Peru town copes with being devoured by mine

[cory777]

Source: AP

By ANDREW WHALEN, Associated Press Writer

CERRO DE PASCO, Peru – The mile-wide gash grows almost daily with each dynamite blast, slowly devouring this bleak provincial capital high in the Andes.

The half-century-old, open-pit zinc and lead mine belches streamers of dust that coat homes. The soil is so contaminated, indigenous Quechua communities on the city's outskirts have quit growing potatoes and lettuce. Local taps run for six hours on a good week; 80 percent of available water goes to the mine.

As the government continues its aggressive push to extract Peru's vast mineral and oil reserves, communities such as Cerro de Pasco are caught in a conflict between environmental contamination and jobs that is fueling violent protests — some deadly — from the Andes to the Amazon.

Critics say the town of 70,000, one of Peru's first industrial mining complexes, embodies 100 years of unregulated extraction, toxic dumping and illegal land grabs.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100418/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_toxic_town

[Enrique]

1. they know how to do business in Peru

teabagger's paradise, along with China and Haiti.

[UpInArms]

2. more from your link:

Mining accounts for 60 percent of Peru's exports and was the motor behind the country's 6.7 percent annual growth from 2002 to 2008. Even with the global recession, the Peruvian government expects $30 billion to be invested in new mining projects by 2017, spearheaded by Chinese, Swiss and British-based companies hungry for copper, gold, zinc and silver.

In nearby La Oroya, the congress recently granted the U.S.-owned Doe Run Peru smelter two-and-a-half more years to reduce toxic emissions at its facilities, allowing the company to miss a second deadline — but saving 3,500 jobs.

The company agreed to clean up the town, considered one of the world's most polluted, when it bought the plant from the state in 1997.

[axollot]

3. Those mines suck. Palin opened up this type of mining in Bristol Bay.

The local tribal leaders in that area of Alaska need this info on what it would do to the area (as many tribes think the jobs it will bring is a good trade off!!!)

Cheers
Sandy

[Stumbler]

4. That's a horrible story. More of the ugly reality that is un-regulated capitalism

But on a side note, isn't 70k a little large to be labeled a "town"? When I hear a population of 70k, I think "city" or "suburb" if it's joined to a larger population center. Maybe it's just me being an American but when I hear the term "town" I think of <10,000. Just quibbling over semantics.

[subsuelo]

5. Didn't Obama endorse a 'free-trade' deal with Peru? n/t