A story of contamination and corruption in Argentina

You can tell you have arrived at the edge of the Palpala area in Argentina’s Jujuy province thanks to the toxic smell emanating from the city several kilometres away, even before the first traffic sign on National Route 9, also known as the Pan-American Route.

Until the late 1940s, Palpala was a small town near the capital of Jujuy province, San Salvador de Jujuy. 

But three-time president Juan Domingo Peron had major plans for the country and especially the north. With the construction of Altos Hornos Zapla, Argentina’s first metal foundry, this small town, its industry and its fate changed forever.

Today Altos Hornos Zapla has almost disappeared, but the foundry cemented the path for many other industries, opening the city up to business in the 1980s.

Palpala, a city with a population of around 44,000 and growing, has more than 40 different types of heavy industry. 

Among them are 15 foundries of both metals and plastic - activities that should be strictly regulated because of the environmental and health dangers involved. 

Instead, the city has maintained a policy of anything goes, even allowing industries that were kicked out of other cities over pollution to be established. One such case is Minera Santa Rita, a foundry that was expelled from the city of Salta because its neighbours were falling ill from the toxic fumes and toxic wastes from the borate production process.

Minera Aguilar, a subsidiary of Swiss Glencore, the world's biggest commodity trader and also one of the most controversial companies worldwide, has a lead foundry, next to a smaller battery recycling plant that also works with molten lead. 

The waste from these activities is simply piled up in mountains of compacted soil mixed with plastics from car batteries, borates, sulphuric acid, and other unknown substances.

All of this then drains into the nearby river only a couple of hundred metres downhill and seeps into the air breathed by locals. 

This contamination has been proven in a court of law, after 28 families from Palpala won a legal case against the local authorities for allowing the situation to occur. 

However, the compensation awarded was ridiculously low (the highest amount was for $500) and has still not been paid. 

The case proved the presence of large amounts of lead in the bloodstreams of these families, especially the children. 

It also proved that as a result of the contamination, malformations, spontaneous abortions and stillbirths, breathing disorders and different types of cancers were far more common in the region compared to other nearby populations.

As for regulations, all the local authorities did to improve the conditions was to recommend the companies build walls and fences around their installations, and better compact their waste. 

Instead of compensation, what the families and activists endured was persecution. Some workers lost their jobs because someone in their family was involved in the claims and an activist was murdered in very strange circumstances.  

Last month, the city woke up in shock because local foundry Minera Aguilar was closing, leaving 144 people out of work. 

While some activists see this as a victory, others with more experience say that it’s not the first time that the company has done this. 

Those apprehensive about the development say that even though the foundry is closing and kicking out 144 sick employees, it will re-start activities under another a shell name a couple of months later. When you pass by the doors of the foundry, it doesn’t seem to be a company that is going out of business.

And Palpala isn’t an inch closer to getting better.