The Town and the Smelter VOL., X, NO. 29
EL PASO, TEXAS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
Acid rain could be ‘a blessing’ in region, ASARCO head says By JIM STEINBERG Acid rain may be a problem for the Northwest, but it would be a blessing to the alkaline soils of the Southwest, the president of ASARCO said here yesterday. R.L., Hennebach, ASARCO president, made those remarks at a luncheon at the El Paso Country Club following yesterday’s dedication of a $60 million modernization program for the company’s El Paso plant. “THE environmental groups are now working on a new straw man. Sulfur dioxide has been discredited as a killers so a new environmental problem or danger has had to be invented...The new specter is acid rain, a media-exaggerated phenomenon, promising to spawn more regulations,” Hennebach said. “At the present state of scientific knowledge and assessment of acid rain, regulations for control would be just as poorly based as the first state and federal standards for sulfur dioxide,” said Hennebach. “And even granting, which I don’t, that acid rain in the Northwest may be a problem justifying controls, it is utterly ridiculous to believe it would be harmful in the Southwest. Here soils are too alkaline and acid rain, if in fact such a man-made phenomenon does exist, would be a boon, not a curse,” Hennebach said. MAKING THE completion of the environmental improvement and modernization program. ASARCO planned to hold an open house for El Pasoans from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. today. After a huge diesel-powered pay-loader broke through the copper colored ribbon outside the new enclosed ore storage facility at a dedication yesterday. Hennebach said completion of the program showed the firm’s “commitment to remain in El Paso and also indicated our resolve to the environmental concerns of the community, even though we believe these events are unfounded.” For yesterday’s tour, the public was invited to drive into the entrance of the
plant on West Paisano Drive and follow signs to the parking lot. Buses conducted tours of the facilities. THE NEW facilities include: • Twin facilities for unloading rail shipments of ore indoors. • An enclosed ore storage facility the size of three football fields. • An entirely new sinter plant for roasting lead ores and concentrates. • An 800-ton-per-day sulfuric acid plant to recover sulfur dioxide liberated during sintering of lead concentrates and roasting of copper concentrates. • Enclosure of the building housing the copper converter furnaces and construction of a baghouse to filter air exhausted from the building. AT A LUNCHEON following yesterday’s dedication, Hennebach charged that
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one of the “greatest snow jobs in history” has been performed on the American people by environmentalists. “Through the imposition of unwarranted, unnecessarily extreme environmental standards by the regulatory agencies, basic industry in this country has been driven to its financial knees and in some cases companies have actually failed. “In my judgement it is certainly no coincidence that a declining rate of productivity improvement and extreme environmental and regulatory movement in our country occurred at the same time. “We believe, and I think accumulating evidence supports this belief, that our sulfur dioxide emissions, although distasteful and sometimes very annoying to some people, never posed a significant hazard to human health,” Hennebach said.
Workers Inhale Acid Gas
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Spill at ASARCO hospitalizes 7 By Margo Hernandez El Paso Herald Post
Photo by Brian Kelly Bill Green, First City National Bank’s first vice president, tours ASARCO
Seven construction company employees working at the ASARCO smelter were taken to two El Paso hospitals today when they inhaled sulfur dioxide gas after an accident. Eastwood Hospitals spokesman Guadalupe Silva said Sheldon de Alva, who was suffering respiratory irritation, was admitted to the hospital for observation 1
this morning. She said he was listed in stable condition. Six employees were treated and released at Providence Memorial Hospital, spokesman Robin Owen said. The six employees are Marvin Ribelin, 51; Douglas Martin, 25; Abel Gomez, 20; Mike Flores, 22; Daniel Ford, 25; Bryan Canroe, 20. All were treated for exposure to sulfuric acid fumes, Ms. Owen said. Plant manager Peter De Santis said none of the ASARCO employees suffered injuries in the accident. Rick Bowen, senior vice president of Bowen Industries, said employees of his company were taken to the hospitals for chest X-rays. “They’re all fine. Everybody was standing around,” after the accident, Bowen said.
Bowen said that the employees were not working on the machinery that caused the spill, but were working in the area near where the accident occurred. De Santis said gases, including sulfur dioxide, escaped when a water seal in a cleaning device broke allowing the gases too fill the air. De Santis said all the ASARCO employees are equipped with respirators as are the employees of Bowen Industries. “They probably didn’t react fast enough,” De Santis said of the Bowen employees. “We don’t think it’s anything serious,” De Santis said. “They all got a shot of it,” he said. De Santis said emergency medical crews were called by Bowen employees. De Santis also said that this type of accident “is not something that’s never happened.”
‘No Ill Effects’ From Asarco Smelter BY PAUL SWEENEY A study of the health effects of high blood levels of lead in 138 Smeltertown children who once lived near the giant Asarco Inc. smelter here showed they suffered essentially no physical or mental deficiencies despite the abnormally high lead absorption, an El Paso pediatrician said Wednesday. Dr. J. L. McNeil made known the results of his 1975 study during the monthly meeting of the City-County Health B Board. The study finds that “no permanent deleterious effects” were identified in any of the groups of children studied through “physical, neurological, laboratory, X-ray, nerve conduction, psychometric and teacher rating evaluations.” The McNeil report was funded by the International Lead and Zinc Research Association (ILZRA), an industry-financed group of which Asarco is a member. His findings are, in a number of cases, in sharp disagreement with the study results reported two months ago to the board by epidemiologist Dr. Philip Landrigan of the U.S. government’s Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Landrigan had found that children exposed to more than 40 micrograms of lead per millimeter of blood had lower IQ scores than a control group of children of nearly similar age and economic status-an indication, he said, that those experiencing high lead absorption levels had suffered brain damage. But McNeil called into question Landrig2
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an’s findings, arguing that, because the Landrigan study used a control group of a slightly older age than those with higher lead counts in their system, the results were dubious Landrigan has said in his report that careful allowances were made for the age differences. McNeil said, however, that the Smeltertown children studied had elevated levels of lead absorption- a finding that coincided with the government’s. He called the now-abandoned Smeltertown “a unique area” in that two-thirds of the children examined from there had levels over 40 micrograms per milliliter of blood - a level that had been declared hazardous by government regulatory agencies. The hazardous level has since been reduced to 30 micrograms and it is reported that the government is calling for even more drastic reductions. McNeil says that, in view of his findings, however, neither those levels nor lower ceilings on blood absorption are realistic. He cited the recent refusal of Dr. Julian Chisolm, a noted physician with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, to sign the government report calling for reduction in lead levels as a further indication that the Landrigan study is faulty The EPA, meanwhile, is calling for a 1.5 microgram air level for lead to keep the blood level below 15 micrograms Such a move, he said, would be prohibitively costly for Asarco, a firm that in his view ought to be “given credit”
for instituting the many controls over lead and other con-taminants at heavy expense. “This would put 95 percent of the children under government supervision,” he added of the EPA standards. He also disputed Landrigan’s claim that 2,700 children here still are exposed to high levels of lead absorption. “If there are that many, we haven’t been able to find them,” the pediatrician said. According to his findings, moreover, McNeil said that the only harmful effects on ex-Smeltertown residents was the same damage psychologically as registered by “personality” testing. “These people lived there for generations,” McNeil said. “They were proud. Then they were suddenly told they were being poisoned and that they had to be to moved...” McNeil suggested that this dislocation along with the attendant publicity given the Smeltertown residents-whom he described as otherwise “isolated” from members of the community - may have accounted for the poor showing on personality scores. At the same time, McNeil said, most former Smeltertowners are probably “unhappy” that they were forced to move. “Most people would move back there if they could,” he said. “In my opinion, they are not that much healthier now that they’ve moved.” Following the meeting, McNeil admitted that the government had refused to join him in his study. “They thought that IZRO could censor my findings,” he said. “But I had an ironclad contract (against) censorship. Then they said that ‘philosophically” they did not think it would be proper to participate. I don’t know what they meant by philosophically.” Cooperating in the study, McNeil said, was the El Paso Independent School District. McNeil was joined by J.S Plasnik, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology, and D.B. Croft, Ph.D, as authors of the study.
‘Poison’ Misleading, Physician Tells Court 4
(continued from Page 1A) lead levels,” rather than lead poisoning. Dr. McNeil said he had discounted paint as a source of lead in the Smeltertown community, mainly, he said, because of the care and attention the children seem to
receive. He described the children he had treated as “loved, cared for, happy and not emotionally deprived children.” He said he is convinced the lead came from the dust in the Smeltertown area, and that recent efforts by ASARCO to replace the lead-laden topsell would probably cure the situation. Much of the day’s testimony concerned a case by case description of the 81 children Dr. McNeil has cared for since February. Although many of the test fell within the U.S. Surgeon General’s guidelines for “suggestive lead poisoning” Dr. McNeil said he would still hesitate to call any of the cases blood lead poisoning. Much of the problem is dealing with the children in Smeltertown said Dr. McNeil, was the fact that most of the medical literature pertaining to blood lead poison-
ing deals mainly with children under the age of three who eat house-paints. Most of the children affected with the higher blood levels, he said, are over the age of six and are not in a paint-eating habit. Asked how the children might pick up the lead, if not by ingestion, Dr. McNeil said, “It is my opinion hat it come from the dust which contains lead. I can’t prove it, and I can’t prove where it comes from but that is my feeling.” “Don’t you think there would be less of a problem if there were no lead in the dust?” asked Asst. City Atty. Frank Ansa (sic) “Yes, that is true,” said Dr. McNeil. Dr. McNeil said he felt the lead in the Smeltertown dust had come from the smelter and that much of it had washed down the hill.
“It’s been there for some 80 years,” said Dr. McNeil. “I know the people who live there say the air is better than it has been. Some of them have been there for three generations. O don’t know that there is anything to show that the lead deposition would have been increased over the last several years. The only reason we didn’t find out why of this 20 years ago is because no one was taking blood samples. It is my feeling that if we had, these blood lead levels would have been a lot worse then. “That is a dusty area,” said Dr. McNeil in a description of Smeltertown. “There are no paved streets, no drainage and not even garbage collection. I think that if we are going to worry about blood lead levels, we should also worry about the aspects of these people’s welfare.”
Pollution plagues UTEP students
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By Charles Edgren El Paso Herald-Post
Herald Post photo Students walk to class at UT El Paso, which sits under the shadow of the ASARCO smokestack.
On a clear day, you can’t see forever at least, not at UT El Paso. Some of that, according to students and teachers, is due to contributions made to the campus atmosphere by ASARCO, particularly when the wind is right The Texas Air Control Board recently conducted hearings to consider new rules for controlling lead pollution in El Paso. At the time, witnesses for ASARCO said some of the proposed changes would be nearly impossible to make. Proposals included paving plant roads and planting vegetational cover on open areas. But lead emissions aren’t necessarily the primary concern of people at UTEP. Dr. Keith Redetzke, biology professor and sponsor of the ecology club at UTEP, said lead emissions look relatively good on campus. “We have a pollution monitor on campus,” he said, “and it is barely out of compliance on lead.” Sulfur dioxide is apparently the real pain- literally. Redetzke said oxides of sulfur, when combined with water or water vapor, can form sulfuric furic acid. This is what happens, for instance, when sulfur dioxide combines with fluid in the eyes, mouth and lungs, producing a foul taste and/or burning sensation. “That can contribute to emphysema and allergies.” Redetzke said. “It’s my personal opinion that it hasn’t changed that much since I’ve been here. I’ve been
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here 11 years and I can still taste it.” Students walk to class at UT El Paso, which sits under the shadow of the ASARCO smokestack. The problem may be more a nuisance than a health problem, though. Susan Montoy, a registered nurse at the UTEP Student Health Center, said she hasn’t heard many complains about the sulfur. “We have people come in,” she said, “usually on dusty days. They don’t come in every day with those symptoms. We’ve never diagnosed (one of the complaints as) sulfur dioxide.” Steve Fischer, a lawyer who plays tennis regularly at UTEP and has been involved in litigation with ASARCO, said, “Students complain about this all the time. “I sometimes get that taste of rotten eggs in my mouth when I’m there. “Older players come out and play often at UTEP and I’ve seen them coughing a lot. I’ll have them ask me, ‘Fischer why can’t I do anything about this?’” Fischer said sulfur dioxide in the air has a pronounced effect on people who exercise a lot because of the increased volume of air breathed in. He said the elderly also have a problem. “In Kern (Place) and Sunset Heights, there are a lot of elderly,” he said. “Some of them have lung problems. We had a meeting a couple of years ago and people who were apathetic about politics turned up with strong feelings about ASARCO. “I’m young, I play tennis, I don’t smoke. It really doesn’t bother me too much. Buti sure notice it.” Raul Munoz, chief of environmental health services for the El Paso City-County Health Unit, said it’s more of a nuisance than anything else, although continued exposure to large doses could result in respiratory problems. Munoz said the way the pollutant is measured has an effect. “You can get a good dose (in a fairly short time), but due to wind and terrain it won’t stay around.” Munoz said federal standards average the pollution over a three-hour period. He did say, however, that their Stanton Street and Cincinnati Avenue monitor gives higher readings than anywhere else in the city What do the students think about the watering eyes and foul taste? Mike Rackley said when asked if the pollution is an annoyance, “Oh yeah, it’s an annoyance. Just the thought of it being there annoys me, I wish ASARCO would donate some gas masks to us.”
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Leaders Meet to Plan Relief for Smeltertown
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How Smeltertown may obtain adequate housing was discussed at a meeting this afternoon in County Judge Scarborough’s court room. The judge proposed: The government condemn private-owned land on which shacks without sewage and water facilities now sland. A housing project be built by a Government or private agency. The City extend its big water lines to serve Smeltertown homes as well as industries in the area.
Those Attending Those asked to attend the conference: Frank Flaicher, chairman of the El Paso Housing Authority; R. J. Umbenhauer, superintendent of El Paso Water and Sewer Departments; Harol Tillman of the City-County Health Unit; A. D. Bradford Co..; T. A. Courchesne of the A. Courchesne Inc., rock quarry, and Harold S. Sparks of the Southwestern Portland Cement Co. Representatives of the Smeltertown Community Center also attended. Good (sic) For City Commissioner Ord Gary, in whose precinct Smeltertown is, was out of the city. Judge Scarborough said the Govment [Government] can condemn the land owned by out-of-town residents. He asked officials of the Housing Authority to see if a housing project can be obtained for the site. If not, the judge said the condemned land could be sold to a private enterprise for the building of modern housing units. Extension of water facilities to Smeltertown would be good busi- [business]. (Continued on Page 14, Col. 5)
Smeltertown Residents Live Among Flies, in Darkness And Surrounded by Filth Reminiscent of cliff dwellers are the shanties in Laguna built on both sides of the draw. Laguna is a small settlement, part of Smeltertown, that is hidden from the main road by rolling hills. Beneath fronts of the houses are stacks of supporting stones. Tiny shed-houses line the level road northward. One house is divided. There are two front rooms, a yard and two back rooms. In these quarters live five persons; and unwed mother, her five-month-old baby, the mother’s parents, and her cousin. Her father has tuberculosis. Files stand on the patched screen of the front door. One side of the screen frame is worn down an inch from constant use. Holes in the Roof The front room has a dirt floor. Here all the cooking is done. A coal stove stands in one corner, and from the blackened ceiling tiny streamers of root wave in the breeze.
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A dilapidated cabinet contains a few items of food. THere is no refrigeration. In the second room, five feet wide, chunks of daylight pour through gaps in the ceiling and sides of the house. Two iron barrels containing greenish, evil-smelling river water stand in one corner, and two drinking cups are nearby. No Windows, Doors In the wind-swept yard dividing the rooms are a few chickens and the family dog. The rooms back of the yard are bedrooms. The slanting rough floors are of dirt. The first bedroom has one window. The second bedroom, joining the first has neither outside windows nor doors. It was in the second bedroom the young mother was taken after the birth of her baby. When Country nurses visited her, they worked by lamplight. The mother, her baby, and the mother’s parents sleep
in this room that has no ventilation. There is no bedding on the old mattress/ 2 Rooms For 11 Persons Most houses in Smeltertowns are clean inside. They are about 10 by 10 feet. Two rooms are the average for large families, sometimes numbering as many as 11 members.
Cooking usually is done on kerosene stoves. Most bedrooms have folding beds so that members of the family can move about the rooms during the daytime. Floors are usually of cement with linoleum covering. Trunks and piles of clothes are stacked neatly on the outside in the patched thin
shades for protection against rain, for not another item can be squeezed in the small dwellings.
Union Burns at ASARCO About 60 striking El Paso copper workers gathered at the Asarco smelter entrance in the snow Monday morning and burned copies of a letter sent by company management. The letter, signed by plant manager W.R. Kelly, was sent “to put pressure on the union and get the members riled up to where they want to go back to work,” said Gabe Cedillo, business agent for Local 509 of the United Steel-workers of America. Local 509 represents the 800 striking employees of the El Paso Asarco smelter. Talks between Asarco and a union coalition have snagged on a unified wage structure at all Asarco plants The company letter- the second such
letter sent during the strike -- details the company’s economic proposal of an 87-cent-per-hour wage increase, cost-ofliving wage adjustments and improvements in benefits. “The union wants the same wage schedule at every unit whether it be a mine, smelter or refinery the letter stated. “The company plant. wants flexibility in spending the 87 cents so as to be able to compete effectively in the various local labor markets in which we operate and to provide an incentive to those workers who are most essential to the successful operation of this plant. “It is your strike and you can best decide when it will be over,” the letter stat-
UNION MEMBERS TOSS MANAGEMENT LETTERS INTO BONFIRE
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ed. “In our view, the strike was unnecessary to begin with. Our position all along has been that the ‘Gates Are Open’ and there is work available.” Kelly declined comment on the letter burning. Similar Asarco letters were burned Oct. 17 by union members at the Asarco Mission Mine headquarters in Arizona. The nationwide copper strike began July 1 when the last three-year contract expired. At its peak, nearly 40,000 copper workers were on strike.
Times staff photo by Lance Murray 5
Soviet article amuses ASARCO plant chief
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ASARCO plant manager Hank Schlieper got a laugh out of an article that appeared in Pravda, the Soviet Union official newspaper. Among other things, the article claims 8,000 Juarez children are
suffering acute lead poisoning as a result of ASARCO smelting operations, and that the plant contaminates the environment every year with more than 1,100 tons of lead. Informed by telephone of some of the claims in the article, Schlieper said he started laughing so hard he dropped the telephone and fell off his chair. “ASARCO’s cough so much flak over pollution for so long, that’s all we need for the Russians to get into the act,” he explained. Schlieper and ASARCO environmental chief Jim Sieverson got a taste of revenge recently when several Russian emigres visited the plant’s smelting operation. They were effusive to complimenting the plant
for its cleanliness, and marveled the costly pollution control measures installed at the plant over the last decade. “There is no such a thing as pollution control in the Soviet Union,” said one of the visitors, who had been an industrial designer in Russia.
Why we should save the stacks
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An architect’s lessons from the other border A few weeks ago, I attended the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Buffalo, N.Y., on the U.S. Canadian border. The conference set attendance records for the National Trust, with more than 2,500 preservationists from around the world descending on the city to learn from Buffalo’s example preservation excellence. While in town, preservationists toured countless works by great architects and other impressive buildings representing the mighty industrial heritage of the Niagara Region. Many of these buildings were literally saved from the wrecking ball by citizens who valued their history that is embodied in these structures. However, Buffalo has not always had such a stellar track record with preservation efforts As the city suffered from decline in the transition of our post-industrial economy, many buildings of industry were left to disuse and abandonment.
Landmarks
As a city on another border, El Paso can learn much from the lessons of Buffalo. We have a trove of architectural treasures and industrial buildings that are ripe for restoration, adaptive reuse, or simply to be preserved as landmarks of our heritage. I am reminded of these lessons again as the debate over the Asarco stacks is revived. El Pasoans have lived and worked in the shadow of the smelter’s great smokestacks for well over 100 years. The stacks are as significant a part of 6
our skyline as Trost’s Hilton Hotel-- now the Plaza- or Basset Tower. Knowing that the stacks were drawn by the hands of an Asarco engineer rather than those of a master architect has no bearing on their importance as historic landmarks. Six criteria are used to determine the eligibility for a site, structure, object or district to be designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Asarco stacks
New effort under way to save them It’s somewhat surprising there’s a new move to save the two larger Asarco smelter smokestacks, after all we’ve been through. One stands 823 feet, the other is 610 feet. They’ve belched the pollution we’ve hated for many years. It appears something is up now that wasn’t on the table as this city won a long, contested fight to raze the entire smelter property and attempt to make it usable for redevelopment. We believe no harm can come now that the man in charge site demolition and cleanup is willing to give some save-thestackers a year to present a plan. It’s generally agreed it would take private money to do ... well, to do whatever intentions may be regarding the two landmarks that some say are eyesores and others contend are icons. There is some $52 million in remediation money that is being used to raze the entire property. But money to save the stacks - that cost is debatable- would have to come from private citizens.
It doesn’t appear the city, and rightfully so, is willing to finance any saving effort. Leading the move to save the stacks are Gary Sapp, an executive with Hunt Development Group; and Robert Ardovino of the popular Ardovino’s Desert Crossing in nearby Sunland Park. State Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, said, “I am one one of those who thinks we ought to maintain it, if we can, because heritage and historical significance.” Eyesore or icon? Is there a plan for using the smokestacks as an enhancement to whatever future development there may be? Yes, it is intriguing that, somewhat out of the blue, there’s a new push to save the stacks. But we don’t see it hurting anyone that Roberto Puga, in charge of site demolition and cleanup, says he can wait a year to make a final decision. If anything, it will be interesting to see if there’s a yet-to-be- revealed plan for using the smokestacks as, by the way, other cities have done to enhance their revitalization efforts.
ASARCO Will Spend $40 Million To Reduce Environment Pollution By Lance Murray
A new acid plant to be built at the American Smelting and Refining Co. in El Paso will markedly reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, says Frank Harrison, chief meteorologist for the company. In all, said Harrison, the company will spend about $40 million over a three-year period to upgrade the emission controls at the smelter, which could reduce particulate matter as well as gas emissions. Harrision explained an acid plant converter sulfur dioxide in sulfuric acid, which can be sold. He admitted, however, that the process is not a money-maker operation for smelter because of the cost of installing the equipment. “It’s a losing proposition from the business standpoint,” acknowledge Harrison, saying he was not an expert on the financial aspects of smelting. He did say, however, from the environment standpoint, the process was profitable. Harrison made the remarks Saturday at a meeting of about 50 members of the local Lamar Elementary School. The seminar is composed of students from grades seven, eight and nine. Camly addressing the students, the meteorologist admitted some of the pollu-
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tion in El Paso comes from the ASARCO facility, but he said there are many polluters in the area which contribute more emissions that his company. He decided to pinpoint any of them. Harrison’s job is to operate a weather station at the plant which works in conjunction with the National Weather Service at El Paso International Airport. There are four weather experts at the plant, including one research meteorologist. Meteorological service on both sides of the function of the ASARCO weather crew, but Harrison said his operation can provide specialized forecasts which the National Weather Service could only provide if it had a larger staff.
Harrison and his associates must cope with unique weather problems in El Paso, he said, primarily because of the mountain. During adverse weather conditions, such as heat inversions, Harrison said the plant courtails production and waits for better conditions. He told the young scientists low-hanging smog formations in the early morning is the result of a heat inversion and is composed of mostly dust and other particulate matter. But, added Harrison id the wind is blowing from the east, and the conditions are clear in the west El Paso, ASARCO could not be responsible for any of the pollution. Emission monitors are stationed in 18 locations in the City, said Harrision, and periodic checks are made of local vegetation to determine pollution levels. The meteorologist said in the past ASARCO emissions destroyed some local crops, but that the company reimbursed the farmers for their loss. He said with the new control devices corp damages have been reduced to nothing. Harrison showed an ASARCO movie to the youngsters and illustrated his presentation with slides.
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WAGES INCREASED; EL PASO SMELTER TO ABOLISH SMOKE
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$50,000 UNIT WILL SAVE 90 PERCENT OF ALL SOLIDS Payroll Boost Is In Keeping With General Prosperity In Southwest, Says Kuno Doerr; Other Improvements Are Planned. WAGES of all [employees] of the El Paso Smelting works will be raised 10 percent, effective Sunday, it is announced by Kuno Doerr, general manager. The action of the El Paso smelter is wholly voluntary and follows a similar wage increase throughout the mines of the southwest. TO ABOLISH SMOKE NUISANCE
Work on one of the mast important improvements installed by the smelter in recent years will begin immediately. A Cottrell unit, for the electrostatic precipitation of solids from smoke, to he put in. The unit will be installed at an estimated cost of $50,00 (simultaneously) with a similar unit at the Douglas smelter by the Copper Queen Co. The installation of the device has been a long felt want by prosperity owners, In Kern Place and Sunset Heights especially. Smokestacks which for years have emitted black smoke, the fumes of whMeh have been particularly objectionable
to residents of north El Paso, with hercafter give no indication of the activity of the furnaces Fumes will be entirely eliminated, but the body of the smoke will be to reduce that they will cause to bother El Pasoans.
Other Improvements.
In addition, other general improvements and repairs will be undertaken at the smelter immediately. All mining and smelter firms in the southwest are passing through a period of rehabilitation, in preparation for a return 7
to good business and the El Paso smelter in but keeping step, according to Mr. Doerr. Approximately 90 percent of the solids which have hitherto gone up in smoke from the snielter, will be precipitated by the Cottrell unit. The saving thus accomplished has made it profitable to install, similar devices in the larger smelters throughout the country, but this will be the first Cottrell installed in this part of the southwest.
800 Affected By Increase
The margin of profit derived from depend entirely amount of ore that is being run. Approximately 800 men wilt be affected by the wage increase. The total monthly increase in salaries will approximate $10,500. About $126,000 additional money will thus be spent by wage earners of El Paso annually. A steady increase in business with an assurance of a prosperous future, is responsible for the increase according to Mr. Doerr.
Men Deserved Increase.
In March, 1922, but 350 men were in the employ of the smelter, the majority of them being engaged in repair work. The employed force is now being increased, and five smelting furnaces are running in addition to the roasting furnaces. “The present satisfactory condition at the El Paso smelter is typical of conditions throughout the southwest,” said Mr. Doerr. “The mining and smelting Industries of this territory will soon experience the same good business that they did during the war. “We feel, however, that the condition will be permanent this time. “Our men had an increase coming to them and it was readily granted by the officials of the company.”
Asarco quiet after arrests 14
Times Combined Sources Police were prepared for trouble on the picket lines at the Asarco smelter Wednesday, but it didn’t come. Tuesday night, police arrested several striking Asarco employees after a confrontation almost turned into what officers described as a “mini-riot.” Workers protested entry to the plant of a security company truck carrying 8
guard dogs by rocking the vehicle, braking its windshield and scratching paint on the hood, police said. Sgt. Louis McBain Jr. said employees of Jarvis Security at 12525 Montana previously had complained that strikers threw rocks at them when they tried to enter the plant grounds. Workers have been on strike since July 1. Security company employee Duane Finch called police at 8:40 p.m. Tuesday. He told one of three officers who arrived at the smelter on West Paisano Drive the strikers had rocked his luck as he delivered guard dogs to patrol a construction site on smelter property. olice said Rodney Norman Tweedt, 29, of 305 Pyrite and Isaias Palacios Rodriguez, 47, of 705 ½ S. Oregon were identified as two of the rock throwers. They were charged by police with criminal mischief. Tweedt also was charged with illegally carrying a .357-Magnum revolver. Ramon Vasquez Rodriguez, 59, of 1615 Hunter Drive also was arrested and charged with interfering with the arrest of a fellow striker. All three were free on bond late Wednesday. Vasquez Rodriguez began arguing with police when they arrested Tweedt and Palacios Rodriguez, police said. He was ordered away from the area, but instead called to about 30 other striking employees for help. Three more officers were summoned to quiet the strikers, some of whom police said were rowdy and had been drinking. One policeman said the situation “had the makings” for a small riot that did not occur. Officers were at the smelter entrances Wednesday night when the guard dog trucks arrived, but no disturbances were reported. In Phoenix Wednesday, bargainers for 20 copper unions and Anamax Mining Co. moved closer to settling their strike, but Asarco talks remained broken off, officials said. After a brief meeting with Anamax, a union official said a major negotiating session was planned Thursday. Asarco and the unions remained at odds over labor’s demand for a uniform wage agreement nationwide.
Two Years Later… Settlements Being Made
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BY STEVE PETERS “Smelter.” The word is scrawled in thick clack paint on the City. Sanitation Department garbage container at the very top of Mobile, where the street meets the mountain. Down the hill, children cluster on the front lawns and sidewalks of the Kathy White Apartments, a City housing project. Many of them never stood on the Smeltertown streets and peered straight up at the huge American Smelting and Refining Co. smokestack. But several of them were born beneath it. In 1972, when it was discovered that emissions from the stack had contributed to elevated blood lead levels in Smeltertown children, residents of the now abandoned El Paso neighborhood were given shelter by the City Housing Authority. Mrs. Carmen Fierro lives there. Last week her children were awarded part of $150,000 in settlements involving several families whose children claimed damages for alleged injuries and inconveniences incurred because of the ASARCO lead in their blood. Next door to Mrs. Fierro, Mrs. Rosalia Vazquez stands behind the screen and says she reached a verbal agreement with the company last week. Her son, David, 6, will be awarded a sum in compensation for what she calls “the lead.” She will not state the amount, except to say it is more than the $750 per head the company offered another former Smeltertown family for two of its children. But she is of the impression the figure was based on her son’s blood lead level. “I don’t even know what David’s lead level is,” she said. “I forgot to ask them.” Nothing was signed at the meeting, Mrs. Vazquez said. “They told me they would call next week so we can go to court.” ASARCO will then be free of liability toward children who have received medical treatment at the company’s expense. And the children will be relieved of any claim to further compensation. An ASARCO attorney estimated the number of families invited to negotiate at about two dozen. He did not know how many accepted the offer and refused to divulge any figures offered. It would be unfair to the families, he said. Mrs. Vazquez was vague in answer to question about why she did not retain a lawyer. “I’ve never been to a lawyer before,” she said. A few doors away lives Beatriz Solis, 8, plaintiff in a suit against the company set for trial in December. he Solis case will break the ice surrounding 30 cases still pending against
the company. Although Beatriz’ attorneys have not formally stipulated the amount of damages claimed, one of them said it would exceed $1 million. The Solis case is considered among the strongest of the 30 by Mark Howell, who with Malcolm McGregor represents the claimants. He said there is “demonstrable evidence of permanent impairment to the brain” of Beatriz. Beatriz verbal IQ places her in the top 15 percent of all Americans in her age group, Howell said. Yet her performance IQ is lower. He said this is unusual in Mexican-Americans who, because of language problems, usually score better on the performance tests than the word tests. The impairment, maintain the plain-
tiffs, is to her performance IQ. Moreover, while she comes from what Howell considers an exceptionally intelligent family – Beatriz’ older sister, raised in Smeltertown, is a college graduate; her older brother a college student – Beatriz’ grades are low at Bassett Elementary, where she is a third grader. Beatriz’ mother, Mrs. Enrique Solis, confirms that her daughter’s grades are poor. “ I want her to be able to…” she begins, staring across the living room with resignation which perhaps becomes only a mother. “I want her to become a productive citizen when she grows up instead of being disabled,” she continues. “I don’t want her to be ill of failing.”
Before moving to the Kathy White Apartments in April of 1972, said Mrs. Solis, “we used to live almost right under the smokestack.” Although most of the claimants showed blood lead readings in the vicinity of 40 to 80 milligrams of lead per liter of whole blood, Beatriz’ level reached 186 milligrams. Her lawyers hope to prove this is responsible for the IQ scores, the occasional illnesses and the speech therapy she now undergoes. Judging from comments by lawyers for both sided, the December trial will be a “swearing match” between experts. The amount upon whose doctors the jury believes.
Church was social, spiritual center of life in Smeltertown By Janie Young SPECIAL TO THE TIMES Few sites in El Paso have been as iconic as the red-and-white-striped Asarco tower. And a few neighborhoods in El Paso are as fable as Smeltertown, which existed from 1887 to 1999. At its height in the early 20th century, more than 5,000 people lived and worked in Smeltertown, which had a school, cemetery, church and stores. Smeltertown also was called La Esmelda by its residents, who built the community on the eastern banks of the Rio Grande in 1890s. The first Catholic church in Smeltertown, built in 1892 by Jesuits was Santa Rosalia y San Jose. The parishioners then built a rectory for the priest and Santa Rosalia became a home base for Jesuits who from there served mission churches upriver in Canutillo, Chamberino and La Union. On July 14, 1899, a larger church named San Jose del Rio which could seat 2,000 parishioners was completed. In 1924, Monsignor Lourdes F. Costa became priest at San Jose del Rio Parish and would continue to serve Catholics in Smeltertown for more than 20 years. After San Jose del Rio was destroyed by a fire in 1946, a new church was built and dedicated in 1948 at a new location across the road. The parish was central to the spiritual and social life of Smeltertown families, who forged a unique Mexican-American border culture through their participation
in chir activities. The children at Smeltertown often learned the basics in private religious schools called escuelas particulares which met in private homes and at the parish hall. Especially in the early years. this often was the only education many children received. Although the main purpose of these schools was to prepare children for the First Holy Communion, at the escuelas particulares children also learned math, reading and writing in Spanish and enough English to be able to enter El Paso schools. The church, along with a local YMCA and vocational schools, served as one of the primary social centers for Smeltertown residents. Various religious congregations of women provided catethical and educational services to families in Smeltertown including two orders from Mexico who fled to El Paso during the revolution and established convents in Sunset Heights the Daughters of the Most Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Religious of Jesus and Mary. Most important, however, were the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Victory from Indiana, who founded a convent and catechist center in the Smeltertown in 1935 called the Cristo Rey Mission. There, they conducted catechism classes for more than 700 children each year and trained altar servers, lay catechists and choir members, One of the most important legacies of the Catholic Church in Smeltertown is
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the magnificent Mount Cristo Rey that overlooks three states and two countries and that was made possible by Monsignor Costa and the parishioners at San Jose del Rio Church. Born in Spain, Monsignor Costa was ordained in San Antonio in 1911 and assigned to El Paso in 1912. As the pastor in the Shafter and Presidio in the early 1900’s, Father Costa was one of the circuit riding priests who rode on horseback to serve several mission along the Rio Grande. The idea for a monument to Christ the King was Monsignor Costa’s, he saw it as a response to religious persecutions in Mexico and the rise of communism in the word. In October 1933, on the eve of the Feast of Christ the King, he and 100 parishioners, including the church’s Boy Scouts troop, first climbs the mountain and vowed to build a cross on top of the mountain to be replaced later with a permanent monument. The parishioners builts the four-miletrail to the top and on the Palm Sunday 1934, during the first official pilgrimage to the peak, an iron cross that was built by students at the Smelter Vocational School was planted at the top. In October 1939, the completed statue of Christ the King was unveiled and parishioners from San Jose de Cristo Rey, made a pilgrimage to dedicate the monument. The annual pilgrimage to Mount Cristo Rey, held on the last Sunday of October marking the Feast of Christ the King, continues to be one of the most important professions of faith in the Diocese of El Paso.
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Smeltertown’s Last Christmas
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By ALLEN PUSEY
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Even though it has long been nearly deserted, there was a ChristmasEve this year in Smeltertown. Small houses, abandoned in the name of the law, stare like skulls at the few houses left, where families still live, but wait for the day when they too, must leave. Bright colored balls, and lighted tinsel face back at the dead houses, in a kind of final defiance at [the] death which has struck other houses in the area. Residents of Smeltertown, and there are only about eight or ten families left, are under notice by the owners of the land that they must leave. Most are already gone, and the few that are left are under no illusions. They’ve known that this will be [the] last Christmas in Smeltertown. It is a strange, but truly silent night, broken only by the sound of unyielding machinery from the smelter, and smoke from its towering stack. At this time last year, Smeltertown was a poor, but busting community. Children could be seen playing on into the night in the adjacent Carl Leonard Park, while their parents sat on their porches, drinking and talking. In February, the City - County Health Unit, involved with an air pollution suit against the American Smelting and Refining Co. found extremely high lead levels in the blood of several children in the area. More tests followed, more children found and the town became the focal point of a great deal of attention. But it was attention they did not want, and while ecologists pointed at the environmental ramifications of the Smeltertown problem, the residente feared even more that they might lose their homes. Some left then, offered public housing at prices that were equivalent, or lower, to those that they had been paying in Smeltertown But most stayed, not so much enchanted with the homes they lived in, but entrenched in the fear that somehow life might not be as simple any more. Maris and Susie Holguin, two teenage girls, have lived in Smeltertown all their lives. They talk easily outside their house where relatives are helping their family celebrate the holiday. “The thing I am going to miss,” said Maris, “is that here you can communicate with people. If you ask them for something, they help you out.”
Asked if she expected to find that communication in her future home, Susie said, “No, I don’t think so. Now we know who our friends are, who we can trust. When everything changes Iike that, you don’t know who your friends are.” Three cats browsed around the front of their house. Susie says they are pets left behind when some of the other families left. The Holguins feed them now, but they don’t intend to take them when they go. “It’s kind of spooky around here now,” says Maris. “At night you hear sounds like someone is in the other houses.” She says it is safe around Smeltertown even now, but later she confides that her family had planned to go out for Christmas Eve, but that they were afraid someone might break in. “When the pollution problems began to make the news, both said they thought there was nothing to the complaints against the smelter. When tractors came to scrape lead deposits from the streets, and oil was spread to keep down pollutant dust, to them it was just an aggravation.
MESSED UP SHOES
“It only made a mess on your shoes,” says Maris, “and it stained your shoes.” But even now some of the former residents, mostly old, return to their homes. Each day one old man returns to his old house, looking for possessions he might have left behind, but mostly, just to stare. Another woman, although she now lives in another part of the City, returns to Smelterlown each day with her husband, who works in the brick factory nearby. While he works, she prepares his meals in their old Smeltertown home, on the same stove she used for 25 years. Soon, that too will have to stop. There are a lot of rumors about what may happen to the land that once was Smeltertown Smeltertowners now speak of new bridges, factories, extensions of the smelter, even a shopping center that may spring up from the graves of these old homes. “I guess we won’t really know,” said Maris, “until it really happens. We all wonder what they are planning to do with it, but no one really knows. The letters sent us just said we had to go.”
MIGHT BE BETTER
“I suppose it might be for the better if we go,” says Maris. “The living room
sometimes gets real cold, and there’s this heater that always burns the wall in the back of it.” Sometimes, she added, the smoke is bothersome, but that doesn’t happen any more. “It used to get down and used to hurt your throat,” says Susie. “But it didn’t bother as much, because it came and went.” Susie’s eyes lifted out to the Stack, raising itself, like clenched fist in the night. “When I was a little girl,” she says, “I used to think about falling over. We used to talk about which direction it might go, and whether out house would hold up or not.” The word in the neighborhood is, she says, that no Mas will be held next week at Cristo Rey, the Smeltertown church. Its days, too, may be numbered. “It’s kind of hard to enjoy Christmas this year,” says Maris. “There is no one around.” Christmas, it seems, is for people, not dead carcasses of broken bricks and humber, But whatever this Christmas is, whatever cheer there is or is not, it will be the last Christmas in Smeltertown.
You have a right to know the facts about Smeltertown. The discovery of elevated levels of lead in the blood of Smeltertown children has been much in the news. We, too, are concerned about the health of these children. In fact, however, there is every indication that the health of the children involved has not been impaired by exposure to lead. Three El Paso pediatricians who have examined the children have found them to be essentially free of any clinical symptoms of lead poisoning. As a precautionary measure, medical surveillance of the children is continuing.
youngsters appear to have resulted primarily from ingestion of lead with dirt or from inhalation of dust from the yards or dirt roads where the children played. Fact 3
Asarco has taken steps to correct the Smeltertown situation. As soon as we were aware of the elevated blood lead levels in Smeltertown children, we cleaned the roads and covered them with soil binders to suppress dusting. Soil from the yards around the houses was removed and replaced with new soil. We notified parents of the danger from lead in the soil and urged them to have their children examined by a pediatrician at our expense In addition, Asarco is undertaking measures inside the plant designed to minimize plant operations as a potential source of soil contamination.
Fact 4
Lead emissions from the smelter have been reduced drastically in recent years. Our El Paso smelter has been in operation since 1887. Originally, the smelter was isolated from the rest of the community, and over the years lead deposits may have built up in the soil adjacent to our plant. Today, fully with city, state and federal authorities to make certain that our present operations do not add significantly to the lead build-up.
Pollution, in general, is a highly emotional issue. Unfortunately, emotionalism can sometimes obscure the facts. We believe that you are entitled to know the facts about Asarco’s smelter and its effect on the quality of the air which you breathe. Fact 1
Fact 2
El Paso is in no danger. Based on all the facts that have been developed to date, the problem is localized in the area of the plant and Smeltertown. Positive measures have been taken to correct this situation. Asarco monitors air-borne lead in the El Paso community. Our findings show that the lead concentrations in the ambient air, the air everyone breathes, the two micrograms per cubic meter, averaged over 90 days or longer, recently suggested in line with by the Environmental Protection Agency as a safe atmospheric lead level. These findings are confirmed by data disclosed by the city monitors for the first four months of 1971. The evidence suggests that Smeltertown children were affected by lead in the soil, not in the air. Asarco conducted a series of blood tests in Smeltertown. Many young children in Smeltertown were found to have blood lead concentration above the normal range. Older children and adults in this area had essentially normal blood levels, The elevated levels in the
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Additional pollution control equipment installed in 1971 resulted in an 80% reduction in lead emissions between January and December. The completion this year of the new sulfuric acid plant with its air scrubbing equipment will further reduce lead emissions. Not emotionalism,but cool heads and hard work are what is needed now. We’re supplying all we can of both.
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The Town and the Smelter VOL., X, NO. 29
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EL PASO, TEXAS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
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“Acid rain could be ‘a blessing’ in region, ASARCO head says.” El Paso Herald-Post, May 29, 1980. p.1
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“Smeltertown Residents Live Among Flies, in Darkness And Surrounded by Filth.” El Paso Herald-Post, June 8, 1945. p.4-5
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“Wages Increased; El Paso Smelter To Abolish Smoke; $50,000 Unit Will Save 90 Percent Of All Solids.” El Paso Times, August 22, 1930. p.78
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“Workers Inhale Acid Gas; Spill at ASARCO hospitalizes 7.” El Paso Herald-Post, August 25, 1983. p.1 -2
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“Union Burns at ASARCO.” El Paso Times, October 29, 1980. p.5
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“Asarco quiet after arrestss.” El Paso Times, October 16, 1980. p.8
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“‘No Ill Effects’ From Asarco Smelter.” El Paso Times, June 22, 1978. p.2
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“Soviet article amuses ASARCO plant chief.” El Paso Herald-Post, November 16, 1983. p.6
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“Two Years Later… Settlements Being Made.” El Paso Times, October 14, 1974. p.8-9
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“‘Poison’ Misleading, Physician Tells Court.” El Paso Times, April 18, 1972. p.2-3
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“Why we should save the stacks; An architect’s lessons from the other border.” elpasoinc.com, November 13-19, 2011. p.6
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“Church was social, spiritual center of life in Smeltertown.” El Paso Times, April 22, 2013. p.9
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“Pollution plagues UTEP students” El Paso Herald-Post, November 16, 1983. p.3-4
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“ASARCO Will Spend $40 Million To Reduce Environment Pollution.” El Paso Times, March 9, 1975. p.7
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“Smeltertown’s Last Christmas.” El Paso Times, December 25, 1972. p.10
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“Leaders Meet to Plan Relief for Smeltertown.” El Paso Herald-Post, June 12, 1945. p.4
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ASARCO Comic, Special to Corp Watch by Kent Paterson, April, 2008. p.7
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“You have a right to know the facts about Smeltertown.” El Paso HeraldPost, April 21, 1972. p.11
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