KEY POINTS:
At an altitude of 4000m (13,000ft) the Andean air is clear. A plume of white smoke rises from the chimney at the La Oroya smelter, hard at work refining arsenic and metals such as lead, cadmium and copper. But today, the company is not discharging any gases over
this city in central Peru.
"It's a nice day so the company won't be letting off any gases," says Hugo Villa, a neurologist at the local hospital. "They keep the worst emissions to overcast days or after dark."
When the gases are released, they make La Oroya one of the most-polluted places on the planet. It ranks alongside Chernobyl for environmental devastation, according to a US think-tank, the Blacksmith Institute.
The company is a US corporation, Renco Doe Run.
The gases are the product from the main smelter a mile or two down the valley. And, despite evidence that gases have been behind the premature deaths of workers and residents, the Government of President Alan Garcia is too afraid of foreign investors to do anything.
But now, the townspeople are turning their attention to Renco's proprietor, Ira Rennert, which for nearly 13 years topped the US Environmental Protection Authority's list as the worst air polluter in the country.
A study of 93 newborn children in the first 12 hours of their life, conducted by Villa, showed they had highly dangerous levels of lead in their blood, inherited from their mothers while in the womb.
"The effects of the lead are often difficult to trace," said Villa. "But it lodges permanently in bones and affects the liver, kidneys and the brain. I've had child patients who have lost feeling in their limbs and can't control themselves."
The company has a scheme under which a few hundred carefully selected children of employees are taken for a few hours every day to a camp outside the town.
The problem here is such that adults chat about the lead levels in their blood. "I'm 37," said one. "That's nothing," said another, "I'm 43."
For years, the Oroyinos, as the locals are called, appeared to put up with their lot. In the past, union leaders and the mayor were persuaded by Renco Doe Run to side with it to block the Government's feeble attempts to force it to cut pollution.
" 'We may move out and you'll all lose your jobs,' was the message," said Pedro, one former employee, now an invalid.
This year, the town elected a new mayor the unions elected new leaders and the effects of the pollution on children is finally getting through to parents.
THE EVIDENCE
* A US-owned smelter in the city of La Oroya makes the city one of the most polluted in the world.
* Evidence suggests gases from the smelter have been behind the premature deaths of workers and residents young and old.
* The quality of air tested by three Peruvian voluntary agencies showed 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium and 13 times more lead than is safe.
* In parts of the town, the water supply contains 50 per cent more lead than levels recommended by the World Health Organisation.
* A study of 93 newborn children in the first 12 hours of their life showed they had highly dangerous levels of lead in their blood, inherited from their mothers while in the womb.
- Observer
