Charlotte, NC –-(Ammoland.com)- In December, the final primary lead smelter in the United States will close. The lead smelter, located in Herculaneum, Missouri, and owned and operated by the Doe Run Company, has existed in the same location since 1892.
The Herculaneum smelter is currently the only smelter in the United States which can produce lead bullion from raw lead ore that is mined nearby in Missouri’s extensive lead deposits, giving the smelter its “primary” designation. The lead bullion produced in Herculaneum is then sold to lead product producers, including ammunition manufactures for use in conventional ammunition components such as projectiles, projectile cores, and primers. Several “secondary” smelters, where lead is recycled from products such as lead acid batteries or spent ammunition components, still operate in the United States.
Doe Run made significant efforts to reduce lead emissions from the smelter, but in 2008 the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard. Given the new lead air quality standard, Doe Run made the decision to close the Herculaneum smelter.
Whatever the EPA’s motivation when creating the new lead air quality standard, increasingly restrictive regulation of lead is likely to affect the production and cost of traditional ammunition. Just this month, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will ban lead ammunition for all hunting in California. The Center for Biological Diversity has tried multiple times to get similar regulations at the federal level by trying, and repeatedly failing, to get the EPA to regulate conventional ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
At this time, it’s unclear if Doe Run or another company will open a new lead smelter in the United States that can meet the more stringent lead air quality standards by using more modern smelting methods.
What is clear is that after the Herculaneum smelter closes its doors in December, entirely domestic manufacture of conventional ammunition, from raw ore to finished cartridge, will be impossible.
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Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
Once again people this hitler wannabe is finding yet another insidious way to cripple Americas economy piece by piece, I to wonder what Germany would have been like if hitler was kicked out in 39or40 hopefully we can wake up enough people to rid our great country of this tyrant in our midst before he ruins America forever!!! His dream is to ruin America or destroy us by any means possible. We need to get rid of him before he do anything else to destroy America!!!
This lead plant has been under fire for a long time. It is an old operation, with old technology, that is not very clean. The company wants to build a new plant and continue operations. The question is where. “In early 2007, the EPA found high concentrations of lead in dust collected on roads near Doe Run’s Herculaneum smelter; trucks leaving mines in Reynolds, Iron and Dent counties have at times been coated with lead. Spills of lead ore and concentrate also have occurred in the mining district and have not always been cleaned to acceptable levels, the EPA said.… Read more »
I AM COUNTING THE DAYS WHEN THIS WANT TO BE DICTATOR IS OUT OF HERE AND I NEVER HAVE TO HEAR HIS NAME AGAIN, UNLESS IT IS HIM GOING TO COURT.
The politicians in Washington are wizards of social engineering. There are no unintended consequences to their actions. Until we remove these statists from office, the myriad government edicts and regulations will fulfill Obama’s promise to “Fundamentally Change America”. We need a repeat of the grass roots activism that happened in 2010.
The US military has enormous stockpiles of lead on selected military reservations around the country. The Military and the obama civilian army will have all the lead they need.
This is just what they want, They are thinking that with out the lead for ammo they will be able to take over without any problems. Just watch what happens in the next year with this country you can expect that there will be some big changes coming down the pike. This administration has already destroyed or at the very least caused major damage to the countries manufacturing plants and other areas as well. They are thinking that with no more access to the ammo that we need there will no more problems such as mass shootings but then the… Read more »