Up To 4 More Years For US Firm To Clean Up Toxic Peruvian Andes Town - AP

[hatrack]

LIMA, Peru - "The Peruvian government on Wednesday published a decree that could give U.S.-based Doe Run Co. more time to clean up toxic emissions from a metallurgical plant that has contaminated La Oroya, a bleak, smoke-choked town high in the central Andes. The decree, published in El Peruano, the official gazette, will allow companies to modify their environmental clean-up programs for "exceptional reasons," and receive specific project extensions for three years, with the possibility of an additional year.

Doe Run Peru, owned by the St. Louis-based Doe Run Co., has threatened to close its operations if the government does not grant a five-year extension to complete an environmental upgrade that includes construction of a $100 million sulfuric acid plant by 2007.

The privately held company is North America's largest integrated lead producer. The company says sales from its Peru operation totaled $423.7 million in 2003. Company officials were not immediately available for comment Wednesday, but Jeffrey Zelms, Doe Run's president, last week expressed discontent with the terms of the decree, which had been published in a draft form earlier in the month.

EDIT

The company agreed to a clean-up program when it purchased the 82-year-old smelter in 1997 from state-owned Centromin, which ran the facility from 1974. In a 2000-01 study, the company found that average lead levels in the blood of 1,198 residents tested were 2.5 times above World Health Organization limits. In 1999, Peru's Health Ministry determined that 99 percent of the children in the area suffered from lead poisoning, with nearly 20 percent in need of urgent hospitalization."

EDIT

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/10523473.htm?1c

[sandnsea]

1. They hate us for our freedom

:eyes: Freedom to kill them with no regard, more like.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. La Oraya IS Polluted

Having been through La Oraya this August, I can testify from personal experience that it is indeed contaminated. While there are people actually living there, the view from the train is of a barren landscape where literally no visible plant life grows.