To catch a neutrino in the tiger's den

Which one is harder to catch: the Tiger, or the Neutrino? One's a rare charismatic megafauna everyone knows from myth and reality; the other, a really tiny but abundant ghostly elementary particle that you may not have heard about. While no tiger is eating you, I hope, your body is undoubtedly being pierced (through and through) by scads of neutrinos from cosmic rays even as you read this blog - yet very few have ever been physically detected by humans! Both have a strong association with India. The country is, everyone knows, home to the largest remaining populations of wild tigers. What fewer people may know, however, is that the elusive wild neutrino was also first captured at the Kolar Gold Field mines in India (way back in the year I was born!). While the existence of the neutrino had already been confirmed from artificial sources (radioactive decay), the KGF experiment led to the first successful capture of the beasties resulting from cosmic ray interactions with the earth's upper atmosphere - the more abundant natural source. Here's an abbreviated version of the story:

Atmospheric neutrinos result from the interaction of cosmic rays with atomic nuclei in the Earth's atmosphere, creating showers of particles, many of which are unstable and produce neutrinos when they decay. A collaboration of particle physicists from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India, Osaka City University, Japan and Durham University, UK recorded the first cosmic ray neutrino interaction in an underground laboratory in KGF gold mines in India in 1965.

These wild neutrinos are notoriously difficult to isolate and capture from these cosmic ray sources, because they are weakly-interacting elementary particles (meaning they basically pass right through most ordinary matter in their paths as they travel at close to the speed of light), and there is too much interference from background radiation in most places - one reason why it took a while to confirm the existence of these ghost particles. What you need to do is to set up your trap (a large detector typically using water or heavy water to slow down the buggers) underneath a truly massive rock filter which absorbs / blocks all that other radiation. Basically, you need to set your trap under a big mountain! And even then, you don't actually catch the neutrino itself - rather, what most detectors capture is the radiation emitted when the neutrino hits the water creating new electrons, neutrons or muons (and may be one or two other things). Which we then infer to have been the product of neutrinos alone, because we've eliminated most other possibilities by hiding under that mountain! Here's an example of a neutrino interaction captured at Fermilab:

So its really not unlike setting up a camera-trap for a tiger in the rainforest (image below), with a few caveats: the camera-trap must be baited with a buffalo or similar large prey with which the tiger will pause to interact; the trap must be behind some specially dense filter that will only let tigers and no other predators through (we wildlife biologists had better become more ingenious at devising those, eh?); and yet the tiger attack happens so fast that even the fastest camera will only capture the blood spatter from its pounce upon the poor prey's throat! Then one can confidently infer that, because our filter only lets tigers through, and because buffaloes don't spontaneously explode leaving just a blood spatter, that blood spatter must be the result of an actual tiger attacking it; ergo, we caught a tiger!! Not all that different from the Indian govt's typical pugmark-based tiger census, some might legitimately argue... :-)

Now that I've established the similarity between tigers and neutrinos - except that the former are becoming rarer in the wild, even if often photographed, while the latter remain quite abundant if rarely seen - let me turn to the reason I started thinking about all this:

You see, the Indian particle physics community is really excited about neutrinos and gung-ho about setting up a new large underground neutrino detector (the world has fewer of these than you can count on the fingers of one hand) at a brand new India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) to bring back the glory days of the KGF experiment. After all, neutrinos have already bestowed several Nobel prizes upon their ghost-chasers (none from India yet), and more may be in store from what these ghosts may reveal about the stuff our universe is made of. So they've put together a coalition of several countries and international organizations to support it and are raising money from govt. (and private?) sources - for this will be one expensive mouse-trap! They also have an open collaboration among dozens of universities and research institutions from India and elsewhere, and invite experimentalists in particular to join in [an aside: how many tiger researchers are so open in inviting others into their field sites?]. So it should be a wonderful thing for Indian science and the general citizenry (who have the cultivation of science as part of our constitutional duty!) to have such a thing happen in India. Except!

Always with the Except! - I suppose we environmentalists can't really help it, can we?

Except - in this case - they've run into the rare and endangered Tiger! The trouble is, after looking at various locations across the country's mountainous region, the INO scouts found a mountain (pictured at the top of this post) most suitable to locate the INO detector under - and it turns out to be in the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats, at the edge of Mudumalai National Park within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, home to precious populations of tigers and elephants! Given India's dwindling forested habitats in general, and elephant and tiger populations in particular, it is most unfortunate that the INO couldn't find a suitable site outside of such a protected area - but then again, are there that many large mountains outside of some form of govt. protection these days? Haven't we driven pretty much all large wildlife into them thar hills? Given that they have picked this location, there is now an outcry building among local environmentalists (and corners of the blogosphere) about the potential impact of such a project, according to an alarm-bell-ringing article published in the Hindu earlier this week. The article troubles me in various ways. It starts off thus:

Few environmentalists even are aware of the fact that a top level scientific project, the India-based Neutrino Observatory, is scheduled to be built in Singara, in the Mudumalai Sanctuary in the heart of tiger and leopard territory. Scientists who presented the news to a shocked local audience in Ooty argued that this was a dream project which was the pride and joy of the Indian scientific world. Questions regarding genuine environmental concerns about the impact on the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve were met with defensive reactions. The atmosphere at the Ooty Collectorate, where the presentation was made, turned into practically a pitched battle between the scientists versus the conservationists. Raised voices and unnecessarily rude comments are futile and counterproductive. However, many of the questions asked by the Nilgiris activists needed valid answers from the INO team and the Chennai-based Care Earth group, an NGO presenting the pros and cons of the project.

and it keeps going further into alarmist mode:

While few people would oppose a science project described as Abdul Kalam’s dream, the question being asked by serious local residents and environmental scientists is whether one can really force the country to choose between Science or The Tiger? It’s a ludicrous proposition.

If you had any doubts left about where the author's sympathies lie, the following paragraph should dispel them:

Explaining the Neutrino Project to lay people is a difficult and complicated task. Those interested can go to the INO website for the technical details. For the lay reader it is sufficient to know that an enormous underground observatory is planned in Singara, within the core Tiger Reserve of the Mudumalai sanctuary.

Excuse me?! How about, at the very least, pointing interested lay people towards sources of actual information about the project and about neutrinos! Where's the URL of the INO website? Or some basic fact-checking (lacking at many points throughout the article) to note that, for instance, Mudumalai is a National Park, but not a Tiger Reserve!/ (I stand corrected on this). And what a way to dismiss a real science-teaching moment (is it really that hard to tell lay people about neutrinos? Surely they could put together a little box with some basic facts and sources of additional info?) to push an apparent agenda, however well-intentioned. So now even physicists are given reasons to distrust environmentalists, with this kind of approach. How would it sound if I rewrote the above paragraph by reversing the emphasis on physics vs. tiger conservation? After all, many lay people find tiger conservation as esoteric and irrelevant to their daily lives as neutrino physics! But let me stop griping about the style of this article and get to the real environmental concerns:

The Care Earth group [an environmental NGO working with the INO - note the lack of any details about them in the Hindu article] observed in an interestingly understated observation [sic] that one of the drawbacks of the project was the increased traffic that would take place within the sanctuary. Currently the human-animal conflict created by the tourist traffic is catastrophic enough. Any drive through the Bandipur-Mudumalai sanctuary from Ooty to Mysore will provide evidence of devastating damage. There are always a few victims — peacocks, deer, small game and even occasionally a leopard — hit by a speeding truck, bus or car. Scientists from the Bombay Natural History Society and the Indian Institute of Science have documented the ravages. They have collected graphic, stomach-turning photographs of mangled animals.

Elephant herds complete with tiny calves are forced to wait increasingly long periods to cross the road to the waterholes. Their natural corridors are blocked. Local adivasis have noted that animal behaviour patterns have changed. The elephants are more angry and aggressive than ever before. Where earlier adivasis walked confidently through the herds, now they must be careful. On March 24 this year, an angry elephant killed a local young man and injured a woman in Mudumalai. This is in normal times, now, before work on the project has begun.

The INO project needs 52,000 tons of iron in the first stage and another 50,000 tons in the second stage only for the detector. Additionally, approximately another 35,000 tons of cement, steel, PVC, copper, aluminium, sand and other building materials will be needed. This huge volume of iron and other material will come from Mysore (nearest railway station) normally moved in 20 ton trucks. New roads through the forests will be essential. Normally the Forest department prohibits such disturbance of core areas.

Equally problematic is the debris and muck that will be generated. The official Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has not yet been released but rough calculations based on the dimensions and scale of the project can be taken from the latest INO report.

The tunnel will be “D” shaped, 6.5 m wide and 6.5 m tall and 2.38 km long. So, nearly 90,000 cubic metres of rock will be taken out. The cavern complex will consist of an Experiment hall (about 22 m wide, 30 m tall and 120 m long) — about 75,000 cubic metres, a smaller cavern for the control facilities of about half the size, and a loading and storage area of about another 60,000 cubic metres. So that’s 2,25,000 cubic metres totally.

Given the density of granite in the area (2.8g/cm) this translates to 6,25,000 tons of debris or about 78,000 truck loads. That means almost 95,000 trucks, and double that in terms of trips through the forest since the trucks have to go back and forth.

As the construction is scheduled to take about four years, this involves 130 truck trips going through everyday!

Sounds like a real nightmare for the elephants - especially the poor calves - and other denizens of this sanctuary, doesn't it? Yet, if you were to bother reading the project's FAQ (especially this detailed pdf) on the project from the INO website, all these issues are addressed, making many of this article's concerns appear quite exaggerated. Just to summarize here, in case you don't want to wade through that FAQ yourself, here are the key points:

1. They make a compelling case for why the particular location they've chosen is the best they could find after an extensive search, for various geological reasons. There aren't too many real alternatives.
2. The tunnel entrance is to be located within the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board's PUSHEP hydroelectric project site, well outside the sanctuary's Reserve Forests.
3. All of the tunnel excavation and construction activities are to be kept within these TNEB lands.
4. No new roads are to be constructed within Mudumalai.
5. They describe the dimensions of the tunnel and the amount of rock debris to be removed, as above, but then tell us that most of this will be stored within a walled-off dump site on the TNEB lands - not shipped out on trucks on an ongoing basis during construction!
6. They are careful to note that they too worry about the traffic impact, and want to minimize it - which is why the rock debris will be removed, if necessary, only over a long period - and certainly not at the rate of 130 truck-trips per day roaring through the sanctuary.
7. The observatory will add barely 20 or so people to the local population - around 20 staff and scientists on site - and most of the observation and image analysis will happen off-site at other research facilities of the collaborating institutions.
8. They also emphasize that they will use environmentally sound technologies wherever possible - although what those might be remains unspecified.
9. And they describe the potential for biological research collaborations with the Indian Institute of Science and the National Centre for Biological Sciences.

I wonder why the Hindu reporter chose to ignore all this, preferring to paint the horrific picture above, complete with dead elephant calves. More troublesome is that the report also does not identify any of the "scientists" blamed for these atrocities, except for the sole environmental scientist representing the INO: Dr. Jayashree Vencatesan of Care Earth. While I don't know Dr. Vencatesan, I do happen to know the director of Care Earth - Dr. R. J. Ranjit Daniels, who has impeccable credentials as both ecologist and committed conservationist, especially when it comes to the biodiversity of the western ghats which he has studied and written about extensively for several decades! That association alone is enough to give me pause on the alarmism of the Hindu piece - for i find it hard to believe that the authors of the just released book, "Western Ghats", have sold out to some nameless cabal of "scientists" who couldn't care less about biodiversity.

That's my long-winded way of telling my environmentalist friends (especially those active on Nathistory-India) to cool it: take a breath and a dose of salt with that article. Note, however, that I am not dismissing genuine environmental concerns - and there are many when one is talking about a big govt. project involving such a quantum of excavation and construction anywhere, let alone in India. After all, the INO FAQ is a PR document, and therefore needs to be taken with its own thimble of salt. For instance, they talk about how the underground neutrino detection site of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory is located in the heart of Gran Sasso National Park in Italy - but they omit mentioning that that laboratory was also opposed by a strong coalition of environmental groups, and even forced to temporarily shut down a few years ago due to chemical spills which led to dangerous contaminants leaking into the ground water and reaching downstream inhabited areas! And mostly because of the sustained pressure from environmentalists, the Gran Sasso lab now has a detailed environmental policy to address such issues, and is actively promoting preservation of the surrounding park. So we must by no means let this pass unscrutinized - indeed we must keep a Moody (constant vigilance!) eye on this project not only now, but even after (if) it is built and running! Meanwhile, here are some of my own thoughts about the INO project, which I hope someone from the project, and concerned enviromentalists, can help address:

1. The project apparently already has environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests - if so, why isn't the EIA report available to the public yet (on the INO website, for instance)?
2. How about more specific details about the measures to be undertaken during tunnel excavation and lab construction to minimize impact on the Tiger Reserve? The FAQ is a great start - but more specifics, especially about the promised environmental technologies to be used would go down well with the eco-skeptics (which includes me).
3. Is there an environmental policy and a set of procedures to minimize environmental risks during the operation of the observatory? Something like the San Grasso lab's policy? Of course, policies on paper may not mean much in India (or, indeed, Italy!) but its a good place to start so we can hold the INO accountable - now and in the future!
4. Why not invite independent local (and long-distance) environmentalists to work with the INO to find the best ways to mitigate the impacts of the project? Better to collaborate on finding solutions, rather than incurring such wrath (albeit from just one newspaper report thus far), no? Of course, Care Earth is a regional environmental NGO, so this may be more a PR issue rather than a real one.
5. How about inviting independent environmentalists to participate directly in the project - to monitor the construction activities? Surely that would be the best way to ensure that the contractors and construction workers actually adhere to your environmental principles and minimize impact on the sanctuary.
6. Why not make this an exemplar of how environmental mitigation ought to be done, using this as an opportunity to set up a model for everyone else to follow?

In the end, I am as excited about learning more about the elementary particles that make up the fabric of our universe as I am keen to keep that universe excitingly populated with deadly tigers. And as a scientist with a deep abiding fascination for fundamental questions ranging from cosmology to biodiversity conservation, I have a hard time thinking that some of these human creative endeavors are fundamentally incompatible. Why must we reduce this project to a conflict between the Tiger vs. Science? (as if the Tiger could be saved without help from Science!) Surely we ecologists can work with our colleagues in the physics community to make this all work without running over more baby elephants? For if we can't find a way to reconcile the development of a science project with conservation, what hope can we - scientists - have for reconciliation of other, far greater, development projects with biodiversity? What can I do with my lofty goals for Reconciliation Ecology if I can't find a way to work with fellow scientists?

Then again, those darned particle physicists might make this whole argument moot this very summer when they switch on the Large Hadron Collider, creating a black hole (killer strangelet sounds cuter) which swallows the earth - humans, tigers and all! And if that happens, to paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson paraphrasing Carl Sagan - since we are all made of stardust, we (and our tigers) might have to rely solely on attaining immortality among those neutrinos after all.