CODELCO's copper refinery: another issue to the list of environmental conflicts, industrial and health

Hello everyone

Just for a change, another industry problem is causing damage and affecting people’s health. This time the problem occurs at the 5th region of Chile, specifically at 'Ventana' beach. On this place, the CODELCO’s copper refinery is wreaking havoc with the noxious fumes that this construction is spreading every day. This situation not only ruined the landscape of the zone and destroyed the natural ecosystem nearby (which of course it’s an inadmissible fact), but also is damaging innocent people. Recently, students and teachers of ‘La Greda’ school were intoxicated by a toxic cloud issued from the copper refinery. This toxic cloud contained arsenic and other lethal substances for human.

Although the contamination problem is obvious to all, and health complications will still affect people who live near Ventana’s beach, the Chilean government is committed to maintaining this industrial operation. Legal and environmental subjects are involved, and in theory the industrial plant should close, but this hasn’t occurred yet, and sincerely, I don’t think that it will, unfortunately. It is always the same history, just like ‘Hydroaysen’ conflict. There are many empty spaces in legal environmental matters, and lawyers manage to carry out projects anyway, because of ambition and greed of some…

To prevent that this situation happen again, future toxic industries must be far away from the populated areas. Chile has the advantage that has a lot of desert places and this must be exploited. My propose is to close down the Ventana’s copper refinery and to built another one far away.