Lead Mining in Missouri

Lead poisoning is the single most preventable and avoidable childhood health affliction in the world today. Close to 1 million U.S. children are lead poisoned each year! 

Missouri has a 300-year history with lead mining and production and remains the largest producer of lead in the U.S. today. Thirty percent of the children in St. Louis are lead poisoned and 38 Missouri counties are contaminated from mining, milling, smelting and transportation of mining materials. 

The Doe Run Company, based in St. Louis, is the world's second largest integrated lead producer worldwide. Doe Run operates lead mining facilities in Reynolds, Iron and Jefferson Counties in Missouri, a copper mine and polymetallic smelter in La Oroya, Peru, and lead fabrication plants in Texas and Washington State. 

Most recently Doe Run has sent lead concentrate by the barge full to China where very lax environmental laws allow smelting in people�s backyards. Herculaneum, Missouri had the highest recorded lead contamination ever recorded in the U.S. La Oroya is now considered the most contaminated town in the Western Hemisphere and the fifth most polluted urban area in the world. Missouri's Department of Natural Resources constantly finds Doe Run in violation of federal and state law. They have been forced to spend millions to clean up yards and roadsides in Missouri yet they continue to operate in extremely careless ways without regard to human health or damage to the environment.

Doe Run's plans for future expansion into Missouri's Scenic Rivers is a constant concern and the reason Missouri Sierra Club volunteers keep watch on their activities. 

What is the Sierra Club doing?

The Missouri Sierra Club has opposed the expansion of lead mining into the Scenic Rivers Region of Missouri since 1983. Club activists have petitioned the USDA Forest Service, the Missouri legislative delegation, the US Interior Department and the National Park Service to protect this region from the ravages of industrial mining of heavy metal. 

In 1996 Missouri Sierra Club sued the Missouri Conservation Commission when it illegally decided to allow mining exploration on state lands. The Missouri Club supported University of Missouri - Rolla (UMR) technician turned whistle-blower, Bob Lunsford, when he exposed massive lead contamination at the UMR campus. Bob later became an excellent ally and consultant when Sierra Club helped organize the people in Herculaneum, MO against the gross contamination of their community caused by Doe Run's lead smelter (the largest in the world). 

Our efforts aided in nationwide public exposure of this company's shoddy housekeeping and production methods. Club activists worked with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NY Times, CNN, Vanity Fair, 60 Minutes II, Bill Moyers �Now� and other major media outlets to expose Doe Run and its greedy corporate owner, Ira Leon Rennert. Pressure from our media campaign, from MDNR and the extraordinary citizens in Herculaneum forced a 160 home buy-out within 3/8 of a mile of the smelter! 

Members of the Missouri Sierra Club continue to monitor Doe Run here as well as at their operations abroad. The National Club has joined with Oxfam America and the Missouri Chapter to work for environmental justice in Peru at Doe Run's antiquated smelter in the Andean town of La Oroya. The 30,000 residents of that town are lead poisoned, 18,000 of them children. In 2005 we helped to organize the first independent lead study of that town and its residents. It was a joint effort of the Archdiocese of Huancayo Province, the Giddings Lovejoy Presbytery's �Joining Hands Network� and the St. Louis University School of Public Health.

Take Action

Volunteer your time and talent to help Missouri Sierra Club volunteers and staff monitor Doe Run's activities at their facilities and as they seek to influence Missouri's state governing bodies and agencies to the detriment of Missouri communities and wildlands.

Financially support Missouri Sierra Club to help maintain our ability to expose and oppose this billion dollar bad acting polluting American corporation. Fighting a billion dollar polluting empire costs money. DONATE NOW.

To learn more about this issue or get involved contact: 

Tom or Angel Kruzen
213 East 3rd St. 
Mountain View, Mo. 65548
kruzen3@hotmail.com 
417-934-2818