Ecobreves – PERU: No Money for Clean-Up

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

LIMA, Mar 13 2004 (IPS) - The U.S. company Doe Run Resources has asked the Peruvian government to allow it to postpone clean-up of the dangerous contamination caused by its mining activities in Junin and Oroya, in the central sierra, since 1997. The company claims it lacks the funds for the operation due to low mining prices from 1999 to 2002.

Jaime Quijandría, minister of energy and mines, said on Mar. 8 that Doe Run Resources has invested just 16 percent of the 174 million dollars it promised for the clean-up to be completed in 2007.

A study last year by the non-governmental Oroya Health Movement found that the local population has 13 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood — three percentage points more than the maximum considered acceptable.

Juan Aste, the movement's technical advisor, told Tierramérica that the Oroya population will stage protests against the clean-up delay and to demand the intervention of the General Directorate for Environmental Health.