Copper Stain: Asarco's Legacy in el Paso (1) (The Environment in Modern North America)
Reseña del libro "Copper Stain: Asarco's Legacy in el Paso (1) (The Environment in Modern North America)"
The convertors would spew it out, employee Arturo Hernandez recalled, referring to molten metal. Youd see the ground, the dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, youd be like a little pat of butter,... Leer másThe convertors would spew it out, employee Arturo Hernandez recalled, referring to molten metal. Youd see the ground, the dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, youd 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 citys heart just a few yards north of the Mexican border. For more than a century the smelter produced vast quantities of copperalong 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 deathwith 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 employers dubious relationship with ethicsset against the political tug-of-war between industrys demands and governments obligation to protect the health of its people and the environment.
