Magnesium by 50%. By 2005, the most recent year of data released by the EPA, emissions had been reduced 97%. In 2001, the Justice Department and EPA filed suit against Renco. They demanded nearly $1 billion in fines, alleging MagCorp (a Renco Metals Inc. subsidiary) dumped toxic waste in ditches and ponds on the Great Salt Lake. The suit claimed PCB-laced sludge and dust choked the plant's plumbing, wastewater ponds, landfill and ditches, where contaminants were 12 times the allowed limit for accidental release. MagCorp maintained it was exempt from the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which requires companies to monitor certain kinds of hazardous waste. Magcorp declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly after the lawsuit began and a federal judge allowed Rennert to restructure MagCorp—now U.S. Magnesium—which exempted it from previous legal liability. The EPA suit, however, remained outstanding until October 2007 when a federal judge ruled against the EPA and the Justice Department and in favor of Renco and MagCorp / US Magnesium. Today, US Magnesium is the third-largest magnesium producer in the world. Its environmental improvements and recent track record have been substantial and include a reduction of emissions by 90% since 2000 (97% since 1989). The EPA data recognizes this as the single largest reduction in air emissions in the category of hazardous air pollutants since the TRI began in 1987 at any single facility. The energy improvements in US Magnesium's manufacturing process have also caused a net reduction of 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions. US Magnesium was the recipient of a 2004 Climate Protection Award from the EPA and won an MEP award in 2006 for Environmental Consciousness. Another US unit of Renco also faced environmental issues in Herculaneum, Missouri and has made substantial improvements. Locals in Herculaneum claimed their children were suffering from lead poisoning traceable to toxic emissions coming from Renco's Doe Run lead smelting plant, which had been in operations locally since 1892. In 2000, the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources tested area lead levels and ordered Doe Run to clean up locations where lead levels exceeded EPA standards. A 2002 study showed more than half of the children living within a quarter mile of the smelter had high blood-lead levels. Doe Run agreed to buy 160 homes in the contaminated area around the smelter at a cost of more than $10 million. An EPA fact