by Tom Kruzen, Mining Subcommittee
Lead concentrate covering Forest Service Road 2241 next to Doe Run's Buick Mine and Mill. 100 miles of state and federal highways in Eastern Missouri are now contaminated with lead. |
Below is a list of occurrences in Doe Run’s corporate life from February, 1989 to July, 2003. Doe Run and its managers provide Missourians a steady stream of pollution and seeming inability or unwillingness to address the issues. At times Jeffrey Zelms, CEO, seems to make fun of the seriousness of the problem by licking a chunk of lead ore he revealed from his pocket in front of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board and others. “See, it didn’t hurt me”, he exclaimed! All too often, their PR is absurdly offering “cookies” to the kiddies rather than cleaning up their 110-year mess in Herculaneum. They have often cleverly tried to keep their dirty secrets “in the closet”. I suggest they have failed miserably.
Some highlights compiled from Doe Run's recent past:
| February, 1989: | Rise in lead emissions at Herculaneum nearly 4 times national average (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) |
| June, 1989: | Notice of Violation issued against Doe Run for violations of air standards for almost three years. |
| June, 1989: | Doe Run holds community meeting in Herculaneum. |
| August, 1989: | Notice of Violation issued for excess air pollution from the second quarter of 1986 to present at the Herculaneum facility. |
| February, 1990: | Doe Run does not report sulfuric acid spill of 40,000 gallons in Herculaneum residential area. Doe Run is called "bad actor" by the State of Missouri. |
| March, 1990: | Doe Run issued penalty of $50,000 for violations in Herculaneum. |
| November, 1991: | EPA cites Doe Run for air violations in and around Herculaneum. |
| July, 1992: | St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports "despite spending $20 million, Doe Run continues to violate air quality standards, as it has for 15 years". (St. Louis Post Dispatch). |
| October, 1992: | Sulfuric acid spill at Herculaneum plant of 500 gallons. |
| 1992: | Doe Run begins monthly newsletter "Neighborhood Notes" in Herculaneum. |
| January, 1992: | Department of Natural Resources finds violations at Doe Run's Buick, Missouri facility including 15,000 drums, open burning, leaking battery bunker, "releases too numerous to quantify", "an unbelievable mess". (Missouri Department of Natural Resources records). Doe Run was fined by the state to the tune of $300,000. Half of this went to fund equipment purchases for Missouri’s Stream Team Program. |
| February, 1993: | Notice of violation issued against Doe Run for exceeding air standards by four times the limit at Herculaneum. |
| May, 1993: | Doe Run tops Toxic Release Inventory list for top polluter in state; Doe Run's president Jeff Zelms states "We're tickled to death about the progress we've made." (St. Louis Post Dispatch) |
| May, 1993: | Notice of Violations issues for water emissions at Herculaneum. |
| August, 1993: | Doe Run produces video called Living with Lead for Herculaneum community members. |
| August, 1993: | Doe Run cited for 313 violations by OSHA, including 283 willful violations (meaning they knew about the violations yet did nothing to correct them) and 136 instances of failing to record occupational injuries (Wall Street Journal, 2/18/88). |
| December, 1993: | Doe Run settles violation of Feb. 25, 1993 with check for $5,000. |
| May, 1994: | Notice of Violation issued against Doe Run for inspection failures at Herculaneum. |
| May, 1995: | EPA and Doe Run sign stipulated agreement to address violations. Between this date and August, 1996, eight more violations occur at Herculaneum. |
| June, 1996: | EPA issues complaint against Doe Run for failure to report toxic chemical release inventory emissions (TRI) for chromium compounds for two years; penalty assessed in amount of $34,000 which Doe Run paid the following month. |
| August, 1996: | Gas explosion occurs at Herculaneum's plant. |
| August, 1996: | USEPA begins action against Doe Run for failure of air violations in Herculaneum. |
| September, 1996: | Overflow of untreated toxic water into Mississippi River at Herculaneum facility. |
| September, 1997: | Doe Run receives final notice by EPA for failure of air violations at Herculaneum. |
| October, 1997: | Doe Run's parent company Renco purchases smelter in La Oroya, Peru for $126 million plus $120 million in improvements. In the deal Renco obligated La Oroya to loan Renco $126 million interest free. (Vanity Fair, July, 2003) |
| 1998: | Doe Run purchases Glover, Missouri facility. |
| April, 2001: | Toxics Release Inventory shows Doe Run holding the top seven spots of most polluting companies in Missouri. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) |
| July, 2001: | Agencies for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issues Health Consultation Report of Herculaneum referring to past and present exposures of lead as a "persistent and unacceptable public health hazard". |
| August, 2001: | Missouri Department of Natural Resources find lead levels of 300,000 parts per million on residential Herculaneum street; 400 parts per million is considered the hazardous level at which remediation is triggered. |
| 2001: | Former Doe Run workers come forward to identify illegal burying of hazardous waste at Doe Run facility, which triggers Grand Jury investigation. |
| September 10, 2001: | Notice of Violation issued for toxic materials falling from uncovered trucks in residential areas in Herculaneum. |
| September 22, 2001: | Notice of Violation issued for toxic materials coming into ambient air from uncovered trucks as witnessed by Department of Natural Resources at Herculaneum. |
| September, 24, 2001: | Missouri Department of Health sends letter to Missouri Department of Natural Resources citing "clear and present" and "imminent and substantial endangerment" to Herculaneum residents. |
| September 25, 2001: | Missouri Department of Natural Resources issues order to Cease and Desist to Doe Run. |
| September, 2001: | State of Missouri installs caution signs on residential streets in Herculaneum which warn citizens of high lead levels and instructs families to visit parks in other towns. |
| September, 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. |
| September, 2001: | EPA notes need to address "emergency conditions caused by release of hazardous substances" from Doe Run's Herculaneum facility. |
| October, 2001: | Notice of Violation issued against Doe Run by the State's Water Pollution Program. |
| October, 2001: | Notice of Violation issued against Doe Run by the MDNR Air Pollution Program. |
| October, 2001: | Missouri Department of Natural Resources proposes listing the Mississippi River from the Doe Run facility downstream five miles--as impaired. |
| December, 2001: | Federal and State agencies sign agreement listing mandatory actions to be taken by the company including the buy-out of hundreds of contaminated homes in Herculaneum. |
| February , 2002: | Agencies for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issue Health Consultation Report which finds that 56% of children within 1/4 mile of the Doe Run smelter are lead poisoned. Further alarming, 23% of children within 1.25 miles from the facility are found to be lead poisoned. |
| March, 2002: | Letter from Missouri Department of Natural Resources to Doe Run's Jeffrey Zelms states: "The company's practice of doing the minimum work to obtain marginal regulatory compliance is clearly unacceptable given the continuing health threat to citizens of Missouri. We will not stand idly by while the company attempts to buy time...". The letter cites the company's "evasions". |
| December, 2002: | Doe Run hosts "Open House"; pen and mugs giveaways, ornament decorating for kids, free cookies. |
| May, 2003: | Doe Run hosts "Open House"; public tours of facility, "educational seminars", barbeque on the parking lot of the smelter! |
| July, 2003: | Officials in Jefferson, Iron and Reynolds Counties in Missouri meet to discuss tactic of "divide and conquer" used by the Doe Run Company to avoid paying taxes (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 7/21/03). |
The story continues today with the clean-up of 100 miles of haul road from Doe Run’s mines/mills to their two primary smelters at Herculaneum and Glover. Over fifty homes along the way will have to be cleaned and most will have their yard soil replaced to a depth of one foot.
Earlier this month Doe Run was sued for multi-millions of dollars by Burlington Northern Railroad to recoup losses incurred while hauling Doe Run’s lead concentrate in the mid-nineties. It seems no one at Doe Run told 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.
Similar illness beset the people of Herculaneum as well as many of the workers. Over the years untold suffering has issued from the lead industry that has literally covered the earth. Shameless men who own and run this company blather pieties such as, ”We are continuing to improve.” The owner, Ira Leon Rennert blatantly builds the largest house in America. Price tag: $100 million including a 100-car garage and 41 bathrooms on some pricey real estate in the Hamptons on Long Island. (And on the backs of millions affected by his toxic products and toxic behavior.)
This same company now comes to water quality rules meetings the state is holding and insists it be allowed to drain their mining waste into the Scenic Rivers…the Current, The Jacks Fork and the Eleven Point Rivers, some of the cleanest rivers in the United States.
Like Pig Pen in Charles’ Schultz’s “Peanuts” Doe Run’s foul dust and foul deeds follow them everywhere! We would be the fools to let them get away with ruining the last best watershed in Missouri. Before that happens, they will have to run over my dead body and maybe quite a few thousand (maybe even millions) more people who live along and use these rivers for recreation. If we’ve learned nothing from their brief history, it is very apparent that Doe Run is sufficiently capable of destroying things.
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