Note #9202 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06166 March 15, 2006
Peruvian parents fret about children living in shadow of filth-spewing smelter
'This is our town. We live here. Where would we go?'
by Alexa Smith
LA OROYA, Peru - Ruth Marin worries about her 2-year-old daughter, Jocelyn. Like most other kids on her street, Jocelyn is lead-poisoned, by anybody's definition.
Creaky, cramped tenements climb like stair steps up the hillside of this filthy Andean mountain town, where one of the largest multi-metal smelters in the world pumps out nearly 1,000 tons of toxins a day. The plant processes rubble to extricate lead, zinc, copper, gold and silver.
Dubbed "Old LaOroya" for its advanced age, the neighborhood is the city's most contaminated and houses some of its poorest residents.
It sits directly beneath the belching smokestack that has, for 80 years, bleached the cliffs overhead a salty white and spewed a hazy gas that allegedly blackens roses, curdles dirt and causes coughing fits, burning lips and chronic fatigue.
Two years ago, doctors measured Jocelyn's blood-lead level at 37 micrograms per deciliter of blood in a study run by the Peruvian government and Doe Run-Peru, the Missouri-based U.S. corporation that runs the smelter. At about 70 micrograms per deciliter, lead poisoning is known to cause mental retardation, coma or even death. (According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, any blood-lead level above 10 micrograms per deciliter constitutes poisoning.)
While Doe Run has installed some pollution controls - $94 million worth - it is petitioning Peru's Bureau of Energy and Mines for a four-year extension of the deadline for the highest-cost environmental projects, one of which will control sulfur dioxide emissions.
The company promised to reduce emissions when it bought the facility in 1997. Now there's a fight brewing.
Twelve Peruvian congressmen have called on the Energy and Mines Ministry to reject Doe Run's request for an extension. A congressional committee is organizing hearings and has threatened to drag the minister in for questioning if he approves the postponement. What's more, 10 residents of La Oroya have filed suit with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to force the Peruvian government to veto Doe Run's request to protect the population's health.
The company has told the Peruvian media that it will close down its La Oroya operations if the agreement isn't approved. In a report filed with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission in 2004, it says that, if the plant is declared out of compliance, its outstanding loans will come due and it will be difficult to get new credit.
Jocelyn got into the study because children under 6 are at highest risk for neurological damage from lead poisoning, and she lives in the most toxic part of the city.
Marin has followed the doctor's advise: she tries to keep Jocelyn's hands clean and nags her child not to put dirty fingers in her mouth. She feeds her eggs and milk ... when she can get them from her husband's relatives who live in the country.
But her worries keep escalating.
In a new, church-backed study released in December ¾ funded in part by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) through its Joining Hands Against Hunger Program ¾ Marin learned that improvements in hygiene and diet aren't reducing children's blood-lead levels, as she'd been led to believe. And lead isn't the only problem. The study found airborne toxins including arsenic, cadmium, sulfur dioxide and antimony. Antimony is 30 times higher than internationally recognized permissible levels.
Researchers from St. Louis University's Environmental Health Team and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are raising new questions about the impact of multiple toxins on La Oroya's population.
Marin knew about disabilities tied to lead poisoning ¾ such as stunted growth and brain damage ¾ but now she's learning about other risks, of cancer, renal dysfunction, heart and lung disease, and more.
She's awaiting the results of tests done on Jocelyn, to see if her blood-lead reading is down. If it's worse, she doesn't know what she'll do. There is no money for medical care. Health insurance isn't remotely within reach ¾ she sells chickens on the street; her husband, Raphael Rosales, does odd jobs.
She can't leave; she has nowhere to go. Her family is here. This is home.
"This is our town," she says, sitting in the matchbox-size living room that is her entire first floor, as two of her other three daughters peep through a hole in the ceiling There are no seats left downstairs, and there is no such thing as standing room. A ladder - braced against the crudely cut hole - serves as the link between the two floors. "We live here. Where would we go? That's the problem."
It isn't hard to understand why families stay in La Oroya despite the bad air and poverty. This is Appalachia in the Andes: If you have a job you stick it out. If not, you stick it out anyway - because this is where your family has always lived.
"We all wish we could go away for the health of our wives and children," says 34-year-old Marcello Moya Yaringano, a street vendor who pockets about $20 a week selling fresh-squeezed orange juice.
If Doe Run offered him a job, he says, he'd take it. His wife has a bad hip, and he can't afford the surgery she needs. If he had the money, he'd send her and his kids to live in a town downriver where the air is better - but he would stay. He says that he doesn't have the necessary skills to get hired.
In La Oroya itself, Doe Run employs about 2,900 workers - but only 500 are locals, according to Paul Moreno, an economist in the mayor's office. "The money flows here - thanks to Doe Run," he says, while acknowledging that the pollutants are toxic.
Four mines operate within driving distance of the city; a fifth is under development. According to the Peruvian Bureau of Energy and Mines (PBEM), the latter will be the Mantaro Valley's biggest mining operation yet, gouging silver and copper out of the Andes.
Miners earn about $500 a month, but there are fewer miners and smelter workers in La Oroya than day laborers like Yaingano and sub-contractors who work in mining-related industries or sell goods and services to miners.
Here, in Lima's breadbasket, farmers earn far less, maybe $80 to 100 monthly, an estimate supplied by the PBEM.
For those with jobs, staying put and staying quiet is a no-brainer: Just ask some of the women who are married to smelter workers and live in company housing along La Oroya's main drag.
Yes, they say, there are days when the gases are particularly bad. Yes, dust collects on the tabletops, the furniture, the concrete stoop outside the apartment building. Yes, the family's shoes are kept outside the apartment, so contaminated soil isn't tracked inside. Some parents say they've had their kids' lead levels tested; others say no, there is no need: They look healthy and so they must be healthy.
"Yes, it worries me ... but what else can we do?" says one woman who asks that her name not be used. "I was born here. I grew up here. I don't know how to do anything else, like raising cattle. I know that if we feed ourselves well, we'll stay well," she says, describing the doctors' orders for nutritious diets to keep her family's immune systems strong.
"We know this valley is polluted, but we live here, and we know how to deal with it," she says, adding that her father is going strong at 87. "To lower our risks, we'd have to leave."
The reaction isn't always so mild. In fact, two research teams gathering data for the latest study were attacked by mobs opposed to further testing. Presbyterians from the Broad Street church in Columbus, OH, were on hand to help gather random samples.
In hope of creating new jobs, the city intends to open a vocational school this year to train students in a variety of fields, including mechanics, food service and environmental engineering, according to Moreno.
Maria Jesus Leiva Canchanya, 39, lives on Perin's side of town with her unemployed husband and four daughters, all of whom complain of persistent ailments. She's worried because she can't afford to pay for nutritious food for her family.
All four, ranging in age from 5 to 14, have allergies. The oldest has headaches. Her bones ache too, which worries her mother, since it is a symptom of lead poisoning. The youngest girl's blood-lead level was 40.7 the last time she was tested. The doctor ordered lots of milk, eggs, cheese and fruit to build immunity.
"I told the doctor, 'All right, but we have no job to pay for that food. How do I feed my children?'"
She says he told her there is no other way. So she does the best with the money she has: Which means a steady diet of chicken soup, vegetables and potatoes.
"This worries me very much," she says, adding that her husband doesn't want to leave, even though there are no jobs for him here - a fact he confirms. "People have lived here forever," he says. "Our children were born here. We're used to living here."
His wife, who washes laundry for others, is less confident. She says her 14-year-old is at home in bed now with a headache. She isn't sure if it is a symptom of a bigger problem, or, just a passing flu.
Her older daughters, she says, "want to finish school and get out of here."
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