Atlas of Contaminated Sites

Notable case, Las Ventanas (Puchuncaví) e Quintero, Valparaíso, Chile

Quintero-Puchuncaví (Ventanas industrial complex)

Quintero-Puchuncaví, Complejo Industrial Ventanas

On Quintero Bay in central Chile, a cluster of power plants, refineries and terminals has grown since 1964 around a copper smelter: in Chile it is the best-known 'sacrifice zone'. Fallout from the smelter acidified and contaminated the soils of the Puchuncaví valley, where aided phytostabilisation has been tested for years.

PhytoremediationMicrobial bioremediation

Status
Under assessment
Activity
since 1964
People affected
700 (2018)2
Media
soil, air, sediment, living organisms
Kind of site
smelter, power plant, oil, port, chemical works
  1. Area. No contaminated-site perimeter in the sources consulted. In 1994 the area around the complex was declared saturated for sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.
  2. People affected. More than 700 people poisoned in the acute episodes of 2018 (Mongabay 2019); not an estimate of the exposed population.

Contaminants

Metals

Metalloids

Status

Under assessment

The Ventanas copper smelter closed on 31 May 2023, after 58 years; the other industries of the complex are still working. Soils in the Puchuncaví valley are acidic and loaded with copper and arsenic, and remediation has not gone beyond laboratory and plot trials with amendments and plants. In 2019 the Supreme Court ordered the authorities to identify the pollutants and set up monitoring and health surveillance.

Story

The Ventanas copper smelter and refinery was opened in 1964 by the state mining agency ENAMI and passed to Codelco in 2003. Around it grew a complex that in 2019 counted 19 companies, among them thermal power plants, ENAP oil facilities and chemical industries (Mongabay). In 1994 the area was declared saturated for sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.

Decades of sulphur dioxide and metal dust emissions left the Puchuncaví valley with acidic topsoils rich in copper, zinc and arsenic (Cárcamo et al. 2012). In the coastal wetland next to the complex, soil and plants of the glasswort Sarcocornia neei hold more cadmium, lead, copper and arsenic than in a protected wetland used for comparison (Meza et al. 2018).

In August and September 2018 more than 700 residents of Quintero and Puchuncaví, mostly children, were affected by repeated episodes of gas poisoning. In May 2019 the Supreme Court upheld the residents' petitions and ordered the authorities to identify the pollutants, set up adequate monitoring and start health surveillance programmes within a year; further episodes followed in the months after (Mongabay 2019).

On 17 June 2022 the government announced the closure of the smelter, which took place on 31 May 2023 (Spanish Wikipedia).

Timeline

  1. 1964ENAMI opens the Ventanas copper smelter.
  2. 1994The area around the complex is declared saturated for sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.
  3. 2003The smelter passes to Codelco.
  4. 2018August–September: mass poisonings in Quintero and Puchuncaví, more than 700 people.
  5. 2019May: the Supreme Court upholds the residents' petitions and imposes measures on the authorities.
  6. 202331 May: the Ventanas smelter closes for good.

Health

More than 700 people, mainly children, poisoned in the episodes of August and September 2018; in October 2019 another twenty pupils of one school had symptoms of poisoning (Mongabay 2019). The sources consulted report no epidemiological studies of chronic effects.

Remediation

  1. 2013emission reductionClosure of the refinery's precious-metals plant, cutting its air emissions by 33% (Spanish Wikipedia).
  2. 2023source closureClosure of the copper smelter.

Plants and fungi at this site

PhytoremediationLaboratory, with soil from the site

Lolium perenne

Aided phytostabilisation on acidic soils from the Puchuncaví valley: laboratory test of locally available amendments (seashell grit, biosolids, natural zeolite and iron-activated zeolite), with perennial ryegrass as the indicator of phytotoxicity.

Outcome Bringing the soil to pH 6.5 with seashell grit significantly lowers copper and zinc solubilisation without raising that of arsenic, and removes phytotoxicity and excessive accumulation in shoots. Above pH 6.5, with biosolids or zeolite, arsenic in pore water rises.

PhytoremediationField scale

Field plots in the Puchuncaví valley treated with lime and with compost for in situ immobilisation of trace elements; effectiveness was assessed using reproduction of the earthworm Eisenia fetida as the toxicity indicator. The study concerns the amendments: the sources consulted do not name the plant species on the plots.

Outcome Lime and compost raise pH and lower exchangeable zinc and copper; compost, however, raises soluble copper and soluble and exchangeable arsenic. Only compost improves earthworm reproduction; the toxicity factor is total arsenic.

PhytoremediationLaboratory, with soil from the site

Sarcocornia neei

Laboratory trial with the halophyte Sarcocornia neei on lead-contaminated soil from the commune of Puchuncaví (77.97 mg/kg lead, pH 5.77–6.38); the plants came from the El Yali wetland.

Outcome The authors report a phytoremediation efficiency of 99% on the soil samples; they call the result preliminary.

Microbial bioremediationLaboratory, with soil from the site

Pseudomonas gessardii, Brevundimonas intermedia, Fimetariella rabenhorstii, Hormonema viticola

Two arsenic-resistant bacteria and two fungi isolated from contaminated soil of the Puchuncaví valley and inoculated on wheat (Triticum aestivum) to help plants establish: they produce indoleacetic acid or siderophores and solubilise phosphate.

Outcome The bacteria tolerate up to 7,000 mg/L arsenate, the fungi up to 2,500 mg/L. With P. gessardii and B. intermedia together, wheat dry biomass and the expression of metal-stress defence genes increase.

From the literature

Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.

Plants

Fungi

The rest are on the contaminant pages.

Sources

  1. Cárcamo V. et al. Simultaneous immobilization of metals and arsenic in acidic polluted soils near a copper smelter in central Chile, Springer, 2012
  2. Neaman A., Huerta S., Sauvé S. Effects of lime and compost on earthworm (Eisenia fetida) reproduction in copper and arsenic contaminated soils from the Puchuncaví Valley, Chile, Elsevier, 2012
  3. Meza V. et al. Sarcocornia neei as an Indicator of Environmental Pollution: A Comparative Study in Coastal Wetlands of Central Chile. Plants, MDPI, 2018
  4. Puchuncaví y Quintero: crisis social en Chile, Mongabay Latam, 2019
  5. Fundición Ventanas, Wikipedia (es), 2026

Draft compiled from public sources, not yet reviewed.