Money, Economics, Politics,  Peru's Andes Mountains

Toxic La Oroya Mine Profiled Dec. 11 on CNN’s “Planet in Peril”

On December 11, one of Peru’s most horrific environmental and public-health disasters will command worldwide attention when CNN debuts the first part of “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” (Thurs., 9 p.m. ET). The show focuses on the Doe Run Peru smelting complex in La Oroya, in central Peru, where sky-high levels of lead and other toxic metals have contaminated the air and water, poisoning area residents. (Nearly every child in the town has lead poisoning.)

Doe Run is a St. Louis-based company that is part of Renco Group, a private-holding company of New York businessman Ira Rennert. Doe Run Peru is part of Doe Run.

The Doe Run crisis has been the subject of numerous investigations by health researchers, government bodies and journalists over the last decade. However, that attention has resulted in only minimal clean-up efforts. The alternative magazine Mother Jones ran an excellent expose

Doe Run smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru
Doe Run smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru

on the Doe Run scandal in 2006, but major U.S. media sources have touched only briefly on the story.

Hopefully, CNN’s Planet in Peril episode will arouse enough outrage among viewers to effect real change at the La Oroya site. (Similar contamination at another Peruvian mining town, Cerro de Pasco, has resulted in a decision to move the entire town 35 kilometers away, reports En Peru Blog.)

CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Peru in 2008 to report on and evaluate the crisis. On his blog Paging Dr. Gupta, he notes:

We visited the small town of La Oroya, Peru a couple of times during the past year. This town nestled in the Andes mountains is home to the Doe Run Peru smelting complex, where metal-laden rock is brought for processing into raw materials such as lead, copper and zinc. It is a place where the air irritates the eyes, befouls the mouth, stings the nostrils and heavies the chest. In this town of 35,000 people, 99 percent of children living in and around La Oroya have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable limits, according to studies carried out by the director general of environmental health in Peru in 1999.

Consider this: People shouldn’t naturally have lead in their bodies. The upper safe limit set by the World Health Organization is 10 mg/dL. But even more recent findings from La Oroya show that the situation is still very grim. We were joined there by Fernando Serrano, a St. Louis University researcher, whose 2005 study found that children had an average blood lead level of 36.1 mg/dL to 32.4 mg/dL. That’s more than three times the safe limit!

Lead poisoning is insidious. Children who have high levels of lead in their bodies can appear healthy but may suffer long-term consequences such as developmental disorders, mood disorders and in some cases, retardation. The young are most at risk because their tissue is more susceptible to the toxicities of lead.

IMAGE: PERUVIAN TOWN
Children play in La Oroya; smelting plant in background (photo: AP)

Dr. Gupta’s blog entry spotlights the dangers of lead poisoning, but soft-pedals placing blame on Doe Run and on the Peruvian government, which allowed that and other mining companies to pollute La Oroya over decades. (The mines opened in 1922.) He notes:

Doe Run Peru took over the smelter in La Oroya in 1997, after it had already been operating for decades under other companies. We interviewed Doe Run Peru’s president, Juan Carlos Huayhua. While his company is making major technological improvements and sponsoring community health programs, it recognizes that more needs to be done. In cooperation with the Peruvian government, Doe Run Peru runs a small nursery school for about 100 children whose blood lead levels exceeded 40 mg/dL. There are thousands of kids who live within a two-mile radius of the smelter.

I’d say “more needs to be done” is putting it mildly!

International health officials agree that the plant should be shut down, but Peru’s government allows Doe Run to continue operating. The company itself has begun a few token public-health efforts, touting itself as “working for the development of Peru.” (For an eerie glimpse of Doe Run Peru’s twisted PR campaign, visit the company’s web site, which displays photos of happy children, green fields and fluffy llamas.)

Watch “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” in HDTV on Thursday, December 11, at 9 p.m. ET on CNN, hosted by Anderson Cooper, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” correspondent and National Geographic host Lisa Ling. CNN’s award-winning series examines the environmental conflicts between growing populations and natural resources.

I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.

5 Comments

  • Miguel Fuentes

    It’s really sad, but I think people there don’t know how great the damage can be for them and their children, probably they are Quechua speakers, and maybe that’s a reason why they don’t know much about it.

    I really don’t think this will draw much the attention of the US media or the US people. If you check CNN and all those, you’ll see the top stories are about corruption, job cuts, and a depression coming to the economy, etc.

  • Barb

    I saw the two-hour special last night, and about 15 minutes were devoted to La Oroya. CNN’s medical correspondent interviewed the head of Doe Run Peru, a Peruvian man, who refused to admit that the plant was poisoning people and that the standards were insufficient.

    The segment made a strong argument that Peru Doe Run is failing to help the local population. It did so by contrasting how Doe Run in the U.S. processes metals (it does so safely now) with how the Peru businesses does this (98% of kids poisoned). The point was obvious: Doe Run thinks that Peruvian children’s health is not important and that if Peruvian kids die, it’s not a big deal.

    It made me so mad!

  • Barb

    Thanks for linking to Corey’s blog. I didn’t know about it. I hope he can ride the wave of the CNN special to bring more attention to the horrors of La Oroya.

  • Bernard Sullivan

    This is a terribel scandal but not unique unfortunately. You should check out what is happening in Kosovo, while administered by the UN. WHO and UNHCR are involved in this one. More kids poisoned by lead and other heavy metals. A film, and a presentation to Ministers.
    FILM
    Part I http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YvltbiN1m8c
    Part II http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkyekQOOnI
    Presentation
    Part I http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fAgWdcV5ZaQ
    Part II http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IxX4pXvnc-I
    Part III http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0noFXsITFQc