Chile’s Codelco stops smelter for maintenance after environmental incident
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chilean state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, mentioned on Wednesday that it stopped its Ventanas smelter and refinery to hold out upkeep after authorities declared an environmental emergency within the area earlier within the week.
Chile’s environmental regulator ordered provisional measures for the mining firm and AES Chile, an influence firm, on Tuesday after dozens of individuals within the cities of Quintero and Puchuncavi in central Chile confirmed indicators of poisoning from sulfur dioxide emissions.
The measures for Codelco embrace putting in a brand new temperature sensor to find out thermal inversion and others relating to the standard of air flow.
“To make sure the right implementation of the measures, this industrial operation will keep the voluntary suspension of labor, which have been stopped since Monday, advancing scheduled upkeep,” Codelco mentioned in a press release.
“The corporate hopes that there might be readability on duty after the intoxications which have affected the inhabitants of the world in latest days.”
Codelco defined that on June 6, when the incident occurred, its air high quality stations recorded regular parameters of sulfur dioxide concentrations and smelter has subsequently remained stopped.
AES Chile mentioned it could additionally abide by the regulator’s measures and denied duty for the environmental incident.
Environmental activists have lengthy known as Quintero and its environment a “sacrifice zone” for successive episodes of air pollution which have prompted public well being emergencies.
The city is residence to a lot of industrial actions that additionally embrace the state oil firm ENAP and chemical industries.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Alexander Villegas; modifying by Grant McCool)
