EPA Closure of Last Smelting Plant to Impact Ammo Production

[Vol Texan]

A cousin of mine sent this to me recently, and I wonder what the good members of this community have to say about it...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/co ... production

I don't know much about this site, so I don't know if it's Alex Jones' type of sensationalism or not...

About 145 employees of the Doe Run lead smelter [in Herculaneum, Missouri] learned they will lose their jobs at the end of December because of the plant’s closure, the Doe Run Co. said Wednesday. An additional 73 contractor jobs also will be eliminated.

The job cuts were expected. The plant, which has operated for more than a century and is the lone remaining lead smelter in the United States, announced in 2010 that it will cease operations at the end of this year.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the company “made a business decision” to shut down the smelter instead of installing pollution control technologies needed to reduce sulfur dioxide and lead emissions as required by the Clean Air Act.

That all sounds so very sterile, but the truth of the matter is that in shuttering this plant, the Obama administration has taken yet another unconstitutional step, one that will severely impinge on the nation's ammunition manufacturing capability. Why would the Doe Run Company, the owners of the Missouri lead smelting facility, agree to being run out of business by the EPA? One word: extortion.

...

First, the EPA’s closing of the country’s last lead smelting facility follows close on the heels (within a little over a month) of Secretary of State John Kerry’s signing of the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) “on behalf of President Barack Obama and the people of the United States.”

[tommyg]

This sounds like trouble. Now all the ammo lead has to be imported. Remember that
Obama's Buddy (John Kerry) signed the treaty on small arms. Other countries that
have signed the UN small arms treaty could be barred from exporting lead for
the purpose of making ammunition. Now other countries can control the supply of
ammo by restricting raw materials to make it. This is another a sneak attack on
the second amendment. Maybe ammo can be made out of something else at an
outrageous cost Maybe silver like the Lone Ranger

[MoJo]

I read this article

Sierra Bullets says this should not affect them in any way. They don't use new lead they use recycled lead witch, by the way, is smelted at a smelter owned by the same company that owns the smelter being shut down. How this will affect other bullet makers is uncertain. Sierra said there is a lot of lead already imported now. The smelter in question produces very little of the overall quantity of lead used in the US.

[bmwrdr]

It is going to be the same effect as all outsourcing business in the past. Prices up, quality down while the current political leaders lie and even believe their own lies. A country with too much overhead is a troubled country. Using the green house effect as an excvuse to close the lead factory is nonsense too. There would be much bigger fish to fry.

[psijac]

I am amazed at the shenanigans they are using to pull our rights our from under us. If they put half as much effort into upholding the constitution as they did trying to circumvent it this country would be in amazing shape.

[rotor]

I think that the closure of this plant vs an anti-gun conspiracy is pushing things too far.

[Bob Wolff]

From talking to someone in the ammo business
no new lead is used to make bullets. Comes from auto battery recycling facilities in california.
Loss of primary smelter will effect virgin lead users like battery mfg, etc.

[Blindref757]

The owner of our local indoor gun range told me firsthand that he receives a lot more regulation oversight from EPA for lead in the air and his filtration systems than he ever does from BATFE or city inspectors.

[Dadtodabone]

The owner of our local indoor gun range told me firsthand that he receives a lot more regulation oversight from EPA for lead in the air and his filtration systems than he ever does from BATFE or city inspectors.

I would not doubt that at all. SWDA, RCRA, CERCLA, SARA(I was a Title III EPCRA guy), HSWA, CAA, CWA and the list goes on and on and on......
http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2011/1 ... .00/-84.00
NPR's interactive map of polluters, whether they're compliant with regs or not.

[Skiprr]

From what I've read today, it was in 2008 that the EPA "issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard." The Doe Run Company evidently tried to bring this smelter in Herculaneum, MO into compliance but finally decided in 2010 that it was simply too expensive to do so. The company then reached an agreement with the state of Missouri and the EPA that the smelter would close its doors on December 31, 2013.

I wish I knew more about the actual supply chain and manufacturing of ammo, but I don't, and really don't know if this will have any practical affect on supply and cost. But the Doe Run plant had been open since 1892, and the NRA-ILA comments: "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."

So even if it doesn't noticeably affect my range time, it's still a shame that we lose that start-to-finish domestic capability. This Saturday marks the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into WWII. Makes you wonder what Eisenhower or Patton would think about this development...