Blacksmith back in the DR

[NewsWhore]

The Blacksmith Institute and the UASD University Chemistry Institute were working in the community of Paraiso de Dios - "God's Paradise" - near Haina Industrial Park, just outside Santo Domingo, for the second consecutive day yesterday. Community members provided the technicians with blood samples in order to determine the trace level of lead in children. Officials hope to collect 150 samples. This is the second time that officials from Blacksmith have visited the area since the Institute announced that Paraiso de Dios was one of the 10 most polluted places in the world. They are also here to study the amount of lead in the environment. Diario Libre writes that the first set of results should be released today. The lead in Paraiso de Dios comes from the Metaloxa battery manufacturing plant. The Metaloxa plant was closed by the Environmental Protection Institute (INPRA), the predecessor of the Ministry of Environment in 1999, after the company failed to comply with legal regulations for working with lead processing. The company, which had been operating since 1979, used to recycle lead from batteries. According to the Ministry of Environment, the company polluted the land and ground waters, but no action was taken until 1996 when environmental controls were introduced. Richard Fuller, president of Blacksmith, is angered at the pace at which the Dominican government has worked on a solution to the pollution in the area. He says the answer is simple and that all that needs to be done is take the old soil and replace it with new soil.
www.blacksmithinstitute.org/site10c.php (http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/site10c.php)

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