Toxic Cloud over the Andes

...When we near the zinc refinery's upgraded sul-furic acid plant, I am suddenly overcome with a smell so noxious I have to strap on a company gas mask...

...Rocio's daughter is at the top of her third grade class, she is proud to report...

...Doe Run inherited its dirty legacy when it bought the complex in 1997...

...Rocio Guadalupe Mejia, who leads the community group Mercedes says threatened her, does not invite me into her house...

...So does Mercedes's remaining child, Susan, who walks into the nearly empty living room in the family's house in La Oroya, Peru...

...Dolmos asks...

...Others stop to talk...

...I seek out Mercedes's cousin who lives across town...

...And she says the ministry of energy has little incentive to hold Doe Run accountable because it is also in charge of promoting private investment...

...The ministry of health's commitment to the contamination problem is halfhearted, says Dr...

...Children like her own son, she says, who once had a high blood-lead level, are lowering their levels through hygiene and nutrition programs sponsored by Doe Run...

...I repeat my question three more times and get the same answer...

...Even my forgetting to put on my seat belt is a chance for him to show me how safety conscious the company is...

...Instead, we sit on a concrete bench facing the Old Town's main plaza...

...When I catch up with a squad one morning, a dozen men donning orange fluorescent construction hats are lathering up a basketball court and a steep street flanked by vendors...

...What do I do...

...The government has not invested in qualified doctors or the epidemiological and statistical studies necessary to establish a direct link between the company's emissions and the public health crisis...

...Using thick-bristled brooms, they scrub the cement with chemical detergent and then rinse it off with a red hose connected to a large water truck...

...There must still be a gas leak," he says...

...On my tour of the smelter, I am shown only the three areas where upgrades have occurred, even though I have asked to see more...

...They are wearing heavy leather and polyester jackets atop wool sweaters and collared shirts, paired with jeans or faded slacks and black leather shoes...

...Jens Erik Gould is a freelance print and radio journalist who covers the Andean region and is based in Caracas, Venezuela...

...Louis University's School of Public Health, which conducted a study in La Oroya in 2005, issued a damning report last year...

...For going out and telling the truth about my children, they've threatened me with death...

...Nearly all children under six years of age in La Oroya Antigua had blood-lead levels above ten micrograms per deciliter of blood, the acceptable limit set by the World Health Organization...

...But, as it turns out, the upgrade that would cut dangerous emissions the most—a new sulfuric acid plant that would capture poisonous sulfur dioxide before it wafts onto the population—is the one commitment Doe Run has not lived up to...

...Then, last year, her eldest daughter passed away at seventeen...

...This dynamic pits staunch supporters of the company, who are afraid that they will lose their jobs if they speak out, against those willing to admit they are fed up with their contaminated lives...

...Used to the ritual, residents walk right past the soapy sidewalks...

...The smokestack pumps lead, arsenic, and sulfur dioxide-filled gases into the air...

...Asking me to buckle up, Dol-mos tells me that a company campaign to raise awareness for seat belts has been embraced not just in La Oroya, but in all of Peru...

...Doe Run knows perfectly well that they would be shut down if they were in the U.S...

...Four hundred workers wanted to burn my house...

...There is no united front of residents turning against Doe Run...

...I ask him in his wood-paneled office if he can acknowledge that company operations could be responsible for the health problems in La Oroya...

...Company employees are split on the issue...

...She had an abnormally high level of arsenic in her blood...

...The effects of lead exposure range from headaches and learning impairment to seizures, comas, and death...

...The government may also be letting Doe Run off the hook with lax audits, says Eliana Ames, legal advisor to congresswoman Gloria Ramos, who is urging President Alan Garcia to make the health situation in La Oroya a priority...

...On a crisp Sunday afternoon, I spot dozens of local men who are crossing a wooden pedestrian bridge connecting Old Town with the smelter...

...Oved Javier is an eighteen-year veteran at the plant who works in a unit that distributes water and vapor to the smelter...

...Women even grab brooms to sweep their own doorsteps...

...Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said programs like these wouldn't do much good for children's blood-lead levels unless emissions were reduced...

...Hugo Villa, a neurologist in La Oroya...

...Doe Run's owner, a holding company called Renco Group, run by New York billionaire Ira Rennert, then saw another one of its companies sued by the U.S...

...Most are rushing to punch in their timecard...

...It is the previous owners' lack of environmental concern that is the "one central issue which is the main source of contamination," Belaunde says...

...firm Cerro de Pasco Corporation opened the smelter in 1922...

...Health is first...

...They threatened to disappear my daughter, to kill my husband...

...The principal activity that has to be done in La Oroya is the control of emissions," he tells me in his office...

...When I ask him why other workers, like Javier, applaud Doe Run, he says, "They are afraid of complaining because if they complain they are kicked out the next day...

...The Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based environmental advocacy group, has deemed La Oroya one of the world's ten most-polluted places, a list that includes Chernobyl...

...Public health education and hygiene efforts alone are of little benefit in reducing elevated blood lead levels," the report says...

...After making the curvy four-hour trek down the mountain road that services La Oroya, I meet with Doe Run Peru's chief spokesman, Victor Andres Belaunde, on the ninth floor of a tower in a Lima business district...

...Justice Department for dumping hazardous waste...

...Dolmos says Doe Run's concern for the community is so esteemed that other Peruvian companies are imitating its social programs...

...But Doe Run was also already well known for pollution...

...Last year, the level of lead in La Oroya's air was more than six times higher than international air quality standards, according to Peru's ministry of health...

...But a research team from St...

...Reached by phone at her home, she responds to Doe Run's argument that it has completed most of the upgrades: "If I marry a man who said he hit his ex-wife three times a day and he only hits me once a day—at breakfast—is it good...

...Louis-based Doe Run Company...

...To its credit, the company says it has invested $116 million on environmental upgrades and appears to have completed most of the reforms stipulated in a ten-year cleanup plan required by the government—although the state has yet to release an audit on those developments...

...Chronic coughs and headaches return...

...Contamination is still the norm, he says...

...They include a new water treatment plant and the enclosing of the lead refinery to reduce emissions...

...They're a rich, multimillionaire company, and I'm a poor woman," Mercedes says...

...Cleaning crews sponsored by Doe Run and managed by the ministry of health bathe the concrete of every street in Old Town three times a week...

...What they are interested in is production, but without expenses, without cost...

...She says it's untrue that the smokestack still causes health problems...

...The state-run Centromin Peru took it over in the 1970s...

...But Villa says those tests aren't enough to prove anything...

...Children are most susceptible...

...Why is the sacrifice made...

...First, her three-year-old son died of a rare form of cancer...

...The smelter processes lead, copper, and zinc extracted from mines in the mineral-rich mountains nearby...

...He says he was laid off for criticizing the company, but has since found his way back...

...Jesus Diaz, director of the ministry of health and Doe Run's health care center in La Oroya, agrees...

...We don't have sick children here," she says...

...Sosimo Galarza Vivanco, fifty-two, was one of more than 300 workers dismissed by Doe Run in 2002...

...Because we don't want to harm the population...

...Clutching a stack of medical records, Mercedes bursts into tears...

...It requested an extension from the ministry to do so, and got it in late 2004...

...The city of 35,000 is poor, and 3,000 residents are employed by the company...

...Wil-ver Delgado, the engineer who is accompanying me, also grabs his mask, which has been dangling around his neck, and holds it up to his face...

...He assures me that his three kids are healthy even though they have never had their blood-lead levels measured...

...That prompted Maria Chappuis, who was general director of mining at the energy and mines ministry, to resign...

...Susan shows me mysterious white blotches on her face...

...She calls Mercedes a "liar" and insists her daughter's death was caused by a simple skin disease rather than by lead poisoning...

...The company has upgraded one such plant, but has not yet built two new ones it has promised...

...The smelter is responsible for nearly a century of contamination in La Oroya...

...I cannot recognize that," he replies...

...As for the source of contamination itself, Doe Run claims that it has cut lead emissions by one-third since the start of this year, charting a course toward compliance with national standards...

...Ames says government studies of air quality in La Oroya, designed to be a check on the company's own numbers, are not independent because Doe Run itself pays for the tests...

...Rennert himself is best known for his mansion in the Hamptons, the largest occupied residence in the U.S...

...It said that "the evidence of elevated levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, and other toxic metals in the bodies of residents in study sites indicate that there is an extremely serious environmental heath crisis affecting La Oroya, especially vulnerable populations such as young children...

...But these are merely palliative measures...

...Kaimer Dolmos, Doe Run's upbeat public relations director in La Oroya, lauds the company's efforts to clean up operations...

...At the time, it was under pressure at home for lead contamination from its smelter in Hercu-laneum, Missouri...

...Doe Run supporters also praise company-sponsored and government-run efforts to teach children to wash their hands—an attempt to reduce the odds of ingesting lead—as well as a day care program that busses some ninety children with high blood-lead levels away from La Oroya Antigua for eight hours a day...

...The whole town asked me why I hated the company...

...The smokestack belongs to Doe Run Peru, an affiliate of the St...

...It has refurbished schools and planted trees...

...Some residents say that since the street-cleaning campaign began, lead-filled powder no longer collects in the streets...

...Soon, several union men gather around me and speak about what seems an altogether different company...

...The smoke inflames eyes and burns throats...

...Doe Run tries to be a good corporate citizen in La Oroya...

...People try to stay inside, and those who can't, cover their mouths with scarves and sweaters...

...Some mornings, when cold temperatures trap its discharge in the valley, white smoke engulfs the entire town...

...A 2005 report on La Oroya conducted by the U.S...

...He has nothing but praise for Doe Run...

...The now-defunct U.S...

...Doe Run and the ministry of health say extensive tests conducted in Lima found no illnesses in twenty-five children from La Oroya who had high blood-lead levels...

...The government's lack of comprehensive health studies on La Oroya makes it impossible to analyze the health effects of the smelter...

...Some sport Doe Run baseball caps...

...Tall, wide, and set against the backdrop of a pallid mountainside in the central sierra, the smelter sits less than a half mile from La Oroya's Old Town, on the banks of the Mantaro River...