scientist, K. Venkateswara Rao, Joint Chief Environmental Engineer, K. Ramesh, Senior Environment Engineer and other officials from the APPCB and P.A.B. Raju, Executive Director, HPCL Visakh Refinery had attended.

As the emissions from the refinery were causing foul smell and the emissions were exceeding the standards, the Member-Secretary had issued orders to the refinery to restrict the crude processing to 70 per cent of the permitted capacity or to process only low-sulphur crude having sulphur content less than 0.5 per cent during winter season. The note stated that APPCB officials had identified the illegal storage and handling of hazardous wastes in Vizianagaram and East Godavari districts. The sources of the waste had been identified and they had been directed to lift the waste to treatment, storage and disposal facility for safe disposal. Closure notices had been served on Vichow Petrochemicals Private Ltd., IDA, Patancheru, Medak district, Fire Well Fuel Industries, Gadala (V), Korukonda (M), East Godavari district and LG Polymers (I) Private Ltd., Visakhapatnam.

Fish mortality

On fish mortality in port channels, the note said it had been noticed that fish mortality was occurring occasionally in VPT and Navy channels during the onset of monsoon. The Member-Secretary had enquired about the exact reasons for fish mortality and had said that an individual study would be taken up by three retired professors of Andhra University. A decision had also been taken to monitor the channels in future periodically.