La Oroya
Encyclopedia
La Oroya is a city of about 33,000 people on the River Mantaro
Mantaro River
The Mantaro River is a long river running through the central region of Peru. Its Quechua name means "great river".-Geography:The river has its source at Lake Junín at a height of 4.080 m and runs through Junín, Yauli, Jauja, Concepción and Huancayo provinces in Junín Region, then through...

 in central Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

. It is situated on the Altiplano
Altiplano
The Altiplano , in west-central South America, where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside of Tibet...

 some 176 km east-north-east of the national capital, Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

, and is capital of the Yauli Province
Yauli Province
The Yauli Province is one of the nine provinces in Peru that forms the Junín Region. To the north the province borders with the Pasco Region and the Province of Junín, the east with the Province of Tarma, the south with the Province of Jauja and the west with the region of Lima.-Political...

. La Oroya is the location of a smelting operation that earned the town a place on the Blacksmith Institute
Blacksmith Institute
Founded in 1999, Blacksmith Institute is an international non-for-profit organization dedicated to eliminating life-threatening pollution in the developing world. Blacksmith identifies and cleans up the world's worst polluted places, focusing on communities where children are most at risk. Based in...

's 2007 report, "The World's Worst Polluted Places".

History

Settlement at La Oroya dates to about 10,000 years BC. In 1533, the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 established a small settlement and started small-scale mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 for precious metals in the area, but isolation and transport difficulties hindered extraction. At the time of the War of Independence, the area's strategic position made it a center of guerrilla activity; one of the decisive battles of the war, Chacamarca (Junin)
Battle of Junín
The Battle of Junín was a military engagement of the Peruvian War of Independence, fought in the highlands of the Junín Region on August 6, 1824. The preceding February the royalists had regained control of Lima, and having regrouped in Trujillo, Simón Bolívar in June led his rebel forces south to...

, took place nearby, and Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

 passed through the town after the battle. In 1861, the settlement was named San Jeronímo de Callapampa and in 1893 it became La Oroya. In 1925, La Oroya was designated the capital of the Yauli province and finally, in 1942, it was elevated to city status.

Mining in the area developed gradually, and did not greatly expand until the railway from Lima to La Oroya was completed in 1893. The railway, an extraordinary feat of engineering, was planned by the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 railway builder Ernest Malinowski
Ernest Malinowski
Ernest Adam Malinowski was a Polish engineer.Malinowski constructed at that time the world's highest railway Ferrocarril Central Andino in the Peruvian Andes in 1871-1876.-External links:...

, and crosses the El Ticlio Pass, where it reaches an altitude of 4781 meters. Until the recent completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway it was the highest standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 railway in the world.

The smelter, now the city's main employer, was established in 1922 by the American Cerro de Pasco Corporation, who ran it until 1974 when Cerro was nationalized and became part of the state owned Empresa Minera del Centro del Peru S A, otherwise known as Centromin. In 1993, the Peruvian government decided to privatize Centromin. In 1997, 99.97% of the La Oroya smelter was acquired by Doe Run Peru, a subsidiary (now an affiliate) of the Renco Group
Renco Group
Renco Group is a New York City-based holding company controlled by Ira Rennert that invests in other companies across a range of industries.-History:...

, for approximately US$247 million. The acquisition consisted of a capital contribution to Centromin's Metaloroya of US$126.5 million and a purchase price payment of US$120.5 million. Doe Run Peru also bought the Cobriza copper mine for US$7.5 million to maintain concentrate supplies to the copper smelter.

The Smelter

First to be built was the copper smelter in 1922, followed by the lead smelter in 1928 and the zinc refinery in 1952. Annual capacities were 70,000 tonnes copper, 122,000 tonnes lead and 45,000 tonnes zinc, although the need to keep below emission limits and temperature inversions that trap gases over the city, smelter and surrounding area have tended to keep production below these levels.

A number of local mines produce 'dirty concentrates' that contain metallic impurities that cannot be separated by the flotation process. Over the years, the La Oroya metallurgists have devised methods to separate and recover these metals as byproducts, and the three main smelters have become heavily integrated for this purpose. La Oroya is one of few smelting operations in the world with this capability. As a result, La Oroya produces gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 and silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 (mainly from refinery residues), antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...

, arsenic trioxide
Arsenic trioxide
Arsenic trioxide is the inorganic compound with the formula As2O3. This commercially important oxide of arsenic is the main precursor to other arsenic compounds, including organoarsenic compounds. Approximately 50,000 tonnes are produced annually...

, bismuth
Bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...

, cadmium
Cadmium
Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...

, indium
Indium
Indium is a chemical element with the symbol In and atomic number 49. This rare, very soft, malleable and easily fusible post-transition metal is chemically similar to gallium and thallium, and shows the intermediate properties between these two...

, selenium
Selenium
Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...

, tellurium, sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...

 and oleum
Oleum
Oleum , or fuming sulfuric acid refers to a solution of various compositions of sulfur trioxide in sulfuric acid or sometimes more specifically to disulfuric acid ....

 This technology has helped the operation to reduce the emission of some noxious and toxic metals; however, the integrated nature of the plant has hindered the modification of individual parts of the plant.

With the acquisition of La Oroya, Doe Run inherited a complicated and partially semi-obsolescent smelter complex. The operation had suffered from disrepair, previous owners had invested little in modernization or clean operations. As a result of years of pollution, the hills immediately around the smelter became completely denuded, the river became more toxic, and the health of area inhabitants suffered. Residents have been found to have alarmingly high concentrations of lead in their blood and in the drinking water, and many have bronchial troubles. A 1999 study (conducted two years after Doe Run's acquisition) showed high levels of air pollution, with 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium, and 13 times more lead than amounts generally considered safe..

Pollution

When Doe Run bought La Oroya, it took over Centromin's PAMA, (Programa de Adecuación y Manejo Ambiental or Environmental Remediation and Management Program), an environmental contract requiring environmental remediation measures. The measures required new sulfuric acid plants, elimination of fugitive gases from the coke plant, use of oxygenated gases in the anodic residue plant, a water treatment plant for the copper refinery, a recirculation system for cooling waters at the smelter, management and disposal of acidic solutions at the silver refinery, an industrial wastewater treatment plant for the smelter and refinery, a containment dam for the lead mud near the zileret plant, a granulation process water at the lead smelter, an anode washing system at the zinc refinery, management and disposal of lead and copper slag wastes, domestic waste water treatment, and domestic waste disposal. However, Doe Run Peru has been indemnified by Centromin (and guaranteed by the Peruvian Government) against any environmental liability arising out of Centromin's prior operations. Doe Run's original commitment to this program was US$107 million but it is now expected that it will cost at least US$244 million.

The company caused trouble in 2004, particularly among non-governmental organizations, when it said that it would not be able to complete the PAMA by the deadline of 2006, and asked for an extension. On Dec 29, 2004, the Peruvian Government issued Supreme Decree No. 046-2004-EM, which recognized that exceptional circumstances may justify an extension of the time to complete one or more projects within the scope of a PAMA. Doe Run Peru was granted such an extension by the Ministry of Energy and Mines on May 29, 2006. The exact reason for the request was not given but appears to have been a combination of cash flow availability, additional PAMA requirements and additional upgrading. This includes the replacement of the reverbatory furnace with a submerged lanced reactor furnace at a cost of US$57 million that will reduce gas volume and provide a much richer sulfur dioxide off gas that is far more suitable for sulfuric acid production

Conditions of the extension include the payment into a trust account each month of revenue sufficient to cover the next month's estimated expenditure on the PAMA. Also the company has been forbidden to make any payment to any shareholder or affiliate that might affect completion of the PAMA. Renco has confirmed that it understands that Doe Run Peru would lose the benefit of the PAMA extension if any such payment is made

The PAMA has since been modified to include the reduction of stack and fugitive emissions to meet air quality objectives, certain additional pollution controls and the protection of public health including the reduction of lead levels in blood and special health programs for children and expectant mothers

On February 5, 2008 Doe Run Peru reported that state health officials and OSINGERMIN, an independent Peruvian regulatory agency had confirmed that the quality of the Yauli or Mantaro Rivers was no longer impacted by the smelter's liquid discharges. However, the company also stated that the river was still polluted by mining and other operations upstream.

Other improvements have been achieved and on March 19, 2008, the company announced a 60% improvement in particulate emissions, a 61.7% reduction in air lead levels, 72% reduction in cadmium levels and 81% decrease in arsenic levels and the virtual elimination of polluting liquid discharges from the smelter into the Mantaro and Yauli rivers.

Despite advancements in other areas, sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula . It is released by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide unless the sulfur compounds are removed before burning the fuel...

emissions reached record levels in August 2008. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, the lead smelter acid plant became operational in October 2008. This will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions significantly.. Further improvement can be expected when the copper smelter acid plant is completed, which is expected in October 2009. Thereafter the main sources of sulfur dioxide from the smelter should be under control.

Nevertheless, none of these expected results have been attained in reality. The indicators shown above were designed by Doe Run and have not been certified by any official institute. Despite revenues that exceed US$150 million in each year of operations, after four months of lower price in minerals, Doe Run has asked the Peruvian Government for a bailout. No other company from the same activity has done that. But this request surprisingly coincides with a new request from Doe Run for an extension to comply with PAMA requirements. That means, the expected results in 2009 again will not be completed.

External links

Portal of La Oroya
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