Renco Group's affiliated companies have distinguished themselves as responsible corporate citizens, and their environmental records back this up.  Independent data from outside groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, show that following acquisition, Renco Group companies have consistently and aggressively improved upon the environmental records they had under previous ownership.

Environmental Data

The Doe Run Company

The Renco Group has supported The Doe Run Company's reduction of its emissions at its oldest lead smelting facility in Herculaneum, Missouri. The Doe Run Company has spent approximately ($40) million to remediate lands and reduce emissions there. The Doe Run Company's Herculaneum smelter recently completed a $12-million air filter project to reduce the amount of lead released into the air.

The graph above exhibits the improvements made by the Doe Run Company's Herculaneum smelter since 1998 in lower ambient air lead levels.

Doe Run Peru

At Doe Run Peru's La Oroya smelter, efforts to reduce emissions have resulted in a  50 percent drop in total particle matter from 1997 to February 2007, Sulfur dioxide has been reduced 22.5% in the same period.  Doe Run Peru completed the construction and implementation of the Industrial Waste Water Treatment Plant (39 million dollars) and three individual sewage treatment plants (7 million dollars) in December 2006.  Doe Run Peru has also prioritized stopping tailings runoff from contaminating local water sources near its Cobriza, Peru, mine and mill. Through a $10 million project, Doe Run Peru has managed to eliminate part of the tailings and store the rest in pads specially designed for tailing storage; since 2005, the Cobriza mine achieved a record of zero tailings discharges into the nearby Mantaro River.

US Magnesium

Chlorine is one of the byproducts of magnesium production. When the Renco Group acquired the Rowley facility currently operated by US Magnesium in 1989, the facility was releasing approximately 55,000 tons of chlorine into the surrounding environment each year. More than $40 million was invested to develop a new process that reduced chlorine emissions. The installation of this innovative technology has resulted in a reduction of chlorine emissions to about 1,500 tons per year.

The Renco Group has encouraged US Magnesium to focus on eliminating other emissions as well. From 1990 to 2006, US Magnesium and the former owner of the Rowley Facility, the Magnesium Corporation of America, has worked to reduced hydrochloric acid emissions at the facility. Chlorine emissions at the facility have fallen from 56, 000 tons per year in 1989 to an estimated 1500 tons per year in 2005, a reduction of 97 percent.