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Fighting to Stay in Smeltertown: Lead Contamination and Environmental Justice in a Mexican American Community
MONICA PERALES
Despite the discovery of widespread lead contamination, the Mexican American residents of Smeltertown mobilized to save their neighborhood from demolition. This article shows how they demanded a resolution that would not only ensure the health of their children, but would also save their beloved community.
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ON THE EVENING OF 27 MARCH 1972, the parish hall of the San José de Cristo Rey Catholic Church in Smeltertown was packed with angry neighbors demanding answers. Just two years before, the City of El Paso and the State of Texas filed suit against the American Smelting and Refining Company's (ASARCO's) El Paso copper smelter for violating the 1967 Air Safety Code. But city-county health officials sent to investigate the extent of ASARCO's violations made an even more alarming discovery: more than one hundred children in Smeltertown had abnormal, and potentially life-threatening, levels of lead in their bloodstreams.1 The public meeting that night was one of many that had taken place since the story erupted. But it was not lead, Smeltertown's children, or public health that had residents so upset. What had incited such emotion were the rumors that the city had targeted Smeltertown for demolition and that it would be condemned for habitation in thirty days.2 Before long, the meeting—attended by the mayor and members of the El Paso Housing Authority—turned into what the El Paso Times reported as a "stand off confrontation" between city officials and residents. One attendee called Mayor Bert Williams a "liar" when he claimed that the city had spearheaded earlier improvements in Smeltertown. Others booed and jeered city officials as they described federally subsidized low-income housing options. Tempers flared among residents, who resented what they viewed as a politically motivated relocation project, not a response to a public health hazard. In their minds, city officials were there not to preserve their health, but to destroy their homes. |
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The city claimed that it was acting in the community's interests in applying environmental protection laws, promoting major environmental changes, and punishing the smelter. But the city's intervention was unusual, and aroused the suspicion of residents who had always turned to the smelter for their basic needs. Instead of casting blame on the company, many residents staunchly defended ASARCO, despite the proof of widespread lead contamination and the company's claims to priority of location. |
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In their attempts to address the environmental crisis, both the city and the company failed to understand that residents wanted more than an expedient solution to an environmental problem. Their children's health was important, but so was saving the place that had been their home for generations. Esmeltianos injected themselves into the public debate concerning the fate of their neighborhood. They cooperated with company officials, doctors, lawyers, and city representatives, but they also emphatically expressed their opposition to relocation. Business interests, health concerns, and a community's will converged in Smeltertown, creating a complicated situation in which all sides seemingly had the same goal in mind—the welfare of a community. But in the end, the city and company destroyed the very community they claimed to be saving. |
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