Hundreds of people demonstrated this Thursday to demand more precise measurements and tougher measures against the industrial belt of the Quintero-Puchuncaví bay, known as “Chile’s Chernobyl”, after this week more than 150 people were poisoned in a new point of contamination.
(Also read: At least 75 intoxicated by industrial gases in Chile’s ‘Chernobyl’)
Given this situation, environmental activists and the government itself have requested sanitary measures in the area, so it is worth observing what exactly is happening in this area of Chile and who is responsible for this massive poisoning.
What’s in the base?
Chosen in 1958 as a base for industrial development, the bay today is an unhealthy space in which 18 large factories are concentrated along an 8-kilometer beach converted into what is called “an environmental sacrifice zone”, in the that economic interests are above the right to life and health of citizens. Among the companies are four coal-fired thermoelectric plants and crude oil and copper refineries
Escapes like the one on Monday released millions of carbon dioxide particles into the atmosphere are repeated every few months causing dizziness, vomiting, headaches and respiratory difficultiesand forcing schools to close, interrupting daily life and forcing the population to take refuge and protect themselves in their homes.
an endless problem
A little less than four years ago, a massive toxic emission occurred in the area in what was one of the biggest environmental crises in living memory in Chile: More than 1,700 people were intoxicated, including more than 1,500 children, in a case that still does not have culprits accused by the Justice.
The issue, as the mayor of Puchuncaví, Marcos Morales, made clear on Wednesday, is not just that emergency measures are lax and industries are reluctant to apply them when necessary.
As Morales himself and organizations such as “Greenpeace” denounce, the real problem is related to the pollution index measurement system, which is done globally and thus helps to hide peaks like the one that caused the new intoxication and paralyzed life.
It is necessary “to apply for 48 hours the stoppage of the productive processes of the industrial area when a maximum of contamination occurs, but also” to change the existing regulations, since they cannot continue measuring only three elements; sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter PM10″.
“Because that means that there are another 14 companies in the industrial cordon without any measurement,” he insisted before lamenting that hundreds of children have to go back to stay again for a week without school in an impoverished area, with one of the learning rates lowest in Chile.
Children among the most affected
Unfortunately they are killing us, they are poisoning us. This has been happening from 2009 to date.
“It is terrible that a child is intoxicated, it is terrible that a child has blood coming out of his nose, that he faints, that he does not feel his legs, which does not feel the arms because it was exposed to contamination. It is a great impotence that women feel,” Katta Alonso, spokeswoman for Women of the Sacrifice Zones in Resistencia Quintero-Puchuncaví, told Efe.
With nearly 50,000 inhabitants, Quintero and Puchuncaví, together with Coronel, Huasco, Mejillones and Tocopilla, make up the five so-called “sacrifice zones” that exist in Chile, territories with a large concentration of polluting industries attached to the population.
Inhabiting the “sacrifice zones” can have serious consequences for the health of communities; episodes of intoxication due to waste released into the environment or stranded on the beaches are frequent in them, also affecting the biodiversity and ecosystems of the place.
“Unfortunately they are killing us, they are intoxicating us, this week we have had two quite large children, last week we also had an ancestor. This has been happening since 2009 to date,” Alonso assured.
Mitigation measures
The Superintendent of the Environment, Emanuel Ibarra, ordered on Wednesday six companies that operate in the area’s industrial park to take measures that “limit their productive activity, without harming primary supply.”
“The new measures that we are ordering are based on verifying that today’s intoxication episodes are related to the emission of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the Quintero and Puchuncaví industrial belt,” he explained.
The affected companies are the Gasmar Quintero Plant, the Enex Asphalt and Fuel Terminal, the Quintero Maritime Terminal of Copec -the main fuel company in Chile- the National Petroleum Company Maritime Terminal (ENAP), the GNL Quintero Maritime Terminal and the Oxiquim Maritime Terminal. .
(You may be interested in: Rivers of Chile: a web series to conquer the waters of the end of the world)
Ibarra explained that the provisional and preventive measures were taken because “it is not yet possible to determine a specific cause of the events.”
On Tuesday, the regulator had already ordered measures to reduce pollution from the state mining company Codelco – the world’s largest copper producer – and the Aes Andina thermoelectric plant.
Subsequent analyzes and authorities in the region pointed to these two companies as responsible for Monday’s contamination.
“To ensure the correct implementation of the measures, this industrial operation (Windows smelter) will maintain the voluntary suspension of operationsthose who have been detained since Monday, advancing maintenance [mantenimientos] scheduled,” Codelco, responsible for 8 percent of the world’s copper supply, said in a statement.
Aes Andes has not commented on this so far.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and Efe
More world news
– Turkey and other countries that decided to change their name
– Biden focuses on climate change and breaks the ice with Bolsonaro
– A young man in Florida is accused of killing his father with an assault rifle
#Chilean #Chernobyl #affect #citizens