The Sierra Club has added a note to the chorus of competing voices on the issue of lead contamination in El Paso. On Jan. 31, it released a report that links lead and arsenic contamination in soil to emissions from the ASARCO copper smelter. Michael A. Ketterer, a chemist from Northern Arizona University, directed the study, which took soil samples from Ciudad Juárez, El Paso, and Anapra, New Mexico and compared isotopes found in the lead with isotopes from the mine sources ASARCO used.
This report comes just days before the Feb. 8 hearing in Austin, at which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will hand down a final decision on the renewal of the air permit. Two administrative judges recommended against the renewal in October, following a week-long hearing. The Sierra Club was named a party in the hearing. ASARCO’s El Paso website provides several of its own reports that contradict the Sierra Club findings. ASARCO has long claimed that the main source of lead contamination is slag and lead-based paints.
Newspaper Tree presents the following documents as public record:
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Related NPT Article: ASARCO Links (provides complete case filings, related articles and websites)
