ALERT - Last lead smelter in US to shut down
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...r-usa-closing/
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Last Remaining Lead Smelter In The USA Closing After 120 Years
Suddenly the US Army’s obsession with lead-free ammunition makes perfect sense, it was about security not the environment. A reader writes …
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The last remaining lead smelter, in Herculaneum MO, is closing down. This will undoubtedly affect the price of lead, since the lead that is mined in Viburnum MO will now be sent out of the US for smelting.
Missouri’s Lead Belt has been the primary source of lead for the US since 1700. A lead smelter has been in operation in Herculaneum since 1892. This is why Lake City, Federal, and other ammunition companies have been located in the region. The recent articles on shot towers don’t really apply to the ammunition industry that existed on the bluffs of the Mississippi river, since no tower was needed. The top of the ‘shot tower’ was simply an overhang by the river.
The EPA’s new clean air rules would require a $100 million dollar investment in new equipment. As such, the Doe Run Company has decided to close the site.
According to STL Today reports that the 145 jobs will be lost and the company will terminate 73 contractors. My understanding is that most, if not all, mines that produce lead ore in the USA also produce a number of other minerals, so this does not necessarily mean job losses in the mining sector.
With the USA no longer producing lead, almost all of the worlds lead will come from China, Australia and Peru.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/w...production.jpg[quote]
http://www.stltoday.com/business/loc...4715f3c2d.html
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Doe Run workers to be cut at end of December
HERCULANEUM • About 145 employees of the Doe Run lead smelter have learned they will lose their jobs at the end of December because of the plant’s closure, the Doe Run Co. said Wednesday. An additional 73 contractor jobs also will be eliminated.
The job cuts were expected. The plant, which has operated for more than a century and is the lone remaining lead smelter in the United States, announced in 2010 that it will cease operations at the end of this year.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the company “made a business decision” to shut down the smelter instead of installing pollution control technologies needed to reduce sulfur dioxide and lead emissions as required by the Clean Air Act.
The Doe Run Co. announced last year that it had dropped plans to build a new lead processing facility in Herculaneum that would have used a new, cleaner lead production technology. The company cited the
$100 million project as too financially risky.
Employees were notified of their future with the company or of their impending layoff between Sept. 30 and Oct. 8 in face-to-face meetings, said Tammy Stankey, a company spokeswoman.
The company will keep about 75 employees into 2014 to operate its refinery and strip mill and to prepare the property “for closure and repurposing.” It expects to have transferred 43 employees to other Doe Run divisions by this year’s end, according to a company statement.
Some operations, such as the water treatment plant, will operate indefinitely, and a maintenance staff will remain to “maintain essential facilities,” the company said.
The company said it had been working with employees for months to help them transition to new roles and had set up a career center to help with resume writing, interviewing and job searches.
“We have a very talented workforce and encourage businesses looking for dedicated, hardworking and skilled employees to contact us,” Gary Hughes, general manager of the smelter, said in the statement.
EPA has done it to the Lead industry - [smilie=b: