At the junction of the Mantaro and Yauli rivers in Peru, over 12,000 feet up in the Andes, is a small city of about 35,000 people. It is a community built on the mineral wealth of the mountains and exists only to serve the mines and the smelting company that processes the ore. In 1922 the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, A US-owned company with operations in South America, built a smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru. It was part of the expansion of North American and European corporate expansion into the resource-rich continent. A town grew up around the industrial complex.

The plant has changed hands many times over the years, including being owned by the Peruvian government from 1974 until 1997, when it was privatized and purchased by the Doe Run company of Missouri.

The plant gives off a list of toxins that includes high levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc. A 1999 study of school children in La Oroya found that 99 percent of them were suffering from lead poisoning and 20 percent were so contaminated that they should have been hospitalized. They couldn’t be hospitalized because the facilities do not exist to treat such a large portion of the population, unfortunately.

Doe Run has taken some measures, though they are largely insufficient and seem more related to public relations than improving the lives of residents. Children under six years of age and having more than 45 micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood are bused to Casaracra, a 30 minute bus ride away, for eight hours a day. The World Health Organisation limit for lead is 10 micrograms per decilitre of blood, so to qualify the children have be 4.5 times the acceptable limit. Being removed from the environment for eight hours a day may reduce exposure somewhat, but the children still spend two thirds of their lives surrounded by emissions known to be toxic. The program also applies only to those six and under, leaving school-aged children exposed to the toxins 24 hours a day.

“Exposure to lead is more dangerous for young and unborn children. Unborn children can be exposed to lead through their mothers. Harmful effects include premature births, smaller babies, decreased mental ability in the infant, learning difficulties, and reduced growth in young children. These effects are more common if the mother or baby was exposed to high Center for Disease Control

Other pollutants, most notably cadmium, arsenic and sulphur dioxide, are also well above the acceptable limits set by the WHO. Children are not only more susceptible to the effects of exposure, but more likely to be exposed because they play in the dust and tend to put contaminated objects, such as toys, in their mouths.

As part of the privatization process, Doe Run was supposed to reduce toxic emissions and clean up the facility. In May 2006 Doe Run received its fourth extension to reduce toxic emissions and now has until 2009 to meet its targets. Given the lackadaisical attitude the company has exhibited so far, it is unlikely that it will do so without some sort of outside intervention.

Photo credit: Matthew Sully

The 2006 extension came in the wake of a civil court suit in which the Peruvian government was found at fault for failing to comply with the National General Health Law, the National Air and Environmental Quality Standards, and a Supreme Decree regarding declaring States of Emergency in cases of contamination.

Carlos Chirinos, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA) attorney who handled the case said, “This decision confirms the urgent need to implement measures to protect the health and lives of the people in La Oroya that are affected by the smelter. We will closely monitor compliance with the court order, to ensure improvements in the quality of life and health for the populace, and the economic benefits that this will bring to the region.”

The Peruvian government has little power in their relationship with large companies. Not only does the government desperately need the revenue such companies provide, but the development and jobs are all that stand between many of the citizens and destitution. La Oroya is a perfect example of this kind of catch-22.

The land surrounding the complex is incapable of supporting crops. It is high in the mountains, where few crops can survive. It was marginal before the toxins released by the plant were a factor and is now incapable of supporting any sort of crop. The jobs that aren’t directly related to mining and smelting are spin-offs of those industries. Without the Doe Run plant, there would be no stores, schools, daycare, or medical facilities.

Photo credit: Matthew Burpee

La Oroya supports about 35,000 people locally but it also supports many more in various other parts of Peru. Office workers, executives, hotel and restaurant workers and a variety of others across the country depend on the mining and smelting industry for their incomes. To close down a major facility would be a severe economic blow and is not a viable option. So when Doe Run asks for an extension from the Peruvian government, it gets an extension.

Doe Run has also arguably made things better than when the plant was run by the Peruvian government. Lead emissions have been reduced by 35%, sulphur dioxide emissions by 5%, and waste water treatment has been improved. There have been attempts to recover land formerly contaminated by slag heaps.

Photo credit: Matthew Burpee

Emissions are still well above limits set by the WHO and the Peruvian government though. If Doe Run’s La Oroya operation were subject to the same laws they have to comply with in the United States, they would be forced not only to drastically reduce their emissions, but to clean up the surrounding area to a much larger degree than they already have.

Given the greatly reduced costs of operating in countries such as Peru, with their reduced wage and operating costs, there is little excuse for the continued contamination of La Oroya and its citizens. The kind of procrastination and evasion practised by companies like Doe Run in the developing world would never be tolerated in the developed world. Doe Run was forced to clean up its Herculaneum, Missouri operation. Why not La Oroya?

Ground water near this former smelting operation in Midvale, Utah is contaminated by the 2.5 million tons of slag, containing dangerous heavy metals like lead, arsenic, chromium, and cadmium.

According to the EPA plan, the land will be beautified, but the groundwater will probably remain contaminated.

Open this location in Google Earth

The Midvale Slag site, a former smelting facility, covers 446 acres in Midvale. A small portion of the site extends into the city of Murray. The site contains slag and hazardous smelting wastes, posing a threat to human health and the environment. It was added to the Superfund National Priorities List in 1991. It is next to Sharon Steel, another Superfund site that has been cleaned up, which contained former ore-milling facilities.

The discovery that the Sharon Steel Corporation was polluting the environment came in 1982 when the Utah Department of Environmental Quality tested some Midvale children’s sandboxes which contained tailings from the plant. Upon testing, they discovered high levels of lead in the sand. Later, the US Geological Survey tested the town’s water supply and found high levels of arsenic as well as iron, manganese and zinc.

Smelting operations began in the vicinity of the site in 1871. Since then, five separate smelters have been located on or near the site. The smelters treated ores from Bingham Canyon and other mines.

Studies begun in 1984 found that ground water and soil are contaminated with heavy metals. Today there are 2.5 million tons of slag containing lead, arsenic, chromium, and cadmium, along with other smelting wastes. Potential human health threats include drinking contaminated shallow ground water, or swallowing, inhaling or handling contaminated soil and wastes.

Testing by the Utah Department of Health indicated that the slag contains high concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals. The slag is found on the surface and down to a depth of 20 feet. Hence there is a potential for ground water contamination. Several municipal wells serving an estimated 440,000 people are within 3 miles of the site.

The superfund clean-up plan states that the remedy will result in hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants remaining on the site. The groundwater will remained contaminated.

The City understands that the plan involves limited action on the ground water which includes ongoing monitoring of the plume and the levels of contaminates discharged into the Jordan River. Midvale is supportive of this alternative believing that it strikes the appropriate balance between the impacts of contaminated ground water on human health and the environment and a cost effective method to move the site forward to reuse.
–JoAnn B. Seghini, Midvale City Mayor source

The proposal contemplates virtually no action with respect to contaminated ground water on the east side of the Jordan River, but anticipates that the contaminated ground water will be allowed gradually to migrate into and be dispersed by the Jordan River over time. The proposal completely fails to account for the changes in ground water dynamics which will be caused as the uncontaminated portions of the shallow aquifer are developed over the next few years.
–Robert P. Hill, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District source

The proposed plan naively assumes that flow rates and patterns in the shallow aquifer will remain unchanged for the next 300 years, notwithstanding the substantial development of drinking water wells in the aquifer that is already under way.
–David G. Ovard, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District source

If this continues to remain a polluted area it not only harms the health of everyone, but also will continue to downgrade the area. This is not fair to anyone who believed Midvale as a vital part of the Salt Lake City Valley, and still believe could be a hub of the Valley, with various contributions from not only business, but from a lovely place in which to reside.
–Russ Becker, Ball Feed & Horse Supply

Open this location in Google Earth

additional source

When I imagine someone sounding the alert that the government has poisoned the masses, I imagine some wacko in the woods somewhere with a stockpile of bottled water in his basement and a high powered telecope perched on a tower to watch for aliens. Not so.

The tale of Aspartame is even more chilling, partly because it is a true story. Mostly because it’s common knowledge.

Donald Rumsfeld is implicated? Common knowledge. Aspartame causes brain tumors? This too, is well documented and is finally becoming common knowledge. And, the inevitable conclusion is that the U.S. government is apparently implicated in one of the more sinister mass poisonings in recent history.

Yes, poisoning. There are not one, not two, but ninety-two (92) symptoms of aspartame poisoning. These symptoms are not sneezing or vague malaise but humdingers such as convulsions, and the ultimate symptom, “death,” which is a fairly serious symptom and the last one you’ll never complain about.

Aspartame should have never been approved by the FDA, and in fact, the panel reviewing the manufactured sugar substitute voted against approval. Aspartame was “approved” out of corporate greed, despite evidence that it is a dangerous exitotoxin that causes brain tumors in laboratory animals.

Aspartame was successfully kept off the market for over ten years prior to GD Searle hiring Donald Rumsfeld as their CEO. Shortly after he was hired aspartame became approved through an unbelievable conflict of interest. Several FDA commissioners that voted against approving aspartame were replaced by those that voted for it [creating a tie]. Shortly after aspartame approval these FDA commissioners were given cushy jobs with quarter million dollar salaries as a reward for their help.
source

Who knows more about the toxicity of aspartame than the FDA? Their toxicologists, Doctors Adrian Gross and Jacqueline Verrett strenuously objected to aspartame approval for 16 years. It wasn’t just that aspartame is not safe, and in original studies triggered brain tumors, seizures, and all sorts of other tumors, it was that the manufacturer filtered out what they didn’t want FDA to see.

ASPARTAME WAS APPROVED BY PRESIDENTIAL ORDER: President Reagan knew it would take 30 days to get Hayes into the FDA so he wrote an executive order making the outgoing FDA Commissioner powerless to oppose aspartame. From the congressional record, Senate, page S5497, May 7, l985:

“Two FDA officials have told Common Cause Magazine that Hayes was determined to push aspartame forward, in part as a signal that the Reagan administration was ushering in a new regulatory era. One official privy to some of the deliberations made at Hayes’ level says the “people at the top” were not receptive to important concerns raised about the quality and validity of some of the key tests submitted in support of aspartame.”
Dr. Betty Martini

Our FDA has never been the same since. Deadly chemicals now being blessed by FDA are marketed as wholesome pharmaceuticals, are just the tip of the iceberg, and result of Rumsfeld’s damage to FDA. The reasonable FDA lawful standard is that a chemical must pass all toxicity tests at one hundred times the “maximum human dose,” in order to pass as a food additive. What the original tests showed is that at a dose of three cans of pop per day, scaled to the weight of the animal, aspartame releases DKP, a recognized virulent brain carcinogen. No other chemical causes the brain cancer rate to jump as much.”
Dr. James Bowen

So just how widespread is Aspartame? Well, it is in cereals, juices, candy, breath mints, sugar-free chewing gum, gelatin desserts, cocoa mixes, coffee beverages, tea beverages, instant teas and coffees, wine coolers, topping mixes, yogurt, vitamin supplements, herb supplements, soft-drinks, over the counter drugs, prescription drugs, laxatives, milk drinks, instant breakfasts, frozen desserts, shake mixes, tabletop sweeteners…and more. Do you or anyone you know ingest any of these?

It is in everything. In fact, I think your regular church-going Mid-western voting Amreican citizen is just about riddled with this toxic stuff. Next time you are in the grocery store, look at how many things have aspartame in them.

“When has gone wrong with our way of thinking when it is considered “normal” that 1 in 3 people get cancer? IT IS NOT NORMAL. Cancer is not a natural disease and even if it were, it wouldn’t be “normal” for cancer to claim the lives of 25% of the population.”
Stephen Lester, Is There a Toxic Connection, 1996

Forget about the toxicity for a moment. Aspartame happens to be a rip-off. It causes people who eat the stuff to crave carbohydrates. They don’t lose any weight.

“The fact that aspartame fattens people is generally well known. We have all seen the post cards and comics that depict an overweight person with a Diet Coke in one hand while reaching for a bowl of corn chips with the other hand. The reason aspartame so strikingly stimulates the appetite is it provides over half of its content in a form of a phenylalanine isolate.

The amino acid phenylalanine outcompetes all the other at enzyme sites in the body. This suppresses the formation of dopamine from tyrosine and the formation of serotonin from tryptophan. The serotonin is the neurotransmitter that reports carbohydrate metabolism. When your serotonin levels are not allowed to raise as they normally do when you eat carbohydrates you crave more and more food. The dopamine is the neurotransmitter that lets you feel satisfied, so when you use aspartame you have unsatisfiable cravings. The aspartame also poisons your metabolism so you cannot burn calories.
rense.com

At the same time, Monsanto, and its buy-out partner Ajinmoto dress up in the pep squad gear to tout just how cool they claim aspartame is. It’s bold.

Monsanto’s previous incarnation, G.D. Searle, was the ugly elephant Donald Rumsfeld was riding when he promised to get aspartame approved by the FDA despite nine years of evidence that it caused severe illness in laboratory animals. Evidence? What evidence? The laboratory rats had their brain tumors cut out and voila! Suddenly, the removed evidence made it appear that there were NO deleterious effects of aspartame. I am not making this up.

Action based on fact in the United States is never based on fact. Iraq had nuclear weapons, therefore the U.S. invaded. Aspartame causes no cancer, therefore Americans eat it.

So what makes Aspartame so toxic? Well, like most creepy things that have no business on the skins of or in the bodies of humans, it was discovered by accident. Just as the crop pesticides used in the United States are incarnations of chemical warfare substances, so too was Aspartame never meant to be food. Aspartame was a byproduct of research on ulcer drugs. Looking for a compound that would inhibit the release of gastrin, a gastrointestinal hormone, the intermediate compound aspartylphenylalanine-methyl-ester (aspartame) was created. The researching scientist accidentally got some aspartame on his finger, tasted it, and the rest, as they say, is mystery.

In 1969 the Journal of the American Chemical Society reported:

We wish to report another accidental discovery of an organic compound with a profound sucrose (table sugar) like taste . . . Preliminary tasting showed this compound to have a potency of 100-200 times sucrose depending on concentration and on what other flavors are present and to be devoid of unpleasant aftertaste. (Mazur)

I wonder what would happen if one went to the local drugstore and loaded up on ulcer drugs. Sprinkled them on one’s breakfast cereal every morning and added them to one’s coffee.

As soon as you swallow, your body converts aspartame converts to a particularly dangerous form of free methanol, then to formaldehyde, and then to formic acid.

Methanol is basically wood alcohol, and formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, as is formic acid. But the clearest way to describe what aspartame does in the human body is to explain what an exitotoxin is. Aspartae acid, in aspartame, is an exitotoxin. This means that it over-excites neurons to the point of death. Exitotoxins destroy human nerve cells. Ingested by the young, they destroy the proper formation of nerve cells. Children’s brains develop in severely miswired patterns, resulting in ADD, hperactivity disorder, and learning disorders.

The damage, unfortunately, does not stop there. I cannot do justice to the panoramic scope of harm caused by aspartame without simply listing the illnesses caused by caused by this chemical.

Here is a list of symptoms and illnesses caused by or worsened by Aspartame compiled by Mark Gold.

Abdominal Pain
Anxiety attacks
Arthritis
Asthma
Asthmatic Reactions
Bloating, Edema (Fluid Retention)
Blood Sugar Control Problems (Hypoglycemia or Hyperglycemia)
Brain Cancer (Pre-approval studies in animals)
Breathing difficulties
Burning eyes or throat
Burning Urination
Can’t think straight
Chest Pains
Chronic cough
Chronic Fatigue
Confusion
Death
Depression
Diarrhea
Dizziness
Excessive Thirst or Hunger
Fatigue
Flushing of face
Hair Loss (Baldness) or Thinning of Hair
Headaches/Migraines dizziness
Hearing Loss
Heart palpitations
Hives (Urticaria)
Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
Impotency and Sexual Problems
Inability to concentrate
Infection Susceptibility
Insomnia
Irritability
Itching
Joint Pains
Laryngitis
Marked Personality Changes
Memory loss
Menstrual Problems or Changes
Migraines and Severe Headaches (Trigger or Cause From Chronic Intake)
Muscle spasms
Nausea or Vomiting
Numbness or Tingling of Extremities
Other Allergic-Like Reactions
Panic Attacks
Phobias
Poor memory
Rapid Heart Beat
Rashes
Seizures and Convulsions
Slurring of Speech
Swallowing Pain
Tachycardia
Tremors
Tinnitus
Vertigo
Vision Loss
Weight gain

Aspartame Disease Mimics Symptoms or Worsens the Following Diseases
Alzheimer’s Disease
Arthritis
Birth Defects
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Diabetes and Diabetic Complications
Epilepsy
Fibromyalgia
Lupus
Lyme Disease
Lymphoma
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Parkinson’s Disease

Looking at the exhaustive lists of hurts caused by Aspartame, I begin to wonder if there is anything that Aspartame doesn’t cause. Could all of this be true?

When considering the idea of truth, my mind wanders inevitably to coporate advertisers. Like Thai underworld pimps, they inevitably take innocent small truths and quickly warp them into something else entirely for their own profit.

I was looking at that red and white Nutrasweet swirl logo the other day and I was impressed with how much it reminds me of familiar, comforting patterns. It looks like a peppermint candy. Yum. It also looks like a barbershop pole, thereby insinuating old-fashioned and hygenic dependability. The brains that went into making and marketing Aspartame were no dummies.

As often occurs when big money and big greed get going, great advertisers step in and make their enticing propaganda to feed the wheel of consumption. My favorite piece of Aspartame drivel was disseminated by Nutrasweet AG’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Hans Heezen, when he stated: “Aspartame is a unique sweetening ingredient not only because it tastes like sugar but also because it is treated by the body in exactly the same way as other foods.”

The crucial question here is, “which other foods?” An unearthed portion of pickled sixty year old Kim-Chee from Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It’s worth mentioning that saying that Aspartame “tastes like sugar” is a whopper of an understatement – it’s over 200 times sweeter.

For more giggles, check out the Nutrasweet advertisement that slyly compares Aspartame to human breastmilk. Now here’s a big, bold, spare-no-prisoners statement:

“Remember your first taste of NutraSweet? Mothers’ milk doesn’t contain NutraSweet, but it might as well. Aspartame is made from things which occur in much larger quantities in other parts of our diet, and our bodies digest it completely naturally. The principal components of aspartame are two building blocks of protein – phenylalanine and aspartic acid, which are just like those found in eggs, fruit, cheese or fish. And even in mothers’ milk. So when you’re looking for a partner for sugar, pick the sweetener which your body will recognise.”
Source

Mother’s milk is made in a place like this? It’s also a superfund site that has leached arsenic into the adjacent river

Trade names for Aspartame are NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Canderel, Benevia, Misura. In Europe Aspartame hides under the seemingly innocuous “E 951″ label. World-wide, warning labels that say “contains a source of phenylalanine” or “phenylchetonurics should not consume this product,” signal the presence of aspartame.
Truth In Labeling

Dr. John Hoey, writing about the book The Truth About the Drug Companies says according to Angell, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the pharmaceutical industry’s U.S. trade association has “the largest lobby in Washington,” which in 2002 employed 675 lobbyists (including 26 former members of Congress) at a cost of more than $91 million. The result has been above-average growth in corporate profits during both Republican and Democratic administrations. The most recent and perplexing lobbying effort caused Congress explicitly to prohibit Medicare from using its huge purchasing power to get lower prices for drugs, thus opening up a dollar pipeline, in the form of higher drug prices, directly from taxpayers to corporate coffers. These changes, along with the cave-in by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in l997 that permitted direct-to-consumer advertising to bypass mention in their ads of all but the most serious side effects, have further augmented profits. The overall effect has been a corruption not only of science but also of the dissemination of Science.” No wonder new books keep being published like Dr. Carolyn Dean’s “Death of Medicine”.
wnho.net

Reading all of this, I cannot help but think of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz when she says “Poppies will put them to sleep.” Poppies are drugs, of course, but alluringly sweet. Aspartame is sweet and destructive… and it’s everywhere. But it will do more than put us to sleep. It will cause tumors, seizures, heart arhythmia, a whole cornucopia of discomfort and pain.

And we won’t lose any weight.

"Standard Oil formed the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company. Not long after, the company changed its name to Anaconda Mining Company. The company engaged in questionable business practices, and at one point they even resorted to gunning down strikers in the Anaconda Road Massacre…[In the] 1950s, the Anaconda company switched its focus from the costly and dangerous practice of underground mining to open pit and strip mining. This marked the beginning of the end for the boom times in Butte." wikipedia

"Thousands of homes were destroyed to build the Berkeley Pit, which opened in 1955. At the time, it was the largest truck-operated open pit copper mine in the United States. Other strip mines were built in the area, a few of which are still operational. In 1982… the water pumps at the bottom of the pit were shut down, which resulted in heavily acidic water [pH 2.5] filling up the pit." wikipedia

"The Pit received national attention as a poster child of environmental damage when a flock of migrating snow geese chose to land and rest on the Pit’s toxic waters in November of 1995. They drank the highly acidic water and close to 350 died." ButteAmerica

"The water in the underground mines and Berkeley Pit is highly acidic and high in concentrations of arsenic, copper, cadmium, cobalt, iron, manganese, zinc, and sulfate, plus other inorganic constituents." MBMG

"As of April 6, 2005, the Pit’s water level was 5,251.43 feet above sea level. The water level climbed about 3.65 feet since the last issue of PitWatch in Fall 2004. Since June 1996, when PitWatch was first published, the water has risen about 123.15 feet." PitWatch

The EPA built a facility on the south shore of the pit to both remove the copper and add lime to the water, making a sludge that can then be dumped back into the pit. This U.S. $18 million facility is removing metals from 2 million gallons of water per day flowing from Horseshoe Bend.

Copper is recovered from the water and smelted elsewhere. The operation of this extraction facility requires ten tons of lime per day and generates a sludge contaminated with iron that is dumped back into the pit water. The copper in the water is swapped for iron in the water. In other words, the EPA cleanup is making the pit more toxic. It’s a "terminal sink."

Eventually, the water level will rise to the so-called critical level of 5,410 feet above sea level. One source forecast that this would happen in 2021, a more recent one claimed it would happen in 2018.

The water level has 158 more feet to rise before it reaches the critical level. Since the Pitwatch organization started keeping track in 1996, the water has risen about 123 feet.

This is a historic port. A lot of the iron that built the Chicago skyline and the coal that drove the steel mills in Indiana came through this port in East Chicago.

Why is East Chicago actually in Indiana? "East of" was the code word back then for "industrial."

This city was incorporated the same year as the Chicago Columbian Exhibition, 1893. "Chicago," then as now, was code for one of the most beautiful cities in North America.

During World War I, East Chicago was known as the "Arsenal of America". Later, it became the "Workshop of America". These images suggest other nationalistic generalizations, like Ashtray of America, Coal Chute of America, etc.

Are all of these facilities still operating? If not, they may be TOADs, an acronym term coined by planners to mean Temporary, Obsolete, Abandoned, or Derelict.

What could that be in that water?

"Companies with permit violations were the BP refinery in Whiting, ISG Burns Harbor and Indiana Harbor, Ispat Inland in East Chicago, NIPSCO generating stations in Gary, Michigan City and Wheatfield, and U.S. Steel in Gary and Portage… U.S. Steel’s Gary Works discharged cyanide on 16 different days during the 18-month period. Cyanide is a byproduct from metal processing in coke plants…
Leise Jones, PIRG’s Midwest field director, said the report lists Indiana as one of 10 states that allowed the most exceedances of Clean Water Act permit limits." source

There are no less than two crosses and fifty-eight busy little bees on the official city flag. The blue stripe in the center of the flag represents the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, which isn’t anywhere near that color any more. The flag is just a symbol.

"From Roxana on the south side, to the Marktown Historic District on the north side, East Chicago is home to 30,000 residents. The city boasts newly remodeled or totally new elementary schools in nearly every neighborhood, two junior high schools, and the outstanding Central High School. The city also has two full service libraries and more than twenty parks featuring everything from a nine hole golf course to two water parks." official site

"East Chicago is classified as a second-class city under Indiana law, which classifies all cities by population…. The city’s boundary encompasses 12 square miles. There is one police station with 116 police officers." source

The company operating here has been repeatedly cited for violating environmental regulations. The tailings pool itself is an acidic mix of nickel, nickel arsenide, copper, chromium, zinc, lead, aluminum, phosphorous, iron, and who knows what else. Dumped into the ground. Notice the lack of land-based vegetation in the area? According to one resident, the township had to dump lime on the soil — with helicopters — in order to get trees to grow there.

The toxic chemicals involved in the refining of nickel cause deadly cancer in people. It’s also incredibly dangerous work. Although this site is in Canada, the mining industry in the United States is the most perilous industry one can toil in. More dangerous than fishing. More dangerous than building skyscrapers.

But Inco, the owners of the vast Sudbury complex shown here, have at least one hundred reasons to celebrate. Plus, the world continues to need nickel, for a gazillion different uses, I’m positive. But one wonders if there might be a way to extract the metal that doesn’t turn the region into a wasteland and poison all the residents.