The PAMA.

In 1993, the Peruvian government established regulations requiring the implementation of two environmental management tools, one of which was the Environmental Mitigation and Management Plan (PAMA for its initials in Spanish). The PAMA is a report detailing the collective actions and investments necessary for the reduction or elimination of environmental contamination to the point of compliance with government-established limits. In theory, the PAMA lays out exactly what a company will do in order to comply with government standards and how much they will have to spend to do so.

Some look at the amount of money spent on PAMA projects and conclude that DRP is doing all that they can. In order to accurately evaluate Doe Run’s behavior with respect to the PAMA, there are several additional points worth examining. Although the amount of money Doe Run is spending on the PAMA has been disclosed, and it is quite large (easily over $300 million), there are questions as to how that money is spent. Some of the PAMA money goes towards things like studies for projects that are never brought to fruition, and a 2005 congressional investigation found that more than 25% of the PAMA investment that Doe Run Peru had agreed to consisted of costs and payments that could not justifiably be included, such as administrative costs, and capital investments coming from the Doe Run Company in St. Louis. That means that one fourth of PAMA investments up to that point were spurious.

Another point to consider concerning PAMA investment: when Doe Run Peru applied for its controversial PAMA extension, the central justification was financial—they just did not have the money on hand, they claimed. However, when a Peruvian business school conducted a major study on the PAMA extension request, it was discovered that between 1997 and 2004, Doe Run Peru sent more than $95 million home to the Doe Run Company—enough to have paid for 88% of the original PAMA investment. Doe Run Peru has yet to sufficiently explain exactly why this money needed to be sent home. Instead, the company line is simply that it had to do with “obligations that Doe Run Peru had with its mother-company”

Lastly, there is a fundamental question that is being ignored: Is the PAMA even sufficient in the first place? Will it make the air safe to breathe for the people of La Oroya? Most signs point to no. Dr. Anna Cederstav, the Ph.D chemist who has been working on the La Oroya case for the last ten years, had this to say when interviewed:

“Given the lack of data and air quality modeling behind the studies presented by DRP, and upon which the revised PAMA was based, it is uncertain, at best, whether even 100% implementation of the PAMA will result in air quality that meets international health standards. More likely, the company and government will find that in spite of improvements, there is no technical fix by which to reduce smelter emissions enough to make neighborhoods near the smelter truly safe for children.”


Dr. Cederstav is not alone. In May of 2006, a committee of experts, asked to conduct an independent evaluation of DRP’s request for a PAMA extension, said the following:

“It is the opinion of the panel that granting the PAMA extension and implementing the DRP process improvement programs will not, by themselves be sufficient to resolve the La Oroya region community health problems.”

These are just some among a chorus of voices attesting to the PAMA’s insufficiency. Such voices must be kept in mind when evaluating DRP’s progress in La Oroya.