Smelter Owner to Buy Out 160 Homes in Missouri Town

The owner of the nation’s largest lead smelter will offer buyouts to about 160 homeowners in the small town of Herculaneum, where tests show many children have elevated levels of lead in their blood.

The agreement with the Doe Run Co., reached Thursday with state officials, adds to the government-mandated cleanup already underway in the town south of St. Louis, where the company’s smelter is the major employer.

It’s the largest home buyout in the state forced by environmental contamination since the Environmental Protection Agency closed down the nearby town of Times Beach in 1982 because of dioxin contamination.

“There is still a long way to go in Herculaneum,” Gov. Bob Holden said Friday. “However, yesterday we took a huge step forward.”

The agreement requires Doe Run to immediately offer to buy the homes of residents with children younger than 6 who live nearest the smelter and slag pile. The company, over the next 2 1/2 years, also will offer buyouts to all residents within a slightly wider area.

The state Department of Health and Senior Services released a study last month that found elevated lead levels in the blood of 28% of Herculaneum children.

A follow-up report released Tuesday showed that more than half the children living within a half-mile of the smelter have elevated levels of lead in their blood, which can affect intelligence and cause health problems.

The company will meet with residents to discuss the buyout; a date has not been set.

“I’m glad they thought enough of the children to get them out of this mess,” Dennis Shore, who lives about two blocks from the smelter, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A recent blood test showed his 3-year-old granddaughter, Madison, had lead levels nearly twice the federal standard for lead poisoning.