Methodology for risk characterization in contamination site. Abra Pampa case (Jujuy-Argentina)

Abstract

One of the main regions of mining activity of the Argentine Northwest is the aride land of Jujuy. There it Abra Pampa grew like center of concentration of resources and people. One of its main establishments of mineral processing was the Smeltery Metal Huasi. Great amounts of dreg of the metallurgical processes were accumulated after decades of operation, which, after the dismantling of the factory, at the beginning of the ninety, stayed as environmental liabilities in the center of the city. The negative effects for the health of these residues just were related to a situation of risk in the middle of the present decade. The Group of Investigation INQA elaborated, in collaboration with other centers, an intervention strategy, that was based on a methodology of identification and evaluation of risk in contaminated sites and it began with the recognition and determination of physical samples, until the measurement of the lead levels in blood in the exhibited infantile population. Their results would be integrated in a scheme of Evaluation of the Risk. The study was complemented with clinical analyses, neuroconductuales tests in the group under study, consultations and interchange with the community, besides qualification with local educative actors. Like main result, it was confirmed to Abra Pampa like a contaminated site, with an elevated level of the infantile population affected by the exhibition and with the challenge to undertake his remediación. Still with the study in phase to complete the complete categorisation of the risk, the Province advanced in the removal and transfer of dregs, procedure whose impact will have to be put under new evaluations in terms of health of the population and the atmosphere.