Is One of the World's Richest Men Also One of Its Worst Polluters?

HDNet World Report investigates the operations of billionaire Ira Rennert's company, Doe Run Peru - Tuesday, September 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET

DALLAS (September 25, 2008) - "HDNet World Report," HDNet's award-winning weekly news program will present a groundbreaking, hour-long investigative report from La Oroya, a town high in the Peruvian Andes, where man has fashioned a corner of hell.

And the source of this hell? A massive metal processing plant and, at its center, a lead smelting facility. The smelter has contaminated the ground and made life dangerous for most of the town's population - who live directly in the shadow of the main lead smelter complex. The owner of the plant is reclusive American billionaire Ira Rennert.

A recent University of St. Louis study found that 97 percent of children in La Oroya suffer from levels of lead in their blood far exceeding recognized international acceptable standards; the children also have twice the arsenic, and six times the cadmium in their blood, as the average American child.

The World Report investigation, a year in the making, exposes how Ira Rennert bought the La Oroya smelter from the Peruvian Government in 1997, and in doing so, contractually promised to clean it up - modernize the plant and to cut emissions -- but to date, little has changed. In fact, many say the pollution has only gotten worse.

HDNet World Report Correspondent Mick Davie interviewed La Oroya residents, current and former employees of the plant, current and former Peruvian government officials, and local doctors who have examined the sick children of La Oroya.

The investigation also examines Ira Rennert's Doe Run Company, a natural resources company and the largest integrated lead producer in the Western Hemisphere. His companies have been the subjects of numerous environmental enforcement actions; Doe Run has been on the EPA's list of top-ten polluters in the U.S. Rennert also happens to own what is thought to be the largest residential property in the United States in Sagaponack, in the Hamptons on New York's Long Island.

"HDNet World Report - La Oroya: A Poisoned Town, a Billionaire's Profit," premieres on HDNet, Tuesday, September 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET with a re-air midnight ET to accommodate West Coast Prime Time.

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