Responding to a writ petition filed against the state of Gujarat and others at the high court of Gujarat, the board said that during the entire period of its surprise inspection at the Hazira plant in April this year, continuous stack emission from the hot rolled coil and the lime plants at Hazira was observed.

Further, the board stated that huge fugitive emission was observed from all the sources throughout the monitoring period. The board said that during the charging operation a huge cloud of emission emerging from the electric arc furnace (EAF) area in the HRC plant was observed.

The board further said that though the company had attributed the emission to the failure of two out of three suction fans in the EAF, its persistence points out that it cannot be solely caused by such failure.

The boardalso felt that the house keeping at the Hazira plant is very poor and the concentration of particulate matter at HRC stack is very high as against the prescribed standards of the board.

The board also stated that there is no green belt in the hot briquetted iron plant to reduce the impact on ground level emission. The board also observed that the total iron content in the adjoining waters of Tapi river to be 6.71 mg per litre, which is due to dumping of iron slag on the bank.

The COD value of the river at the downstream of the Essar plant was found to be 381 mg per litre indicating the amount of waste discharge by the plant in Tapi.

The board observed that there was no proper disposal site available to the company for disposal of solid waste in a scientific manner. Currently, the company is dumping solid waste on the river bank, which is a government land and is a source of contamination of the river water. Significantly, the board inspected and found out that the reclamation of the government land bythe company is an illegal encroachment.

The inspecting team further found out that the concentration of particulate matter in ambient air at the Hazira village was 250 ug/Nm3, which is beyond the prescribed limit.

The board team also found out that the soil collected from Hazira village indicated deposition of iron and lime dust. The leaves of many trees were found covered with lime dust. This indicates deposition of iron and lime dust, the board said.