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Paper short abstract:

This panel explores how state-led energy transitions may impact justice in community health. Mining operations (coal, limestone, uranium) leave toxic heavy metal waste in water/soil, together with arsenic in groundwater. We use spatial methodologies to understand waste's health impacts.

Paper long abstract:

This panel explores the relationship between state-led energy transitions to achieve decarbonization targets and injustice in community health. In northeastern India Indigenous communities have reported a surge in non-infectious diseases since the 1990s when pilot uranium mining started. These communities have reported disproportionately high levels of respiratory, skin, and kidney diseases, miscarriages, and childhood disabilities compared with surrounding villages. Public and private corporations have conducted mining operations (coal, limestone, uranium), leaching toxic heavy metal waste into soil and water. Groundwater arsenic contamination, often resulting from over-harvesting groundwater when water sources are depleted, is widely documented in neighboring states, with serious health impacts. To better understand public health impacts, we conducted household surveys in mining-proximate communities. Combining these surveys, we have spatially documented households, communal water sources, farm fields, rivers where communities catch fish, and health issues.

This paper describes new methodological approaches we propose to better understand environmental exposures and related human health risks, using spatial documentation and multiple regression models. In India and other Global South nations, state agencies curb environmental and health protections to fast-track economic growth. Mining practices across India (coal, limestone, and uranium) are widely reported as under-regulated and Pollution Control Boards have found unsafe levels of heavy metals in surface water nationwide. Our spatial model to identify correlation between water sources, adverse health impacts, and industrial waste, will help us identify how to conduct ecosystem testing in the project’s next phase.