Star Tribune
Wait until 2040 to close trash incinerator? Hennepin County leaders, activists want shorter timeline
Environmental justice advocates and Hennepin County commissioners were frustrated Thursday by a report and recommendation from county staff that said it was best to wait until 2040 to close the facility that incinerates nearly half of residents’ trash.
Activists have been fighting for years to close the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, because of the adverse health effects emissions have on nearby communities. Commissioners largely agree it needs to be shut down, but they acknowledge a quick timeline will be difficult — even with the promise of state funds for a more environmentally friendly way of dealing with waste.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Commissioner Angela Conley said of the 2040 closure proposal. She noted that county leaders agree the HERC contributes to the institutionalized racism harming the health of residents living near the incinerator.
“I’m not seeing the urgency,” she said.
Nazir Khan, an organizer with Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, agreed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, noting the new 55-page report gave no firm timeline for closing the garbage incinerator. “If there’s no deadline, they’re not going to act.”
The HERC has been incinerating garbage in the North Loop since 1989. Located next to Target Field, it is one of the county’s biggest sources of several air pollutants that environmental and social justice advocates say contributes to high rates of asthma and other health problems in nearby neighborhoods, including north Minneapolis.
In contrast, the new county report says the HERC’s emissions are well below allowable levels. It says trucking the trash elsewhere to sit in landfills will create more greenhouse gas-causing emissions.
The report lays out in detail the various hurdles that need to be overcome in order to close the incinerator. They include:
- What to do with the roughly 365,000 tons of garbage burnt at the facility each year. Local landfills are already constrained and garbage would need to be transported out of the metro if it is not burnt.
- How to replace the revenue and energy the HERC creates from burning trash. The facility helps heat parts of Minneapolis and generates 200,000 megawatt hours of electricity annually that is sold to Xcel Energy. Those revenues help fund county environmental programs.
- What role the state and the local communities that create the garbage sent to the HERC should play in the effort to decommission the incinerator. Minneapolis is the biggest contributor of garbage burnt at the HERC.
The easiest answer is to create a lot less waste, but right now, Hennepin County is doing the opposite of that. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency estimates by 2042 the garbage generated by county residents and businesses will grow by nearly 20%.
In 2022, Hennepin County created about 1.27 million tons of waste. Only about 41% of it was recycled or composted, leaving nearly 800,000 tons of garbage that needed disposal.
“We just can’t put it somewhere else and say we’ve done our job. Where the garbage goes needs to be answered,” said Commissioner Kevin Anderson. “The way you close it is there’s no waste stream to feed it and there is no waste going into the ground.”
Dramatically reducing waste is not something Hennepin County can do alone. County Board Chair Irene Fernando said she has long advocated for closing the incinerator, but doing so will take policy changes by state and local leaders to reduce the amount of waste residents and businesses create.
The Minnesota Legislature gave Hennepin County a big nudge toward closing the HERC during the past legislative session. The state’s new carbon-free electricity by 2040 plan eliminates trash burning as an acceptable energy source.
The report released Thursday was in response to another legislative action. The Legislature’s infrastructure bill requires the county to have a plan for closing the HERC before it gets $26 million in state funding for an anaerobic digester to break down organic waste planned for Brooklyn Center.
County leaders may need to do more to satisfy that legislative requirement to get the infrastructure money. Commissioners are weighing whether to create a task force to develop a detailed timeline for decommissioning the HERC, but it needs to be done quickly.
“This is not a shutdown plan,” said Mary Blitzer, of the North Star chapter of the Sierra Club. “This is just a report that says ‘maybe 2040.’ That’s not progress.”
Linemen Jason Walker, top, and Jimmy Brown work on a new service line to a garage in Minneapolis on Wednesday. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
If the downed cable is a power line, the problem’s not nearly as acute: Power lines like those belonging to Xcel Energy are closely monitored by the company. If one goes down, Xcel often knows about it, but the company still encourages people to call in, said spokesman Kevin Coss.
The company regularly inspects and replaces overhead power lines to make them resilient, but “severe storms and other weather impacts can still sometimes bring down well-maintained power lines, especially when high winds snap nearby trees or tree branches and cause them to fall into the lines,” said Koss. “If homeowners see fallen lines on their property, we urge them to steer clear. Assume all power lines are still energized, even if they have fallen, and keep a safe distance away.”
In Minneapolis, city residents can call 311 to report a downed line, said city spokesman Allen Henry. The message will get forwarded to city staff, likely in the Public Works department, to determine if it’s a power line or not.
Stillwater Public Works Director Shawn Sanders said residents could check their invoices from telecommunications companies they’ve bought service from — think CenturyLink, Comcast or others — for a number to call.
Lake Elmo Public Works Director Marty Powers said power lines are generally at the top of power poles and communications lines lower down, but a homeowner could do a Google search to see which provider is operating in their area or has service at their address. In Lake Elmo, it could be Comcast, Lingo Communications or CenturyLink, but doing a Google search first might show the resident that one or two of the companies doesn’t serve their house and make it easier to know who to contact.
“I have only had two or three inquiries in Lake Elmo over the past five years, but, yes, identifying overhead wires can be challenging,” he said.
“STEP Academy is in a financial crisis,” IQS warned in the letter. “If the board does not take sufficient and responsible action, the school will be unable to continue operations.”
One of the authorizer’s concerns was resolved Thursday night when the board accepted the resignation of superintendent Mustafa Ibrahim, who served as the school’s top administrator since 2012. Two STEP board members also stepped down.
IQS first placed STEP on probation for contract violations in 2020. Most of its complaints have centered on Ibrahim’s actions, with IQS accusing him of operating without proper board oversight and making unilateral decisions that have sometimes hurt the school.
The situation didn’t reach crisis levels, however, until the costs of the school’s 2022 expansion into Burnsville wiped out STEP’s financial reserves. Its fund balance, the most critical indicator of a charter school’s financial health, fell from $2.7 million in 2022 to $54,461 in 2023, state records show.
In a 2023 letter to the school, IQS said STEP “significantly overspent” on renovating the Burnsville facility. It alleged that Ibrahim violated procurement rules by entering into budget-busting agreements without first obtaining board approval.
In a statement to the Star Tribune, Ibrahim blamed STEP’s financial problems on IQS. He said the nonprofit has abused its power by creating “unnecessary barriers and distractions” that have destabilized the school. Ibrahim accused IQS of attempting to “wrest control” of the school and replace its Black leaders with “hand-picked white professionals.”
A judge acquitted a 37-year-old man of threatening to harm St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Maplewood Mall and concluded that the defendant’s intention was to buy the shopping center and run for mayor.
Andrew Thomas Grzywinski, of St. Paul, was found not guilty late Thursday afternoon by Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann on two counts of threats of violence.
The suspicion took root when Grzywinski sent a former girlfriend a text on Dec. 27, 2022, showing an assault-style gun on a window ledge, with a message that read, “Maplewood Mall is my idea, and Mayor of St. Paul is an end goal,” according to the charges filed in December 2022.
The woman alerted Woodbury police because Grzywinski was staying at a hotel in that city. A Woodbury police investigator said Grzywinski had been hospitalized Dec. 15-22, 2022, in Pensacola, Fla., “on a mental health hold,” the charges read, and a doctor there said Grzywinski’s threats should be taken seriously.
Woodbury police then notified their counterparts in Maplewood and St. Paul, leading to his arrest and charges.
In returning his verdicts in writing, Guthmann said, “The text message does not state or imply a threat to commit an act of violence. There is nothing expressly or impliedly threatening about the words ‘Maplewood is my idea,’ and the existence of a gun in the background of a panorama photo of a hotel room containing many other objects does not reasonably change the character of those words.”
The judge continued, “To conclude that defendant’s text was intended as an express or implied threat to the Maplewood Mall or anyone inside is entirely speculative and without support in the evidence.”
Guthmann’s filing noted that Grzywinski, who owns his own heating and cooling business, was not mulling or making any threats against the mall or the mayor but had been telling various people close to him that he wanted to buy the mall and run for mayor.
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If wires come down in your backyard, who do you call?
Alexander McCartney sentenced in U.K. court for “catfishing” thousands, including U.S. girl who died by suicide
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