Peru: Doe Run environmental record focus as company fights for survival

Date: 30 Mar 2009

Doe Run Peru, which has brought most operations to a standstill whilst it tries to secure government financing, has been forced to defend failings on promised environmental clean–up operations.

A new study, reported by Reuters, has said that the company has been slow to meet promises to clean up pollution around its operations in La Oroya.

The company's survival has been thrown into doubt following the cutting of its credit lines by the banks on Feb 24th, which has forced a number of mining companies in the country to seek other buyers for their product. The government now has a choice on whether it should provide money in order to save thousands of jobs, and whether Doe Run should get an extension in the deadline for cleanup of La Oroya.

According to the authors of the study at the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, La Oroya is more polluted now than it was before. They called for any bailout to have stringent environmental conditions and transparency measures attached.

Doe Run said that it has been bringing pollution down at the plant since it took the smelter over from a state run company in 1997. But it admitted that the cleanup job was bigger than it had first believed.

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