Star Tribune
Activists detail quicker, two-year timeline to close Hennepin County trash incinerator
Environmental and social justice activists said Wednesday that Hennepin County leaders’ plans to operate a controversial trash incinerator for another decade are unacceptable.
Instead, the Zero Burn Coalition detailed a timeline that would close the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) on the edge of downtown Minneapolis by the end of 2025.
Activists’ expedited timeline includes something Hennepin County leaders are reluctant to do: send more of the nearly 800,000 tons of residents’ non-recycled trash to landfills. At least in the short term.
Nazir Kahn, a coalition leader and member of the Environmental Justice Table, said closing the incinerator quickly will give residents and local leaders the incentive they need to achieve the zero-waste future they say they want. Khan says pushing for policy and funding changes while continuing to burn trash will prolong the disproportionate impact the HERC has on the county’s most struggling communities.
“Once you build the beast, you have to keep feeding it,” Khan said of the waste to energy facility that first opened in 1989. “It is actually necessary to shut down the HERC to get to zero waste.”
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County leaders have settled on a different approach, outlining in a 41-page report the substantial policy and funding changes regarding solid waste that need to happen before closing the HERC. They emphasized that approach Tuesday by approving an updated contract with Great River Energy, which will operate the facility until at least 2033, unless the county exercises a new early-termination clause.
“The focus that is ahead of us is a conversation about how to close it,” Commissioner Marion Greene said. “How do we deal with our waste without sending more of it to landfills?”
Despite the different timelines, there is a lot of commonality in the county and activists’ plans to reduce waste. A big one is essentially requiring recycling and organics composting and banning that type of trash from landfills.
They also agree on a need to better regulate packaging and to find new ways to keep hard-to-recycle items out of landfills.
County leaders say they need the state Legislature to help with those mandate, but the Zero Burn Coalition argues there is more county leaders can do to compel residents to throw less away.
Activists have been pushing to close the HERC for years, citing the disproportionate rates of asthma and other diseases in communities near the facility. Those neighborhoods are also predominantly made up of low-income residents of color.
Stephani Maari Booker, a north Minneapolis resident and member of the Zero Burn Coalition, said county leaders needed to do more to help residents directly impacted by the HERC’s emissions.
“I feel betrayed by Hennepin County,” Booker said. “It reeks of environmental racism.”
The HERC is one of the county’s biggest point-sources of emissions, but supporters of the facility argue those emissions are well controlled and have less of an environmental impact than trucking waste to landfills.
Environmentalists challenge those assertions, saying trucking waste to landfills is better for the environment than burning it. They are also skeptical of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s preference for incineration over landfilling.
State lawmakers sparked the latest debate about the HERC last year when they removed the facility’s renewable energy designation and tied infrastructure funding for the county’s zero waste transition to leaders approving a timeline for its closure. Two other facilities in Minnesota burn trash and are still considered renewable energy sources.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
