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Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships
Regional Programs: U.S.-Mexico Border Environmental Justice Program
The Rio Grande between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad
Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
When you drive into central El Paso, Texas, you can't miss the huge smokestack towering over the city, painted with the letters
A-S-A-R-C-O. The American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) lead and copper
smelter has held that place for more than a century.
Five minutes
from downtown El Paso and just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad
Juárez—which together form the largest border metropolitan
area in the world—ASARCO emitted hundreds of tons of lead,
arsenic, and cadmium
onto surrounding homes, schools, and businesses from 1887-1999.
The
ASARCO smelter is now poised to smelt again and release even more
toxins into the area. ASARCO has already made too many of
Juárez and El Paso's children sick with lead poisoning.
Area families need a safe environment that is free of lead.
That
is why the Sierra Club has been leading the charge to keep the
smelter closed and to hold ASARCO accountable for its environmental
and public health abuses.
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