The convertors would spew it out,"" employee Arturo Hernandez
recalled, referring to molten metal. ""You'd see the ground, the
dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, you'd be like a little pat
of butter, melting away."" Hernandez was describing work at ASARCO
El Paso, a smelter and onetime economic powerhouse situated in the
city's heart just a few yards north of the Mexican border. For more
than a century the smelter produced vast quantities of copper -
along with millions of tons of toxins. During six of those years,
the smelter also burned highly toxic industrial waste under the
guise of processing copper, with dire consequences for worker and
community health. Copper Stain is a history of environmental
injustice, corporate malfeasance, political treachery, and a
community fighting for its life. The book gives voice to nearly one
hundred Mexican Americans directly affected by these events. Their
frank and often heartrending stories, published here for the first
time, evoke the grim reality of laboring under giant machines and
lava-spewing furnaces while turning mountains of rock into copper
ingots, all in service to an employer largely indifferent to
workers' welfare. With horror and humor, anger, courage, and
sorrow, the authors and their interviewees reveal how ASARCO
subjected its employees and an unsuspecting public to pollution,
diseases, and early death - with little in the way of compensation.
Elaine Hampton and Cynthia C. Ontiveros weave this eloquent
testimony into a cautionary tale of toxic exposure, community
activism, and a corporate employer's dubious relationship with
ethics - set against the political tug-of-war between industry's
demands and government's obligation to protect the health of its
people and the environment.
General
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