Parli Thermal Power Plant and fly ash pond

“We did the protest because the situation had become really bad,” Shiavagi Ghayal explains in the quiet evening. The horizon is bathed in orange, and the setting sun has turned the still pools of water around him to mirror. It could almost be a beach, but the sand we’re standing on is ash, tens of feet deep and packed solid; the accumulated waste of years from Parli Thermal Power Station in Beed District, Maharashtra. The tall thin flues of the plant puff peacefully in the distance: from here the 24 hour rat-a-tat of machinery can’t be heard and the white fumes trail away into the evening sky like ribbons.

“Every day when it wasn’t raining, the wind was picking up the fly ash from this dump and bringing it into our homes,” continues Shiavagi. “It was coming into our kitchens and settling on food. By July, it was an inch and a half deep on surfaces. We’d sweep it away but it would build back up again within a day. People were developing allergies and the ash was making people’s eyes and skin red and sore. Children had stopped going to school because the minute they stepped outside they turned grey.”

Waste Ash from the Thermal Power Plant in Parli

Coal-fired power plants produce two types of waste: the gaseous is released into the air through flues, while the solid (fly ash) is mixed with water and transported via pipes to a dumping ground, where a pump house sucks out the excess water and sends it back to the plant to carry more waste. In theory, the dumping grounds should be ponds, the ash weighted down by water, but too much ash and too little water means the coal cinders are often dry and easily transported by the wind. Parli Thermal Power Station generates 3,500 metric tonnes of such fly ash per day and the 5000 residents of nearby Dadahari Wadgoan Village were becoming sick of it coating their homes and lives.

The village residents signed many petitions. As Sarpanch, Shiavagi was involved in presenting them to both the Environment Department of Maharashtra and Mahagenco – the government-owned company who operate the plant. He says the recipients always promised something would be done, but no action was ever taken. Then, shortly before the protest, two women in the village passed away.

“They had asthma and breathing in the fly ash had made it worse,” says Shiavagi. “The doctor had told them to stay away from it but what could they do? After their deaths we wrote again to Mahagenco saying we believed they had died because of the fly ash, but again there was no reply and nothing changed.”

The breaking point came at the end of summer 2009. All doors and windows in Dadahari Wadgoan had to be shut against the constant onslaught of ash, which in the middle of July made living conditions unbearably hot. Despite the village’s proximity to the power station, like many rural communities their power supply is intermittent and fans would rarely be working. The school building had no electric light, so with the shutters closed it was too dark to teach.

A panchayat meeting was called, and it was agreed the situation couldn’t go on. A group of 10-15 men angrily suggested going down to the pump house. More and more began to agree with them and eventually a mob of 400-500 set out for the dump to take things into their own hands.

“The two local security guards ran away when they saw us coming,” recalls Shiavagi. “They must have informed the plant on their wireless radios, though, because soon two official security men showed up in a car. They had guns and started threatening us. Everyone was shouting. One of the guards asked what the hell we thought we were doing, and said he’d shoot us if we didn’t leave. This made a couple of the younger guys really angry and they grabbed the guns off the security guards, lost their heads a bit and then locked them in the temple in the village. Then we set the seats of their car on fire and burned it.”

The apathetic attitude of years was quickly reversed. Within hours the Chief General Manager of the power station arrived with a police envoy, and acquiesced to the villagers’ demands. The guards were released and no charges levied against the protesters. The next day, the plant employed 40 people to sprinkle the dump with water, shortly afterwards installing a small sprinkler system to wet the fly ash and prevent it blowing into the village. They also rooted 10,000 plants in the ash ponds to reduce the amount of blow-off.

For the moment, Shiavagi and the other residents are mollified, but they are waiting to see if the power station installs the larger sprinkler system they promised, once the rainy season can no longer be relied upon to help quell the ash.

“I’m glad we did it,” he reflects, standing amongst the pools of water on the ash pond. “At least we eventually got some kind of reaction.”

Night has fallen now, and the bright lights of the power station are shining orange in the distance. To our right, where Dadahari Wadgoan lies, there is nothing but darkness, as the village continues to have 10-15 hours of scheduled power cuts per day. For the moment, though, the residents are merely glad to be rid of the thick grey dust filling their homes. But for the communities who live near other dumping grounds – both of Parli and other Thermal Power Stations – there is no such respite.