By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The president and CEO of Doe Run Company, Jeffrey Zelms, will retire next month.
He'll be replaced next year by Bruce Neil, who currently runs Doe Run Peru.
St. Louis-based Doe Run is the largest integrated lead producer in North America. It operates the nation's largest lead smelter in Herculaneum.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said this week that Missouri's rules to reduce lead emissions in Herculaneum are not adequate.
The company also runs a metallurgical plant in La Oroya, Peru, where ownspeople have been found to have high levels of toxic heavy metals in their bodies.
Doe Run says its Peru subsidiary asked the Peruvian government Tuesday to give it four more years to complete a project to control sulfuric gas emissions at the La Oroya smelter. It had been due in 2006.