Viewpoints
Doe Run Peru operates by public consent and by seeking the input of stakeholders who share its commitment to responsible development and the economic vitality of its businesses and the communities in which it operates.
Click below to learn the viewpoints of some of the people who have been involved along the way.
Interview with Clemente Quincho, mayor of La Oroya
Bob Roscoe trained the team in the USA
Safety is a top priority at all of our facilities. As part of that, Doe Run Peru teams participate in mine rescue and mine safety competitions, and regularly are among the top finishers. In 2006 a team representing Doe Run Peru, participated in the International Mine Rescue Contest, held in China. Bob Roscoe, current general manager of Doe Run Company’s Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling Division (SEMO) and the former head of mine management at Doe Run Peru’s Cobriza mine, spoke with Rumbo Minero magazine about training the safety teams, expectations for their participation in the competition, and the company’s philosophy on safety:
“From the very first day we bought Cobriza (1998), we promoted a cultural change concerning mine safety and rescue, which has been progressing over the nearly 100 years of [The Doe Run Company’s] existence. At Cobriza, this culture was complemented by investments in replacing obsolete equipment with modern machinery to address emergencies, and we established new safety standards.”
CSR for thee, but not for me?
Paul Driessen (senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death)
“Wheezing smelter smokestacks” engulfed dingy buildings with pollutants and dusted the hills, streets and homes of La Oroya, Peru with powdery rock, lead and arsenic, Newsweek reported in 1994. Pipes from the 1922-vintage smelter fouled the local river with lead and other wastes. This “vision from hell” imperiled the health of children, adults and wildlife alike. Finally, in late 1997, a company that later became Doe Run Peru bought the complex. Doe Run’s $140 million investment (through 2005) epitomizes “corporate social responsibility” and created a new sense of pride and hope for the region’s 50,000 people. At a union-organized event people told me their lives had improved more in the past seven years than in the previous 75.
La Oroya demands a shared solution
La Primera
Interview with Roque Benavides, ex-president of the Peruvian National Society of Mining, Oil and Energy, and current director and general manager of Compañía de Minas Buenaventura, on the situation in La Oroya, Peru.
Do you think Doe Run Peru’s extension request to meet its PAMA is pertinent?
Above all, the company must carry itself with seriousness. And given the grounds presented, and considering the evident achievements in relation to health improvements in the population of La Oroya, I believe it’s acceptable and reasonable to approve the extension request. Moreover, its request meets all the requirements demanded by the supreme decree, so the company deserves an extension. But, it must try to meet its commitments and present the relevant assurances. La Oroya was born in 1922 when other environmental standards were effective in Peru and the world. It can’t be judged by today’s standards, let alone when the company has been neglected by the government for so long.
Utopian solutions versus real corporate social responsibility
Fr. Phillip De Vous (Chaplain, Thomas More College)
Every morally responsible company must reflect carefully on how its core business impacts the communities where it operates, and how it can ensure practices that are ethically and economically sound. This means understanding, assessing and acting upon employee well-being, legal and political realities, environmental impacts, cultural considerations, and religious and moral imperatives. One company making just such a serious effort is The Doe Run Company of St. Louis, Missouri and its subsidiary, Doe Run Peru.
John F. Kohl Letter to the Doe Run Company
John F. Kohl
Phoenix Arizona 85012
Recently I contacted your office requesting permission for my wife, my brother, and myself to tour Chulec in La Oroya during a planned trip to Perú. My brother and I grew up in La Oroya during the 1930s and 1940s.
Corporate plaudits in Peru -- The Washington Times
Dr. Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace)
The day I visited the Peruvian mountain village of La Oroya, I watched Mayor Clemente Quincho lead a noisy march of thousands of demonstrators. Their loud slogans and emotional chants would remind anyone of the protests long associated with environmental and civil rights activism. In many ways, that's what this was.
But this wasn't your ordinary demonstration. These vocal townsfolk demonstrated in favor of the continued operation of an 80-year-old copper and lead smelter -- both because it's the town's lifeblood and they support efforts of the company, Doe Run Peru, to improve social and environmental conditions.