Lead astray: scale, environmental justice and the El Paso smelter

Residents in Paso del Norte (El Paso, Texas; Sunland Park, New Mexico; and Juarez, Mexico) have been concerned about heavy metal contamination in their communities since the 1970s, when high blood lead levels were found in children living in Smeltertown - a company town for the local metals smelter. After the smelter's closure in 1999, and throughout onsite and offsite cleanup efforts, residents have continued to express concerns about these contamination issues. Using a politics of scale framework and analysing ethnographic data and government, media and scientific documents, this paper identifies a set of major disjunctures between the scales of heavy metal contamination and the scales at which that contamination is regulated. These disjunctures exacerbate regional environmental injustice by complicating public participation, neglecting vulnerability and displacing hazards to new communities. Consequently, applying a politics of scale framework to this case study highlights regulatory and policy failures to address environmental justice.