Wads of giggles and a few tears too filled the sweltering front room of the La Casita community center in the southern New Mexico border community of Anapra
on Saturday. Cautiously holding out their small arms, dozens of children gave blood samples to find out how residents’ health has been impacted by the operations of the old Asarco lead and copper smelter. Located just down the road in El Paso, Texas, the plant has been shut down since 1999.

“I feel very satisfied that justice has been done, and finally we’ve been taken into account with these kinds of tests,” says middle school student Blanca Ortega.

Supported by members of the El Paso branch of the Sierra Club, Ortega and other Anapra residents are waging a grassroots campaign to probe the extent of lead contamination in this small, low-income subdivision of Sunland Park, which borders Mexico. Obtaining 40 sample kits from a private lab based in Minnesota, the activists will have the blood samples checked by an El Paso doctor.

Dating back to the 1970s, studies of neighborhoods close to the smelter in El Paso and neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, registered high levels of lead and other heavy metals in the soils of homes and properties. Asarco spokespersons deny they were responsible, blaming the contamination on lead paint, pesticides and two crushing businesses.

In 1982, the Washington Post and El Paso Times reported that New Mexico environmental officials were pointing to emissions from Asarco’s smokestacks as the cause for excessive levels of lead in the air of Sunland Park and Anapra.

Many Anapra residents complain they are in the dark about the pollution that might be present in and around their own homes. Most recently, the community was excluded from a 1999 lead study of towns in southern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua.

Retired attorney Taylor Moore, who advises La Casita’s members, contends that New Mexico and federal officials are covering up a staggering problem.

“We have at our own expense attempted to try to find out whether these kids have lead in their blood,” says Moore. “They need to be tested for every heavy metal Asarco emitted.” Moore says

Especially vulnerable, children can suffer impairments to their cognitive development if they are exposed to excessive amounts of lead.

Thomas Ruiz, an epidemiologist with the Border Health Office (BHO) of the New Mexico Department of Health, says his agency wants to know too whether or not Anapra’s children and adults have high amounts of lead in their blood. Ruiz says the BHO will conduct two studies beginning next month to detect lead in the soil of Anapra and in the blood of its residents. A separately-funded BHO study of urine samples from 14 Anapra and Sunland Park residents began last March, the first phase of urine sampling planned to reach 50 people, but the initial results still have not been reported, says Ruiz.

Working with Sunland Park’s La Clinica de Familia, nurses and doctors will fan out in Anapra for 2 or 3 Saturdays in June to draw blood samples from up to 200 children, according to Ruiz. “We’re going to see if there are high levels of lead in the blood of kids in Sunland Park,” he says. While previous United States Environmental Protection Agency studies revealed high amounts of lead in soil around Mt. Cristo Rey at Anapra’s doorstep, Ruiz adds that dirt immediately outside private homes remains to be tested. Ruiz says his office wants to test the soils of 100 homes.

“We know that (Asarco) has existed for many years,” adds Ruiz, “and with the studies we’ve done we’re analyzing if there are problems.”

Some are very skeptical about any project in Anapra conducted by the BHO.

Moore, for instance, contends that the BHO previously refused to test Anapra’s children. “On a scale of 1-10,” says Moore, “(BHO) is a minus 10.” The former attorney says many Anapra residents want the BHO to step aside. “They’re going to have to start shooting straight with the community,” he says.

Ruiz says he expects the results from the planned BHO soil and blood sampling in Anapra to be available later in the summer.