A study claimed that a child develops lead poisoning every nine days in the northwest Queensland mining town of Mount Isa. The research that has been conducted for about two years found that 11 percent of the town’s children had lead poisoning. The researcher blamed Xstrata, the mining company, and the government for doing nothing. The process of mining had caused lead to be present in the air. Although, the mining company had cleaned their pollution in the river but they had never done anything to address the air pollution problem. Last year, a study found lead contamination in the soil around Mount Isa was worse than that near similar mines in China. Professor Flegal, an adviser to the US Environmental Protection Agency on mining operations, stated that historic and continuing emissions from the mine and smelting operations has caused the lead poisoning. The people living there suffered so much because of the contamination to the air.
However, the government responded by saying that they had already installed an air monitoring device and the device has not shown any sign of poor air condition in that place.
The mayor of Mount Isa replied “We're a working town and a great town. The bloke who wrote that is working in hospital-like conditions in a big city -- he wouldn't understand life out here."
This shows that there is not enough action taken by the government and the responsible parties. Immediate action need to be taken to protect the life of the people in that area.
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