KIM LAWTON: La Oroya, Perua - according to the Blacksmith Institute, an environmental advocacy group, this is one of the 10 most polluted places on earth. Nestled in the Andes Mountains, an 85-year-old metal smelting plant spews lead, arsenic and other toxins into the air and the nearby Mantaro River. Visitors say the impact is inescapable.
Reverend ELINOR STOCK: Well, as soon as you get there, within a few minutes, your eyes and your ears and your nose starts burning, and you can just feel the pollution: flakes of dust all over you. It's like a moonscape. There's no vegetation on the hills because of the acid. LAWTON: Reverend Elinor Stock is a Presbyterian minister in St. Louis, Missouri. She first got involved with Peru through Presbyterian missionary efforts. Now she's part of an international, interfaith coalition trying to do something about La Oroya's pollution.
Rev. STOCK (speaking at press conference): We make our appeal from the ground of our common faith as Jewish and Christian believers for the health and well being of the people of La Oroya.
LAWTON: Earlier this month, a delegation of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders from Peru came to the U.S. to enlist more support in their campaign to clean up the Doe Run Peru smelter.
Monsignor PEDRO BARRETO JIMENO (Jesuit Archbishop of Huancayo, through translator): In spite of a few things that Doe Run Peru has done, it has not done the most important, which is to lower the toxic emissions that are devastatingly affecting the population.LAWTON: The Friends of La Oroya and the Mantaro Coalition is especially concerned about the children in La Oroya's community of 35,000. According to a study by St. Louis University, 97 percent of the children there have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.
Rev. STOCK: We wouldn't tolerate that in the United States. And we cannot tolerate it anywhere else, either as people of faith, as human beings, and especially when it's caused by corporate pollution.
LAWTON: Religious leaders in St. Louis feel a special connection to the situation because of their own experience with the Doe Run plant in Herculaneum, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. The Doe Run plant there has been at the center of numerous lawsuits and state and federal sanctions for violating environmental standards. Doe Run has paid millions of dollars in cleanup costs and to relocate residents from the most toxic areas. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is Church Street. The buyout area is three-eighths of a mile around the plant.
LAWTON: The Friends of La Oroya Coalition would like to see similar measures taken in Peru.
ELIAS SZCZYTNICKI (Israeli Union of Peru, through translator): We need to make sure that the people there are safe and that they're not hurt by the contamination that's occurring from the Doe Run factory.
LAWTON: The Doe Run Company of St. Louis bought the Peru smelter in 1997. And the Friends of La Oroya Coalition has since actively lobbied the corporation to make improvements. But on June 8, the St. Louis company released a statement saying it was no longer the parent organization of Doe Run Peru.
Doe Run Peru officials say they have taken substantial steps in addressing environmental concerns. Figures from Doe Rue Peru claim that the smelter reduced toxic emissions by more than 50 percent since 1997. But Doe Run Peru also successfully lobbied for an extension of deadlines to meet international standards. The next deadline is October 2009.
The Friends of La Oroya Coalition says that's not good enough. Coalition members are frustrated that the U.S. business interests connected to the smelter are not doing more. They allege it's an example of U.S. companies making a profit in the developing world while evading responsibility for their actions.
Mr. SZCZYTNICKI (through translator): This is an issue that goes for all business people everywhere, especially here in the United States when looking at the people in poorer countries. When they send investments to the Third World, we need to see immediate benefits for the people of those nations.
LAWTON: The issue has created an unusual level of interreligious cooperation, both in the U.S. and Peru. 
