ASARCO El Paso, Texas

After more than 40 years the people of El Paso, Texas got some good news yesterday. The massive ASARCO smelter in El Paso will not reopen.

In the late 1960’s I was attending the University of Texas at El Paso and for an engineering course I was taking on air pollution, I did a term paper on the immense air pollution from the ASARCO smelter in El Paso. As the years passed it became common knowledge that the lead air pollution had contaminated massive amounts of land. The people who lived near to the smelter (in Smelter Town) were moved away. Contaminated land was found as far away as in the old-money part of El Paso called Kern Place.

The elected government officials are claiming credit for winning this victory. They say that on appeal the U.S. Federal environmental protection agency rejected ASARCO’s government permit to pollute the air.

ASARCO has an entirely different story. They say that it was their own decision which was due to economics, primarily the fall in commodity prices and decreased demand due to the world recession.

I guess maybe both are true. Either way it clearly is a day for massive rejoicing in El Paso, Texas. For some of us this ends almost a lifetime of effort.
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It is still worthwhile to ask, "Where was the people's government when all of this pollution was taking place?"
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