Reply #3: PERU: Pollution Emergency Plan Instead of Real Action for La Oroya

[Judi Lynn]

PERU: Pollution Emergency Plan Instead of Real Action for La Oroya
By Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Aug 10 (Tierramérica) - Far from halting the source that is poisoning the Andean city of La Oroya, which is home to the Doe Run smelting complex, the Peruvian government ordered a contingency plan for the days when air pollution is worst, as if it were dealing with a natural disaster.

The Contingency Plan for States of Alert will be presented Aug. 10 by the government's national environmental council, CONAM, which approved it Jul. 18 to protect the 35,000 inhabitants of La Oroya from the sulphur dioxide, lead and cadmium emissions from the Doe Run smokestacks.

The plan is the result of two years of debates involving citizen groups, non-governmental organisations and the state agencies in charge of carrying it out, as well as representatives of the company, which will provide much of the financing.

La Oroya, 180 kilometres east of Lima, is one of the country's 13 most polluted cities, the government said in 2001. The New York-based Blacksmith Institute in 2006 included it in a list of the 10 worst cases in the world.
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Once a state of alert is ordered, it will be recommended that the most vulnerable -- children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses -- should not be outdoors between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm local time, the worst period of the day for exposure.

Doors and windows of homes, schools and hospitals should be closed, and food sold on the street should be covered.

The population in general should cover mouth and nose with scarves and handkerchiefs when outside. The idea of facemasks was ruled out because "people don't want images that further dramatise the situation," said Rojas.

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