Union Carbide

New York, NY – Last night a New York federal court found that Union Carbide Corp. (UCC) could not be sued for ongoing contamination from the notorious chemical plant in Bhopal, India, despite evidence that construction of the plant was managed by a UCC employee – evidence that the plaintiffs are confident will lead to a reversal of the erroneous decision on appeal. EarthRights International (ERI) filed the lawsuit Sahu v. Union Carbide Corp. on behalf of residents of Bhopal whose land and water are contaminated by waste from the plant. A poisonous gas leak from the same chemical plant killed over 5,000 people in 1984, and UCC largely abandoned the site, allowing toxic wastes to leach into the local water supply. UCC was intimately involved in the creation and disposal of toxic wastes at the Bhopal plant, and the manager who oversaw the construction of the plant confirmed that he worked for UCC, not for the Indian subsidiary that officially operated the plant. Nonetheless, federal judge John Keenan ignored this evidence, ruling that UCC was not sufficiently involved in the acts at the plant and that the project manager actually worked for the subsidiary. “The evidence demonstrates that Union Carbide was intimately involved in every aspect of designing and building the Bhopal plant, including the waste disposal systems that caused the pollution,” said Marco Simons, counsel for the plaintiffs and Legal Director for EarthRights International.