Government of Peru’s Actions Toward Doe Run Peru
Said to Violate Trade Treaty Between United States and Peru

Renco Group Files Notice of Intent to Commence International Arbitration

출처 : 렌코그룹의 보도자료 2011년 1월 5일
http://www.rencogroup.net/press01052011.php

NEW YORK, NY, January 5, 2011 – On December 29, 2010, The Renco Group, Inc., on its own behalf and on behalf of its affiliate Doe Run Peru S.R.L., served the Republic of Peru with a Notice of Intent to Commence an International Arbitration Proceeding under the Trade Promotion Agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of Peru, which entered into force between the two countries on February 1, 2009 (the “Treaty”). Renco’s complaint stems from the government of Peru’s failure to honor its legal obligations under international law, the Treaty, and the investment contract between the Republic of Peru, Doe Run Peru, and U.S. investors with respect to the substantial investment that Renco has made in La Oroya, Peru. This includes the government of Peru’s refusal to clean the soil in and around La Oroya as it legally committed and promised to do, and the government’s improper refusal to assume full responsibility for legal claims brought by certain citizens of La Oroya.

The Treaty is a bilateral free trade agreement. Its general objectives include eliminating obstacles to trade and fostering private investments in Peru by investors from the United States, as well as fostering private investments in the United States by Peruvian investors. To encourage this reciprocal investment, the Treaty provides international protection to the investors from each country. Among the protections that the Treaty guarantees are the rights to receive fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, and compensation for expropriation. When an investor believes that it is being treated unfairly by the host country, as Renco does, the Treaty allows the investor to bring an international arbitration proceeding directly against the government of the other country to remedy the wrongdoing. And that is what Renco has put in motion by serving the Republic of Peru with the Notice of Intent to Commence an International Arbitration Proceeding. If the government of Peru does not honor its obligations or reach a negotiated settlement with Doe Run Peru and Renco within 90 days, Renco currently intends to commence a formal international arbitration proceeding against the government of Peru under the Treaty pursuant to the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

For over two decades, from 1974 to 1997, the government of Peru’s State-owned entity Empresa Minera del Centro del Per_ S.A. (“Centromin”) owned and operated the La Oroya Metallurgical Complex (the “Complex”). During that time, Centromin conducted its operations with little focus on the environment or the concerns of the people of La Oroya, and its operations (together with those of its predecessors) resulted in gaseous and particle emissions that impacted the soil in and around the town of La Oroya with heavy metals, including lead. In 1997, the consortium of U.S. investors purchased the Complex and thereafter transferred it to their affiliate, Doe Run Peru. As a critical inducement to encourage the U.S. investors to purchase the Complex in light of these substantial pre-existing environmental impact issues, Centromin and the Republicof Peru contractually committed themselves to clean up the town of La Oroya, and also accepted and assumed all liability for any and all claims that third parties might bring while the new owners worked to improve the Complex through environmental projects. In other words, under the terms of the investment contract, Doe Run Peru was committed to improving the Complex so that its future environmental impact was reduced, while Centromin and the government of Peru agreed to clean up the town of La Oroya and to accept liability for all potential third-party claims going forward-for the period during which Doe Run Peru would be implementing its environmental projects, and subsequent thereto. This commitment by the government of Peru is reflected in the contract of sale dated October 23, 1997.

Doe Run Peru is in compliance with its obligations to complete various environmental projects. In fact, Doe Run Peru has exceeded its contractual obligations and has made significant additional investments to improve conditions in the La Oroya community. In contrast, Centromin, its successor Activos Mineros, and the government of Peru have refused to remediate the soil in and around the town of La Oroya. They also have refused to accept responsibility for the claims brought by the citizens living in and near the town of La Oroya who claim various injuries resulting from alleged lead exposure and environmental contamination from the Complex.

The government of Peru has subjected Renco and Doe Run Peru to a pattern of unfair and inequitable treatment and has failed to afford them full protection and security, in violation of international law and the government of Peru’s obligations under its Treaty with the United States. Dennis Sadlowski, Vice President — Law, of The Renco Group stated: “We have been working very hard to engage the Peruvian authorities in negotiations to achieve a solution for the benefit of everyone concerned with this important issue. But to this point, the Peruvian authorities have refused to engage in such discussions, forcing Renco and Doe Run Peru to assert their rights by taking the first step toward the commencement of international arbitration proceedings. Nevertheless, both Renco and Doe Run Peru renew their commitment to achieving a solution to this controversy, as well as to continue investing in Peru, and contributing to the welfare of the population of La Oroya, the Central Region and the Country.”

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Poisoned city fights to save its children

Families in a Peruvian valley choked by toxic gas from a smelter are taking on a US metals giant

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/12/environment.pollution

 

At an altitude of 13,000ft the Andean air is clear. A plume of white smoke rises from the chimney at the La Oroya smelter, hard at work refining arsenic and metals such as lead, cadmium and copper. But today the company is not discharging any gases over this city in central Peru. ‘It’s a nice day, so the company won’t be letting off any gases,’ says Hugo Villa, a neurologist at the local hospital. ‘They keep the worst emissions to overcast days or after dark.’

When the gases are released, they make this one of the most polluted places on the planet, with La Oroya ranking alongside Chernobyl for environmental devastation, according to a US think-tank, the Blacksmith Institute.

The company is a US corporation, Renco Doe Run. The gases are the product from the main smelter a mile or two down the valley. The high mountains around keep out the cleansing winds, meaning that airborne metals are concentrated in the valley. Neither humans nor nature can escape the company’s outpourings of poisons. And, despite evidence that gases have been behind the premature deaths of workers and residents young and old, the business-oriented, pro-US government of President Alan Garcia is too afraid of foreign investors to do anything about it.

Now, however, the townspeople, once muted by their worries about losing their jobs with the valley’s biggest employer, are turning their attention towards Ira Rennert, Renco’s proprietor.

The pollution from his plants appears both horrific and difficult to contest. A study of 93 newborn children in the first 12 hours of their life, conducted by Hugo Villa, showed they had highly dangerous levels of lead in their blood, inherited from their mothers while in the womb. The nearer the mothers lived to the main smelter, the higher was the babies’ level of lead poisoning.

‘The effects of the lead are often difficult to trace,’ said Villa. ‘But it lodges permanently in bones and affects the liver, kidneys and the brain. It affects the central nervous system. I’ve had child patients who have lost feeling in their limbs and can’t control themselves.’

The quality of air sampled in the neighbourhood by three Peruvian voluntary agencies showed 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium and 13 times more lead than is safe. In parts of the town the water supply contains 50 per cent more lead than levels recommended by the World Health Organisation. The untreated waters of the Mantaro river are contaminated with copper, iron, manganese, lead and zinc and are not suitable for irrigation or consumption by animals, according to the standards supposed to be legally enforced in Peru. The water coming out of the nearby Huascacocha lake contains more than four times the legal limit of manganese.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the town has more than its fair share of youngsters with physical or mental disabilities. The company has a scheme under which a few hundred carefully selected children of Doe Run employees are taken for a few hours every day to a camp outside the town. With less money, the town council is trying to do something similar for children whose parents do not work for the company. None of this bears on the main problem – the pollution from the refineries. The problem here is such that adults chat about the lead levels in their blood.

‘I’m 37,’ said one. ‘That’s nothing,’ said another, ‘I’m 43.’

For years the Oroyinos, as the locals are called, appeared to put up with their lot. In the past, union leaders and the mayor were persuaded by Renco Doe Run to side with it to block, successfully, the government’s feeble attempts to force it to reduce pollution. ‘We may move out, and you’ll all lose your jobs, was the message,’ said Pedro, one former employee, now an invalid. ‘It was a question of deciding whether to have enough food to eat or not.’

This year it is different. The town has elected a new mayor, Cesar Rodriguez, and the unions elected new leaders; and the effects of the pollution on children is finally getting through to parents.

Rennert’s record as a polluter is not confined to Peru. For nearly 13 years, according to industry reports, the company topped the US Environmental Protection Authority’s list as the worst air polluter in the country.

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라오로야

안데스 산맥 중앙고원에서 만타로 강과 야울리 강이 합류하는 해발 3,717m 지점에 있다. 1906년 제정된 법률에 따라 타르마 주에서 분리되면서 라오로야를 주도로 정했다. 세로데파스코·모로코차·카사팔카 광산이 있는 풍부한 광산지대에 위치해 구리·아연·은·납광석 등의 제련·정제 중심지가 되고 있다. 32㎞ 남서쪽에 포마코차 호(湖)를 이용한 수력발전소도 있다. 1893년 처음으로 철도를 부설하여 은의 생산에 박차를 가했다. 고속도로는 1943년에 개통되었으며 라오로야는 리마와 내륙지방을 잇는 교통의 요지가 되었다. 곡물·가축·감자 등의 농산물을 생산한다. 인구 : 시 46,500(1990), 군 48,200(1990).

La Oroya
Coordinates: 11°31′60″S 75°54′0″W / -11.53333, -75.9
Country	Peru
Region	Junín
Province	Yauli
District	La Oroya
Government
- Mayor	Cesar Augusto Gutierrez Revilla
Elevation	3,745 m (12,287 ft)
Time zone	PET (UTC-5)
Website: www.oroya.com.pe

Pollution

http://enc.daum.net/dic100/contents.do?query1=20X4759978

In September 2007, environmental health organization Blacksmith Institute listed La Oroya as one of the World’s Worst Polluted Places because of pollution generated at the poly-metallic smelting plant currently owned by the Doe Run Company.^[2]  :

Since 1922, inhabitants and the town and region around La Oroya, Peru – a mining town in the Peruvian Andes and the site of a poly-metallic smelter – have been exposed to the toxic emissions and wastes from the plant. Prior to the purchase of the plant in 1997 from the Peruvian government by the New York City-based Renco Group, the plant had no environmental controls and effluants and emissions were uncontrolled for 55 years. As part of the purchase agreement Doe Run agreed to remediate certain environmental issues. Althogh the company has spent more than $107 million improving the pollution and has reduced air pollution by 25 percent and water pollution by 90 percent, La Oroya is still an evironmental blight. Peru’s Clean Air Act cites La Oroya in a list of Peruvian towns suffering from critical levels of air pollution.

Studies conducted by the Director General of Environmental Health in Peru in 1999 (2 years after the smelter was acquired by Doe Run) showed that ninety-nine percent of children living in and around La Oroya have blood-lead levels that exceed acceptable amounts. The drinking water of La Oroya has been shown to contain 50 percent more lead than the levels recommended by the World Health Organization. These studies have also shown high levels of air pollution, with 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium and 13 times more lead than amounts considered safe.^[3]

According to National Geographic,

A metal smelter run by the Missouri-based Doe Run Company has operated in the remote settlement since 1922…Exposure to the smelter’s pollution has led to dangerously high blood lead levels in nearly all of La Oroya’s children…Lung ailments are widespread, and high numbers of premature death have been linked to the smelter’s emissions…Likewise, acid rain from sulfur dioxide pollution has destroyed much of the vegetation in the area.^[4]

Because Doe Run Company is the only major employer in the city, union leaders and the mayor have often resisted government attempts to address the pollution in ways which would impact the employment opportunities for the community.^[3] In a 2007 press release, Doe Run announced that it would appeal a fine levied on it by Peruvian regulators for surpassing emissions standards in La Oroya. Jose Mogrovejo, Doe Run Peru’s vice president for environmental affairs, said that infractions were not of a magnitude that could harm the environment: “Our concern is that people could infer from reading the resolution that it says we have damaged the environment, and that is not the case.”^[5]