GET THE LEAD OUT
For decades, Doe Run, the nation’s top producer
of lead, has exposed its workers and neighbors to unsafe levels of lead and
other heavy metals. The St. Louis-based company, controlled by billionaire
Ira Rennert, added to its community of victims in the 1990s when it
acquired a sprawling lead-smelting operation in La Oroya, Peru. Back in the 1999, a study found that 99.9 percent of
the children who lived near the Peruvian operation had blood-lead levels
that exceeded internationally recognized health limits. A follow-up study,
conducted in August 2005 by scientists at St. Louis University, found that
some children in La Oroya have blood-lead levels so high that they cannot
be measured. At 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, those scientists will
discuss their findings at the Dominican Motherhouse, 1237 W. Monroe St. The
Dominicans’ convent in La Oroya served as the coordination center for
the environmental study, and Dominicans here have helped lead the fight
against Doe Run.
CITIZEN OF THE YEAR
Springfield resident Barbara Schwartz was named the
2005 Public Citizen of the Year by the Illinois chapter of the National
Association of Social Workers at the organization’s recent annual
statewide conference in Chicago. Since 1998, Schwartz has served as the
program coordinator for the Illinois Department on Aging’s
Grandparents Raising Children Program.
RUMORS OF SALE DISMISSED
The Los Angeles Times reported recently that ailing newspaper magnate David C.
Copley might soon unload his family’s 100-year-old business, Copley
Press Inc., which owns 20 papers, including Springfield’s State Journal-Register.
However, SJ-R publisher
Patrick Coburn dismisses the rumors. “We hear those things
constantly,” he says. “There’s nothing to it.”
NEW DIRECTOR OF BALLET
The Springfield Ballet Company has named Lara K.
Marsh, who has been dancing since the age of 9 and has studied ballet,
jazz, modern dance, and tap, its executive director. Marsh comes to the
company from Sangamon Auditorium at the University of Illinois at
Springfield, where she served as information systems/ticket officer
manager.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2005.
