Families file poisoning suit against Doe Run smelter

ST. LOUIS -- The families of 16 children filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Doe Run Company, accusing it of negligence for exposing the children to lead and other toxins.

St. Louis-based Doe Run operates the nation's largest lead smelter in Herculaneum. Federal officials have recently conducted tests that show levels of lead in homes and on roads that are far above government health standards.

The lawsuit was filed a day after officials released a federal study that found the smelter was the most likely source of lead in two nearby homes. The study was conducted by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The study supports claims of Herculaneum residents who say the smelter is the overwhelming reason some of the city's children have tested positive for lead poisoning.

Robyn Warden lived in one of the houses until recently. She moved Aug. 30 after Doe Run bought her house. Her two youngest children were tested and results showed blood-lead levels two to three times the threshold for lead poisoning.

The Wardens are among the families filing the lawsuit, which accuses Doe Run and its predecessors of not properly controlling its release of lead and other toxins. Lead poisoning has been linked to behavioral problems, shortened attention spans, learning difficulties and decreased intelligence.

"People are scared," said the families' lawyer, Mark Bronson. "They don't walk outside if they don't have to. They don't let their kids outside. They drive their kids to school."

Doe Run President Jeffrey Zelms said he could not yet comment on the lawsuit because he hadn't seen it.

Herculaneum residents are under a federal warning to avoid walking outdoors until the contamination there has been cleared. The Environmental Protection Agency has said recent testing of dust found along the main route for trucks coming to and from the smelter showed elevated levels of lead and cadmium, a metallic byproduct of lead smelting.

Late last month, Denise Jordan-Izaguirre of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said the levels were "extremely high."

"There would be a severe risk if kids were sitting in the streets and playing in the dust and gravel that were found," she said.

The 109-year-old smelter, along the Mississippi River about 30 miles south of St. Louis, is the largest employer in Herculaneum, a city of about 2,800