A slap to Imperialism & US capitalism: Peru court orders US mining firm to pay $163mn

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Peru court orders US mining firm to pay $163mn

This file photo shows a girl watching gray and yellow colored smoke spewing from the chimneys of a US-owned refinery in the Peruvian city of La Oraya.

Peru’s high court has ordered American mining company Doe Run to pay USD 163 million for failing to take sufficient environmental measures at one of its sites in the country.

The court said Saturday that Doe Run, one of the world’s largest producers of lead, failed to honor its environmental commitments at its site in the central Peruvian city of La Oraya.

In addition to lead, the site produces other metals including copper, which create large amounts of polluting byproducts.

According to the company’s contract with the Peruvian government, Doe Run, which has been operating in the city since 1922, is required to take stringent preventive measures to safeguard the environment in the area.

Peruvian officials said Lima decided to sue the American company after it failed to build a treatment plant to reduce the emissions.

A report published by the International Federation for Human Rights last year found that the air in La Oraya “been contaminated by emissions of lead and other heavy metals spewed from the chimneys of the refinery” run by Doe Run and that the city’s water and soil also had been contaminated.

La Oraya was ranked in August 2013 among the five worst-polluted cities in the world. According to data, the Peruvian city, home to 20,000 people, 97 percent of children aged between 6 months to 6 years and 98 percent of children from 7 to 12 show high levels of lead in their bloodstream.

Source: www.presstv.ir

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