Chile Investigates Contamination
Santiago de Chile - The Chilean
minister of Health, Alvaro Erazo, ordered
determining those responsible for
contaminating with lead and arsenic of
populations in the region of Arica,
attributed to a Swedish mining company.
Two parliamentarians announced legal demands
against Boliden Metal for environmental
problems in the city that has affected the
health of hundreds of persons.
"The complexity of the situation that there
is no knowledge of where the territory is
and where toxic wastes were stored,"
lamented deputy Guido Girardi.
He explained that official documents of the
time even indicate the entrance into the
country of dangerous material before the
90s.
Erazo, for his part, pointed out that for an
investigation process to proceed also under
consideration is that the emission of toxic
waste was registered since 1984 when Propel
company "entered under false pretenses,
without specifying its toxic content."
The director at the time of the Institute of
Public Health of Arica was army colonel,
Joaquin Larrain Gana who guaranteed that the
material brought in was not toxic and
allowed the entrance of those residues,
since he did not consider them a risk for
the population that Erazo qualifies as
unacceptable.
"We have employed the transfer of technical
MINSAL equipment and of the Institute to
begin studies with specialized toxicologists
as well as studies of an epidemiological
character due to lead and arsenic in the
population. |
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