India's largest copper smelter ignites toxic debate

[phantom power]

(Reuters) - Housewife A. Puneeta was washing dishes on a foggy Saturday morning when suddenly her throat began to burn. Coughing hard and struggling to breathe, she rushed into the street to find her neighbors running, haphazardly, in panic.

"First people said there was a gas leak, and then someone said Sterlite seemed to have opened up something, and that's the cause of the throat burning," said Puneeta, 32, who is married to a fisherman in this port town near the southern tip of India.

She was referring to Sterlite Industries, a unit of London-based Vedanta Resources, which operates India's biggest copper smelter a few miles away, and which has been shut by authorities despite the firm denying the smelter was to blame for the emissions in the area on March 23.

...

Sterlite has a history of environmental pollution after a 2005 government study said the smelter leaked arsenic and heavy metals into the soil and water. The company says it has since complied with recommendations by pollution authorities to improve environmental standards.

India's Supreme Court last week fined Sterlite $18.4 million for polluting water, soil, and air around the plant and documented 15 years of abuses. The ruling, part of a long-running case brought by environmental activists, came just days after the suspected gas leak.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-india-sterlite-town-idUSBRE93803X20130409

[XemaSab]

1. Believe it or not, there were riots in Redding, CA,

over the pollution caused by the copper smelters.

The brushy veg up by Shasta Lake is a result of long-term soil acidification caused by the smelters.