doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com American Lead production will end

From the NRA-ILA
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articl...n-december.aspx

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.


From the Doe Run Company
http://www.doerun.com/MediaCenter/NewsRe...issourians.aspx



Pete

It never ceases to amaze of that an 'authority' can put an end to an industry because it's dirty , but not mention that any lead which will need to be imported into the country in the future could well come from the dirtiest most polluted area of another distant country. Is that okay then ?
I realise the demand for lead has decreased dramatically since it was banned from paints, toys and petrol (replaced by benzene I believe, must be safe these days then ?) But as more countries look to nuclear power to generate electricity, surely the metal could become a viable product again.
The answer may be cleaner smelting and more recycling. Once the industry is gone, it's hard to resurrect. I live in a not so long dead lead mining area. No one died from lead in the water or soil.
I wonder if better or new fume scrubbers would be cheaper than demolishing the plant and cleaning up the land it's built on , or could it simply be down to pressure from people who don't want the industry too close to where they live ?

"California Syndrome." They use more electricity per capita than any other state, but they don't want no nasty power plants. Oh and they expect it to be cheap, too.

Virginian, you are as wrong as wrong can be. Of all the states and the District of Columbia, California's per capita use of electricity ranks number 51, lowest in the country. Wyoming is number 1 and uses more than four times the per capita kwh as does California. Virginia uses more than twice the kwh per capita as does California. Louisiana uses almost triple the per capita kwh as does California. As for the cost of that electricity, we would like it to be cheap, but we no longer have any expectation that it will be cheap. Cost per kwh in California is the fourth highest in the country, behind only New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. California generates more electricity per year than any states except Texas and Pennsylvania, and I'd bet that most Texas kwh are from oil plants and most Pennsylvania kwh are from coal plants. California's production is a whole lot cleaner than either of those.

Citations follow, but if you want to mouth off about stuff, at least get your facts somewhat straight. California is so screwed up in so many ways that I have lost count and lost all hope for recovery in my lifetime. But electricity usage is not one of those problems. Your comment is not only factually wrong, it is completely irrelevant to the issue of lead smelting and production. It is uninformed opinion at this level that gets guys like Obama elected and re-elected.

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/us_per_capita_electricity-2010.html

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/

You may be right on per capita use, however if one considers only within state generated capacity, like water california is an over consumer

My family originally hails from California, my grandfather a religious duck hunter who lived for the outdoors and my father had a gun in his hand chasing one game or another from early on. I find nothing more sad than the dream that was once California.

I visited my family graves last spring and could not be more sad how their world is gone

What's with this "may" be right stuff? Look at the data. Regarding California's use of water, "over consumer" is a matter of opinion. The state uses a lot of water, but it also has a lot of water. Snow pack in the Sierra is usually massive, except in drought years when it is only gigantic. In the Southern California mountains, within two hours of Los Angeles, I have had snow over eleven feet deep in my driveway. But, Southern California is a desert, and a lot of that water evaporates during the summer. Remember the Colorado River? Big river, lots of water most of the time. Flows along the border of California and irrigates the agricultural fields in the Imperial Valley and elsewhere. The IV and the San Joaquin Valley both use great gobs of water. If they didn't use that water, much of the rest of the country would go hungry. California is the largest agricultural producer and shipper in the country. The state's ag production is greater than that of most countries. The state is still a political and regulatory nightmare, run by idiots elected by other idiots. But it produces an awful lot of food with the water it consumes. Most of the other 49 states could legitimately be called over consumers of food because they don't produce enough to support their population. And does this have anything to do with the elimination of lead smelting in the U.S.? Hell no, but I'm tired of listening to misinformation.

Thanks for bringing it up Pete. Sad, but I'm digging through my odds and ends, deciding if it's time to jump in and do a little hoarding.

Craig, that was my first reaction--to hoard. As if lead shot prices aren't high enough. In looking at the size of the plant being shut down (145 job losses), it makes me wonder if the US has become more reliant on lead imports to feed our secondary smelters. Doe Run apparently announced its plans to close in 2010. I can foresee panic hoarding once again. Here's the article from the St. Louis newspaper.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/d...64715f3c2d.html
Gil

does any one know what the output of this smelter is? that would be key to understanding the impact.

our lead may already be coming from some foreign source.

What about the lead shot reclaimed from the clays clubs? I guess West Coast Shot and its competitors are allowed to melt it to make new shot.

It has to be cleaned up. Does that count as smelting?