Instituto de Ecología Política

Santiago, Chile

August 2000

Instituto de Ecología Política, August 2000

It is easy to understand the rage against Boliden in Arica. "Close them down immediately!" is not just a cry from a child who has been playing for too many years in Swedish toxic waste. This is the official standpoint of the neighbourhood organisation that has been affected by Boliden's waste. We aren't asking Boliden to shut down their operations in Chile. We are asking them to come down to Chile. It is high time that they repaired the damage done. It is time to start taking care of all the children, to help them reclaim the health and lives they should have had, had they never been exposed to Boliden's hazardous wastes.

In September, a Swedish delegation, led by the speaker of the parliament, will visit the disaster zone. We very much welcome their visit and we urge Boliden to join them. We would like to provide information to the delegation so that the Swedish decision will be the best possible for those affected.

Bernardo Reyes
Instituto de Ecología Política

Several years later, Boliden admitted they had paid Promel to receive the waste, although they declined to inform about the cost. The then director of Promel, Julio Monreal, also acknowledged that the Swedes paid Promel for receiving the waste, but it remains unclear whether Promel was also paid for storing it.

In July 1997, the Public Health Institute examined the waste (table 1). In November 1997, new studies were carried out, which gave even more alarming results (table 2). Both differ widely from what Promel stated (table 3).

Promel stated in 1984, when requesting permission to import the waste into Chile, that "The goal is to separate the arsenic in order to transform it into trioxide and extract gold. It is not toxic, it can't be eaten and any person can manage it". The study shows that two of the metals with the highest levels of concentration in the wastes (arsenic and lead), are highly poisonous.

Later on, Promel said that the waste did not contain sufficient levels of precious materials in order to be recycled, and left the toxic waste as it was. A few years later, Promel was also found to have dumped tons of toxic waste, containing cyanid, 100 kilometres from Arica. The company has now disappeared, although according to information from various sources in the Arica municipal administration, the director is one of the leading figures of the local Lions' Club.

Rolf Svedberg, who at that time was responsible for environmental affairs at Boliden, said, "I was convinced the Chileans were able to recycle the waste." When asked if Boliden had shipped more toxic waste to Chile, the media spokesperson of Boliden Limited, Jim Borland, says "It is very difficult to answer, because I don't have the documents and this was a long time ago."

Arica is not the only environmental disaster that Boliden has caused; in 1998 it was responsible for a huge environmental disaster, with the bursting of a toxic waste holding dam in Los Frailes, Spain. Before that, the same type of accident occurred by the Asajaure lake, in the north of Sweden.

The managerial director at the time of the Arica disaster, Anders Bülow, told journalists that Boliden would investigate the case, but also maintained that the persons responsible for the exportation of the waste were no longer working with Boliden.

Boliden's environmental policy states, among other things, that "Protection of the environment will be based on the commitment of employees at all levels, and on clearly communicated demands made on suppliers and contractors." Also; "Boliden regards the restoration of industrial sites as a priority task."

Lead poisoning in children can also provoke vomiting, problems with walking, convulsions and comas. Women's reproductive systems can become damaged when exposed to lead before the age of eight. Children are the most vulnerable, both because they can be poisoned by lower concentrations, and because they are more likely to ingest poison, play in it, etc. They are at risk if they have more than ten micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood. With concentrations higher than 30 micrograms per decilitre, hospital treatment is necessary.

Lead is difficult to get out of the body's system, but it can be achieved through the insertion of a receptor in the body that causes the lead to exit with the urine. The longer the time between the lead poisoning and medical treatment, the higher the risk for neurological damage and other complications.

Arsenic, notorious for its poisonous effects, is a highly toxic substance, causing cancer, especially of the skin and kidneys.

When in June 1999, 173 children of the neighbourhood Los Industriales, all between 5 and 9 years old were tested for lead, they showed an average of 8,6 ug/dl. In 1992, a similar test was carried out in Santiago, notorious for its' high levels of pollution. Santiago's children had an average of just 2,9 ug/dl. When the local health authorities checked 400 children in Arica, 50% showed higher than normal lead levels in their blood.

When it comes to arsenic, which was only checked for much later, 49 of the children tested had levels of more than 50 mg per litre of urine. Ten percent had more arsenic in their urine than the acceptable level.

At the end of July 2000, as the result of an initiative by the national health minister Michelle Bachelet, a new and more ambitious round of medical check ups was begun, with the aim of testing 5.000 persons for lead poisoning. Children up to 14 years of age and pregnant women were given priority. The first available samples show alarming results, with a high number of children being poisoned and several children having higher levels of poisoning than earlier. It is however too early to draw any final conclusions from the material as yet. In a few months the examinations will be of vital importance to estimate the total cost for the years for come.

In total, more than 15.000 people are estimated to be affected. Doctor Andrei Tchernitchin, a member of the Commission for Health and Environment, stated that those living near the waste put their health at great risk, "because the mixture of lead, arsenic, copper, cadmium and sulphur, makes it very difficult to calculate the total risk that these people are exposed to."

The national environmental authority, Conama, also has shown that the soil where the waste was kept (3,9 hectares) is so badly contaminated that houses can not be constructed upon it, without further studies and adequate clean-up of the soils.

The International Declaration of Human Rights contains a paragraph about the right to a livelihood free from contamination, which is echoed in the Chilean Constitution. These paragraphs are fairly general, but members of the Chilean parliament, among others, state that the Constitutions paragraph can indeed be used in this case.

The local Health Administration of Arica decided in September 1998 to ban the deposit of metallic minerals in the city zone. This decision was overruled a few months later, according to the Bancada Verde, the green section of the Parliament, because of pressure from the Border Authorities (Difrol).

During twelve full years nothing happened with the toxic waste of Boliden in Arica. Or, something did happen; it was blown around by the wind, played in by the children, inhaled by all in the neighbourhood and workers in the nearby port facilities.

When the waste arrived in 1984, no tests were carried out to determine its composition. When people moved into the area in 1993, there still were no warning signs or information about the toxicity of the waste. Only in 1996, did the authorities start to investigate the 20.000 tonnes of waste. It took them a whole year to finally tell Promel, who had dumped the waste 13 years earlier, to take it away again. In January and June of 1997, the company received orders to remove the waste. This was not done, and in March 1998, the company was fined 24 million pesos for non-compliance and had to pay for the removal. This was due to a legal action taken by the mayor of Arica, Iván Paredes, and supported by the environmental group in the parliament, the "Bancada Verde".

February 5^th, 1998, the court of Arica ruled against Promel and the local health authorities, stating that even with the waste moved, the population was still at risk. The same court ruled on June 27th, that within six months, Promel and the local health authorities had to cover up the space where the waste was kept, isolate the place where the waste was later moved and encapsulate the waste in landfills. The ruling was appealed by the health authorities as well as by Promel.

The waste was later moved about 2.000 metres from the original spot, where it was covered with geotextil, clay and large stones. However, no previous examination was made of underground currents, the porosity of the soil or what will happen when Arica expands so that the toxic waste will once again be situated in a populated area. These are the reasons why the Bancada Verde has once again started a judicial process against the responsible entities. Environmental groups such as the IEP qualified the moving of the toxic waste as "too little, too late", and dubbed the new waste location another illegal dump.

In march, 1998, the health minister Alex Figueroa visited the affected sector of Cerro Chuño, in Arica. The neighbours complained bitterly about the children's health, and that promises of the government to cover up the old waste fill had not been kept. The

Minister promised that this time it would happen. He also said "The important thing right now is to move the material, even though it will only be two kilometres." According to Figueroa, Chile was putting on international pressure so that the Bern convention would include the prohibition to dump waste in the great deserts of the world.

To this date, the field where the waste was put for fifteen years has still not been covered. A joint delegation of local, regional and national authorities have deemed that the most appropriate way to do this, is with a 15 cm cement cover. There has been no action on this yet.

The lack of sensibility on the part of the local authorities is reflected in the comments of the director of the municipal health organisation, doctor Carolina Asela, said that "the health effects have more to do with the poor living conditions in the area, than with the toxic waste."

In May, the Arica association of neighbourhood organisations, a strong entity in Chile, demanded that the company of Boliden should be closed immediately. "A fine would not correspond, because the damage that this company has done in various countries is simply too much."

Boliden, meanwhile, has not paid any fines, not even the medical bills for the examination of the ill children. According to the chairman Anders Bülow, Boliden has, through the Swedish embassy in Santiago, Chile, offered technical assistance in the investigations. They still have large amounts of toxic waste at Rönnskärsverken waiting for their final destination.

We propose the following action to be taken:

9. Chilean veto to arms sales until problem is solved
All large business deals between Sweden and Chile should be vetoed until we have reached a satisfactory solution to the disaster in Arica. This primarily means that the Swedish attempts to sell the military aircraft JAS Gripen to Chile will meet strong opposition unless the Swedish government clearly manifests its intents in helping Arica in its difficult situation.

10. Contact us!
The IEP, Instituto de Ecología Política, has given the Boliden/Arica problem top priority, and we will be happy to assist all those interested in participating in finding a solution to the problem. Contact us by phone +56-2-223 90 59 (Bernardo Reyes, Manuel Baquedano or Mattias Goldmann), by fax +56-2-223 45 22 or e-mail iep@terra.cl.

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