Doe Run route tests 'relatively clean' for lead concentrate

The Doe Run Company has completed its self-testing of soil samples along the lead concentrate haul route near the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority. Testing revealed some lead present in the dust along the road, but at a level the EPA has identified as "relatively clean."

The samples were taken in August following an agreement the St. Louis-based Doe Run entered into with the EPA to minimize environmental contamination of dust along the routes used by trucks leaving Doe Run loaded with lead concentrate. Several of those trucks arrive at the SEMO Port every day, where lead concentrate is loaded onto barges by Girardeau Stevedores.

Meanwhile, construction continues on a $4 million warehouse and loading facility at Girardeau Stevedores, financed by the shipping company and Doe Run, to minimize the risk of contamination of the SEMO Port harbor. That facility is expected to be completed in February, said Girardeau Stevedores president Lanny Koch.

The EPA didn't observe the August sampling, Dianna Whitaker, a spokeswoman for the EPA's Region 7 based in Kansas City, Kan., said in an e-mail. But more samples will be taken in February and EPA personnel will observe the process, Whitaker said.

Doe Run has been under regulatory scrutiny in recent years resulting from lead contamination near its Herculaneum smelter and along the roads used by its trucks. Earlier this year, the company entered into an agreement with the EPA to stop contamination along haul routes by taking steps such as making sure lead concentrate loads are covered and installing truck washes at unloading points.

The SEMO Port samples were taken at six regular intervals along the outbound lane of the haul road from the port -- Route AB -- for a distance of one mile.

Doe Run has used Girardeau Stevedores to load its lead concentrate -- about 75 percent pure lead -- onto barges destined for overseas markets since 2003. During that time an unidentified amount of lead concentrate, which is less dangerous to biological organisms than pure, smelted lead, has found its way into the port harbor.

Under an agreement between environmental regulatory agencies, the SEMO Port, Doe Run and the Army Corps of Engineers, Doe Run and the port are required to regularly monitor the bottom of the harbor for lead contamination.

If the levels exceed those deemed safe for marine life that lives at the river bottom, the material must be removed from the harbor.

If contamination is found, no more lead concentrate can be loaded until it is cleaned, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Alan Dooley.

However, there is no evidence that the lead concentrate has entered into the Mississippi River channel.

Dan Vornberg, Doe Run's vice president for environmental affairs, said the company "feels good" about the process in place and its protection of the harbor from contamination, and that there are no ramifications for human health from lead concentrate spillage in the harbor.

With the completion of the new lead warehouse and transfer facility, Doe Run, Girardeau Stevedores, regulatory agencies and the port hope to significantly reduce the chances that more lead concentrate will escape into the harbor while barges are loaded.

SEMO Port executive director Dan Overbey said once the facility is complete, "it would take some kind of really unusual accident" for more lead concentrate to escape into the harbor.

Samples of the harbor bottom will be collected again before the facility is ready for operation.

Whitaker said that while the roadside samples were "relatively clean," the EPA still has concerns about the concentration of lead on the streets "because it indicates the likelihood that small particles of lead concentrate are in the dust and being released to the road."

Whitaker said the truck wash being constructed at the port should reduce any lead releases in the non-residential area.

msanders@semissourian.com

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