Thousands Show Support for Environmental Clean Up in La Oroya
8 March 2006
Group delivers 16,000 letters calling for government stand on dangerous pollutants.
The Movement for Health in La Oroya (MOSAO) has delivered 16,000 letters to the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines calling for greater protection for the environment in its highland city, site of a metal smelter owned by the Doe Run Corporation of Missouri.
La Oroya is heavily polluted with lead dust and sulfur dioxide from smokestack emissions, according to recent studies by the University of St. Louis and the Peruvian Ministry of Health. These studies have shown that nearly all children living near the metal smelter have blood-lead levels many times higher than those considered acceptable by the World Health Organization.
The letters were from people in 54 countries on five continents, including 7,000 from the United States. They call on the Ministry of Energy and Mines to turn down a recent request by Doe Run to extend their deadline to comply with an environmental management plan included in the terms of sale when the company bought the plant in 1997. Delays in building a plant to recycle sulfuric acid, and other measures to reduce harmful emissions are contributing to the pollution, according to MOSAO and a technical committee dedicated to improving public health and the environment in La Oroya funded by Oxfam America.
The delivery of the letters to the Ministry of Energy and Mines followed a three-hour vigil outside the Ministry attended by 140 people on the 23rd of February. Participants included members of Peru’s Congress. “A contract must be respected and the health of La Oroya’s population shouldn’t be an issue discussed as mere numbers; but as a non-negotiable priority,” said Walter Alejos Calderón, President of Peru’s Congressional Environmental Commission, at the ceremony.
Oxfam America’s President Raymond C. Offenheiser met with both the Prime Minister of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, and the Minister of Energy and Mines, Glodomiro Sanchez, in the capital city of Lima just after MOSAO submitted its letters. He said that both the government and the national mining industry trade group have called for action to clean up the environment in La Oroya. “These groups are now aligning themselves with the position we have taken for the last three years, that there is a public health crisis in La Oroya, and the level of lead needs to be reduced quickly,” Offenheiser said after the meeting.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines has already responded to Doe Run’s application to extend for a fourth time the deadline for compliance with its environmental program with a request for more information on 90 separate points, stating that “it is a priority for the government of Peru to protect the health of its citizens and the quality of the environment.” The company has said in a press release it will comply with the information request as quickly as possible.
