EPA orders Doe Run to increase cleanup efforts

The Environmental Protection Agency has told Doe Run Lead Company to increase its cleanup efforts in the southeast Missouri town of Leadwood.

The EPA says Doe Run needs to do a better, faster, job cleaning up a pile of mine tailings, to write a new plan for use of treated sewage sludge at the site, and to step up security at the site.

The agency says the new order stems from a variety of public concerns about the progress Doe Run is making and the way it’s carrying out the earlier orders.

The Leadwood site is one of six mine waste sites in Missouri’s Old Lead Belt region, all of which are Doe Run sites. The EPA issued a unilateral order three years ago for Doe Run to clean up the sites. The new order adds new things for the company to do and sets specific deadlines for completion of those projects.

The EPA will hold a public meeting in Park Hills to discuss the order on August 13.