impact of multiple toxins on La Oroya’s population.
Marin knew about disabilities tied to lead poisoning — such as stunted growth and brain damage — but now she’s learning about other risks, of cancer, renal dysfunction, heart and lung disease, and more.
She’s awaiting the results of tests done on Jocelyn, to see if her blood-lead reading is down. If it’s worse, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. There is no money for medical care. Health insurance isn’t remotely within reach — she sells chickens on the street; her husband, Raphael Rosales, does odd jobs.
She can’t leave; she has nowhere to go. Her family is here. This is home.
"This is our town,” she says, sitting in the matchbox-size living room that is her entire first floor, as two of her other three daughters peep through a hole in the ceiling There are no seats left downstairs, and there is no such thing as standing room. A ladder — braced against the crudely cut hole — serves as the link between the two floors. “We live here. Where would we go? That’s the problem.”
It isn’t hard to understand why families stay in La Oroya despite the bad air and poverty. This is Appalachia in the Andes: If you have a job you stick it out. If not, you stick it out anyway — because this is where your family has always lived.
“We all wish we could go away for the health of our wives and children,” says 34-year-old Marcello Moya Yaringano, a street vendor who pockets about $20 a week selling fresh-squeezed orange juice.
If Doe Run offered him a job, he says, he’d take it. His wife has a bad hip, and he can’t afford the surgery she needs. If he had the money, he’d send her and his kids to live in a town downriver where the air is better – but he would stay. But he doesn’t have the necessary skills to get hired.
In La Oroya itself, Doe Run employs about 2,900 workers — but only 500 are locals, according to Paul Moreno, an economist in the mayor’s office. “The money flows here — thanks to Doe Run,” he says, while acknowledging that the pollutants are toxic.
Four mines operate within driving distance of the city; a fifth is under development. According to the Peruvian Bureau of Energy and Mines (PBEM), the latter will be the Mantaro Valley’s biggest mining operation yet, gouging silver and copper out of the Andes.
Miners earn about $500 a month, but there are fewer miners and smelter workers in La Oroya than day laborers like Yaingano and sub-contractors who work in mining-related industries or sell goods and services to miners.
Here, in Lima’s breadbasket, farmers earn far less, maybe $80 to 100 monthly, an estimate supplied by the PBEM.
For those with jobs, staying put and staying quiet is a no-brainer: Just ask some of the women who are married to smelter workers and live in company housing along La Oroya’s main drag.
Yes, they say, there are days when the gases are particularly bad. Yes, dust collects on the tabletops, the furniture, the concrete stoop outside the apartment building. Yes, the family’s shoes are kept outside the apartment, so contaminated soil isn’t tracked inside. Some parents say they’ve had their kids’ lead levels tested; others say no, there is no need: They look healthy and so they must be healthy.
“Yes, it worries me … but what else can we do?” says one woman who asks that her name not be used. “I was born here. I grew up here. I don’t know how to do anything else, like raising cattle. I know that if we feed ourselves well, we’ll stay well,” she says, describing the doctors’ orders for high-protein diets to keep her family’s immune systems strong.
“We know this valley is polluted, but we live here, and we know how to deal with it,” she says, adding that her father is going strong at 87. “To lower our risks, we’d have to leave.”
The reaction isn’t always so mild. In fact, two research teams gathering data for the latest study were attacked by mobs opposed to further testing. Presbyterians from the Broad Street church in Columbus, OH, were on hand to help gather random samples.
In hope of creating new jobs, the city intends to open a vocational school this year to train students in a variety of fields, including mechanics, food service and environmental engineering, according to Moreno.
Maria Jesus Leiva Canchanya, 39, lives on Perin’s side of town with her unemployed husband and four daughters, all of whom complain of persistent ailments. She’s worried because she can’t afford to pay for nutritious food for her family.
All four, ranging in age from 5 to 14, have allergies. The oldest has headaches. Her bones ache too, which worries her mother, since it is a symptom of lead poisoning. The youngest girl’s blood-lead level was 40.7 the last time she was tested. The doctor ordered lots of milk, eggs, cheese and fruit to build immunity.
“I told the doctor, ‘All right, but we have no job to pay for that food. How do I feed my children?’”
She says he told her there is no other way. So she does the best with the money she has: Which means a steady diet of chicken soup, vegetables and potatoes.
“This worries me very much,” she says, adding that her husband doesn’t want to leave, even though there are no jobs for him here — a fact he confirms. “People have lived here forever,” he says. “Our children were born here. We’re used to living here.”
His wife, who washes laundry for others, is less confident. She says her 14-year-old is at home in bed now with a headache. She isn’t sure if it is a symptom of a bigger problem, or, just a passing flu.
Her older daughters, she says, “want to finish school and get out of here.”
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