El Paso – Keeping Things Quiet

How might past awareness of smelter-related dangers have been downplayed or otherwise manipulated?
Instructions

 


 

Joe Piñon on local culture of silence during 50s through 70s about ASARCO’s effects.

 

 

Joe Piñon more on local industrial pressures and media that kept damper on discussions about ASARCO’s effects.

 

 

Danny Arellano on corporate strategy of keeping managers in dark on what’s going into plant, as set out in 2001.

 

 

Jorge Villalobos on what exactly metallurgists were told, learned about the materials they then worked with.

 

 

Bill Addington and Jorge Villalobos discuss what was known when about the hazardous waste shipments to the ASARCO plant.

 

 

El Paso – Coming to Know

What dangers did you learn were associated with the lead smelter?  How and when did you learn of them?


Instructions


Charlie Rodriguez describes how in 2004, he learned of ASARCO’s incineration of hazardous wastes back in the 1990’s: 


 

 

Jorge Villalobos talks about what he learned upon coming out of school and going to work at the Chihuahua Smelter, then El Paso, in the 1970’s; effects of the EPA and OSHA’s arrival; loss of knowledge with smelters’ closures:


Joe Piñon talks about first getting to know about what lead smelter was doing to workers in the 1930’s:


Balthazar Huerta explains how effects on clothes clued workers in to some dangers:


Veronica Carbajal and Balthazar Huerta on more enclosed workplaces, heightened production faced by later generations of workers; connecting to worsening effects on their health:


Villalobos on evolution of knowledge about, dealings with, hazards among managers, differences with Mexico circa 1985:


Charlie Rodriguez on how workers introduced to risks of jobs from 1970’s onward; how things changed in terms of what English speaking workers understood:


Elvira Salcido talks episode of lead poisoning in Smeltertown early 1970’s:


Vivian Russell on how she and her husband became more aware of job hazards; his development of cancer:


Catherine Wilson-Shupe on Alzheimer’s in her family:


Vivian Russell on her suspicions about corrosive film on vehicles, “Star Wars” gear, removal of houses:


Catherine Wilson-Shupe, Jorge Villalobos, Joe Piñon, Jose Manuel Escobedo, and Mario Navarez on company and others such as Landrigan who knew, came to know about lead’s dangers early on:


Joe Piñon, Chris Sellers, Bill Addington on what’s “acceptable” for lead exposures in children today:


Mario Navarez, Chris Sellers on experiencing mental effects from lead:


Juan Garza on how he first got to know about lead hazards in EPA sponsored community meetings:


El Paso–Activists – Local

Instructions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Addington and Jorge Villalobos discuss what was known when, what came to be known in 2000s, about the hazardous waste shipments to the ASARCO plant.

 

 

Bill Addington on current issues over redevelopment of the site; questions of responsibility for its contamination.

 

 

Catherine Wilson-Shupe, Jorge Villalobos, Joe Piñon, Jose Manuel Escobedo, and Mario Navarez on company and others such as Landrigan who knew, came to know about lead’s dangers early on.

 

 

Joe Piñon, Chris Sellers, Bill Addington on what’s “acceptable” for lead exposures in children today.

 

 

Juan Garza on how he first got to know about lead hazards in EPA sponsored community meetings.

 

 

Juan Garza on rise of EPA and local Health Dept efforts to address lead in the neighborhoods.

 

 

Juan Garza on Get the Lead Out’s effort to get Health Dept testing in homes, unreleased results.