Star Tribune
Big money and policy changes needed before Hennepin County trash incinerator can close
Hennepin County needs to dramatically change how it deals with solid waste if leaders are going to close a controversial trash incinerator and not send more garbage to landfills.
That was the takeaway from a 39-page briefing on “reinventing the county’s solid waste system” presented Thursday in response to a unanimous resolution from the County Board in October asking what it would take to close the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC). The incinerator on the edge of downtown Minneapolis burns about half of residents’ trash and commissioners want to close it before 2040.
“What I’m hearing today is that 2028 to 2040 is not realistic. Let’s make it realistic,” said Commissioner Angela Conley, one of several board members who pushed to close the HERC. “We have to take bold action.”
Conley and other commissioners noted the detailed strategy outlined by staff. It laid out hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending and ambitious state and local policy changes needed to meet the county’s goal of a zero-waste future.
An even more detailed report is expected to be sent to commissioners in early February. What county officials haven’t done is set a specific timeline for shutting down the incinerator.
The lack of a date to stop burning trash is frustrating for activists from groups like the Zero Burn Coalition and Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, who have pushed for years to close the HERC. They say emission from the incinerator contributes to adverse health outcomes in surrounding communities, including higher rates of asthma.
County staff and HERC workers dispute these claims, saying the facility’s emissions are well controlled and are less of a risk to residents’ health and the environment than trucking waste to landfills. State data shows the facility’s emissions are under permitted levels.
Nazir Khan, of the Environmental Justice Table, said the level of detail in the county’s presentation made it clear officials were serious about closing the incinerator. But much more needs to be done to engage with residents and help them understand the impacts of the incinerator and its eventual closure.
“Closing the HERC will create the urgency for the county to take zero waste more seriously,” Khan said. “You can’t just have conversations with people who support the status quo.”
Commissioner Jeff Lunde agreed that the county needs to get better at engaging with residents about the waste they create. He said it is no surprise communities who use the HERC were frustrated with plans to close it.
“Everybody is fine with the HERC, as long as it is not in your community,” Lunde said. “My trash is going somewhere else and I don’t need to worry about it.”
What needs to change
Hennepin County residents create about 700,000 tons of trash each year that’s not recycled, enough to fill Target Field six times over. Half of it goes to landfills and the rest is burned at the HERC.
Every day, trucks drop off tons of trash at the North Loop facility. A giant claw mixes the trash and feeds it into two boilers to generate steam and electricity.
If the county is going to stop incinerating, it needs to create a lot less garbage and do a much better separating recyclables and organics, like food and paper, from other waste. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency projects that the county is actually creating more trash.
“We are moving in the wrong direction,” County Administrator David Hough said.
To change course, county leaders identified a dozen things local and state leaders could do to cut back on trash. Among them: mandatory recycling and composting of organics, new rules regulating packaging and easier ways to dispose of hard-to-recycle items.
The county will also need more money from the Legislature for zero-waste initiatives. Leaders recently abandoned plans to build an anaerobic digester in favor of a facility that pulls organics and recyclables from the waste stream.
“This is not just about the county,” said Board Chair Irene Fernando. “We are going to need a lot of partnership.”
Why close the HERC?
The HERC is one of the county’s top point sources of emissions, along with facilities such as Xcel Energy’s Riverside Plant and the University of Minnesota, according to the latest data from the state Pollution Control Agency. But point sources, essentially facilities with smokestacks, are just a fraction of the county’s air pollution.
Sources like vehicles, construction equipment and other business operations spew significantly more emissions into the county’s air, state data shows. But those sources are harder to control because they are not permitted like a smokestack.
That makes it hard to determine how facilities like the HERC impact overall community health. State health officials note there are higher levels of asthma and other chronic diseases in some nearby neighborhoods and many of those communities have large populations of residents with low incomes and no health insurance.
“Establishing causation between a specific point source and health impacts is extremely difficult,” said Jessie Carr, Minnesota Department of Health supervisor of environmental epidemiology.
Dan Fish, leader of environmental and safety at the HERC and its operator Great River Energy, said emissions are monitored around the clock and technicians can intervene if a specific pollutant level is too high.
Kari Palmer, air assessment manager at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said the continuous monitoring system is the “gold standard” for controlling point source emissions.
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We do consider the HERC to be a well-controlled facility,” Palmer said.
Star Tribune
Converting office buildings to housing could save downtowns, but at a cost
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
Star Tribune
Release of hazardous materials forces closing of highway in southeast Minnesota
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
Star Tribune
Civil suit against MN state trooper who shot Ricky Cobb II is dismissed
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.