99% Of Kids In Peruvian Town Lead-Poisoned - Cleanup Coming In 2011

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LIMA, Peru — The head of a U.S.-owned smelter admitted Wednesday that lead poisoning of children by the facility's emissions was a serious problem, but said his company would not be able to significantly reduce the contamination until 2011. Peru's government has set a 2006 deadline for the firm, Doe Run Peru, to clean up the contamination in the Andean town of La Oroya.

Bruce Neil, head of Doe Run Peru operations, said the company last week asked the government to extend the 2006 deadline. "We're saying there is no way we can fulfill that obligation," he said. "It's going to take another five years" beyond the 2006 deadline to make "a serious contribution to reduce blood lead levels" among children in La Oroya, he told reporters.

La Oroya, a bleak, smoke-choked town of 30,000 people, is wedged into a narrow gorge 12,300 feet high in the Andes 80 miles east of Lima. A 2000-01 Doe Run study found the average lead levels of 1,198 La Oroya residents were 2.5 times above World Health Organization limits. Two years earlier, Peru's Health Ministry determined that 99 percent of the children in the area suffered from lead poisoning.

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Neil said the government's initial reaction to the extension request "is that we have an obligation to fulfill" the environmental plan the company agreed to when it purchased the 81-year-old smelter in 1997 from state-owned Centromin. He said the St. Louis-based Doe Run Co. has spent $40 million of the promised $174 million to reduce the emissions of lead and other toxic metals at the La Oroya smelter."

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-27/s_13531.asp