Demolition an emotional event for former ASARCO employees

As the smokestacks came crumbling down, many El Pasoans were emotionally affected, including former ASARCO employees, many of which tried to stop the demolition.

The former employees worry that the negative health impact the smelter had on them might spread to the public after the demolition.

"We used a darker pigeon to symbolize the bad things that we found out were going on in the plant," said Dan Arellano, a third-generation ASARCO employee. "The white dove was to start beating the beat of a new drum we're in for progress, and we're for it, but still, we're going to be monitoring what happened here."

The group of worker, most of whom dedicated at least two decades of their lives to working at the smelter, watched what many of them considered a symbol of death and destruction, disappear from the distance.

"It was their chemicals. It was chemical warfare; stuff that you use on your enemies, widely used in Vietnam, nerve gas, napalm gas, serum gas. These are poisons; why bring it to us? We were at ground zero," said Carlos Rodriguez, a former employeewho worked at ASARCOfor 24 years.

In the days leading up to the ASARCO demolition many of these former ASARCO workers became members of a group calling itself El Paso AWARE. The group questioned the remediation efforts, and petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the demolition until more research could be done.

The movement prompted to ASARCO to do more testing, which it says showed no negative results and the EPA gave the demolition project the all-clear.

"If you see it from right here, you see the yellow right here. This is all sulfur. These are all chemicals involved and supposedly, these guys were at ground level. But, if you see this before it was torn down, these guys were 20 feet down, said Pat Garza, a 13-year former employee.

Rodriguez, 64, is one of the former ASARCO workers with AWARE (Answers Wanted on ASARCO Remediation and our Environmental Health). He said he worried then, and he still does.

"Are they going to get true, honest testing on that dust? Was there earth movement? Are we going to get the true answers? Is the city going to get the true answers? At this point, I don't even (know) who to believe," Rodriguez said.

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Demolition an emotional event for former ASARCO employees