Given this country’s calamitous economic state, dark humorists here find it fitting that the nation’s worst-known toxic dumpsite lies in a town named Argentina. One day in 1990, a train pulled into the hamlet, located in Santiago del Estero province. (See map.) Ten railroad workers hopped off and dug a pit just 80 meters (260 feet) from the tracks. They unloaded the contents of two railroad cars into the pit and capped them with a shallow layer of dirt. Not until 1994 did it become publicly known what they had buried. A railroad worker told a town resident, who contacted an environmental group. Denunciations ensued. Eventually, an investigation was conducted. The pit, it was found, contains some 30 tons of chemicals—the bulk of... [Log in to read more]
