DOE RUN HERCULANEUM MISSORI'S NUMBER ONE POLLUTER

100 Years of Deadly Contamination in Missouri Smelter Town

In echoes of Times Beach and Love Canal, the Doe Run Company is offering to buy 160 homes in the area near their smelter in this Missouri community of about 3,660. This could be because they are nice folks, or it could be because the Feds are beginning to lean on them hard. The owner of the company, one Ira Leon Rennert, has some other toxicity and financial issues, so we don't know for sure.

For example, the La Oroya, Peru smelter that poisoned the population for decades before Doe Ran shut it down, leaving an unresolved environmental diaster.

does run herculaneum missouri

Here's Jeffrey L Zelms, Doe Run CEO, who licked a lump of lead in front of reporters, then said: "See, it didn't hurt me." He's a funny guy, and you should tell him so jzelms@doerun.com or just call 314-453-7140.

This particular smelter has been polluting the area for 110 years. In 2001, agencies for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry finds with 99.8 percent certainty that source of Herculaneum children's lead poisoning is the Doe Run facility. In February 2002: the same agencies issued a Health Consultation Report showing 56% of children within 1/4 mile of the Doe Run smelter are lead poisoned, and 23% of children within 1.25 miles. There's a complete list here here.

But you know you're really screwing up when a railroad sues you for polluting. In 2005, the Burlington Northern Railroad sued Doe Run to recoup losses incurred while hauling Doe Run’s lead concentrate in the mid-nineties. The smelter folks forgot to tell the rail workers that lead concentrate was toxic. They cleaned rail gondolas and spread the “funny gray soil that didn’t grow nothing” all over Cherryville and Crawford County.

Some of the men actually burned tires in the rail cars to thaw the frozen concentrate in winter, releasing more toxins. Some of these men became very ill and lost kidneys. 100 miles of state and federal highways in Eastern Missouri are now contaminated with lead.

Over the past couple years, the company has been making some sort of effort to clean up, or to look as if it's cleaning up. While this is moderately good news, it only emphasizes the most basic fact of corporate behavio: If you don't force these people to do the right thing, they'll do the profitable thing. Regardless, in thousands of cases, of the cost in sickness and human life. There are a few exceptions - but Doe Run isn't one of them).

ira rennert and wifey

Ira and Inga. Nice hair.
Let's visit Ira Rennert (owner of Doe Run and U.S. Magnesium, Utah's largest polluter) at home on Long Island.