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.
A former Medtronic consultant received an 18-month prison sentence this week for his role in a scheme linked to the $1.6 billion acquisition of an Israeli medical device company in 2018.
A federal jury in February convicted Doron “Ron” Tavlin, 69, of Minneapolis, of one count of conspiracy to engage in insider trading and 10 additional counts related to securities fraud. That same jury found David Jay Gantman, 58, of Mendota Heights, not guilty of all charges against him. A third defendant — Afshin “Alex” Farahan, 57, of Los Angeles — pleaded guilty in 2022 and has yet to be sentenced.
“His crime was cynical and brazen. It was also reckless,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert wrote in a memo calling for a 3-year prison term. “Tavlin’s conduct had the potential to blow up a deal that a team of executives and financial advisers had been diligently negotiating for months.”
Tavlin is now scheduled to self-surrender Jan. 5 to begin his prison term, which will be followed by 320 hours of community service.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Tavlin learned about a secret, pending acquisition by Medtronic of Mazor Robotics, where he worked as vice president of business development, in 2018. Tavlin also previously worked as a consultant to the Ireland-based Medtronic, which also has a headquarters in Fridley.
Tavlin illegally tipped off Farahan, his friend, about news of the imminent acquisition and told him to keep the news secret. Farahan knew the deal would likely result in a boost to Mazor’s stock price and quickly bought more than $1 million of the company’s stock throughout August and September 2018. Medtronic announced plans to acquire Mazor, which specialized in robotics for spinal procedures, in September 2018 and the deal closed three months later.
Prosecutors said Farahan netted more than $245,000, and Gantman made $255,000 in profit by selling the securities quickly after the deal was publicized. Farahan paid Tavlin for the secret information about the pending deal — including a $25,000 kickback about a year later —according to prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank, who sentenced Tavlin Monday, also ordered Tavlin to pay a special assessment fee of $1,100 – or $100 per each count. Frank did not impose a fine.
Star Tribune
Charges detail assault in Minneapolis that led to shooting rampage, killing one in Kandiyohi County
Another friend of the ex-girlfriend arrived to help. He pulled up in a car as the group exited the apartment and Matariyeh immediately pointed a gun at him before pounding on the windshield with the gun. Everyone fled as Matariyeh ran back inside the apartment.
The two men met in a parking lot before attempting to return to the apartment. That’s when they looked up and saw Matariyeh on the balcony. Matariyeh immediately began firing multiple shots at them as they took cover behind parked cars.
It was around this time that Minneapolis police officers arrived and made contact with Matariyeh’s ex-girlfriend. She believed he was still inside the apartment, but officers later learned that he had fled. They reached him on the phone. He told officers he was going to kill innocent people if he couldn’t speak with his ex-girlfriend or see his daughter, who was at daycare at the time. He later told police negotiators that “he wanted to go out by ‘suicide by cop.’”
All the while, Matariyeh was speeding westbound.
Police officers pursued him near Cosmos in Meeker County after being alerted that Matariyeh might have stolen another vehicle at gunpoint in Carver County.
Around 2 p.m. he pulled into the rural driveway of Peter Mayerchak in Lake Lillian. Mayerchak, who was in his yard placing hay over his septic mound, went and greeted Matariyeh, who shot him in the chest.
Mixing progressive dreams with dire warnings, a group of DFL leaders riled up a group of volunteers in St. Paul on Thursday morning, urging them to push on through the day’s freezing rain and fatigue in the remaining days before the election.
Several elected officials including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar told the group of about 150 campaign staffers, volunteers and union members about how meaningful their work is to keeping DFL control of the Legislature, as the electeds start a statewide bus tour to turn out votes.
“We are here to keep our trifecta here in Minnesota,” U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar told volunteers on Thursday. “We’ve got five days, people!”
On the Republican side, House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said earlier this month that the House Republican Campaign Committee had raised a record $2.7 million ahead of the election and she said Republicans have also set records in volunteering and door-knocking as they work to break DFL control.
Minnesota Democrats hold a rally before starting a bus tour around the state to get voters excited, including Rep Ilhan Omar, Sen Amy Klobuchar, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, Rep Betty McCollum and Sen Tina Smith on Thursday. (Glen Stubbe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“Republicans have the momentum and resources heading into the final stretch to win the majority and restore balance to Minnesota,” Demuth said in a statement. “Minnesotans are ready to move on from the expensive two years of Democrat one-party rule.”
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said she thought voters preferred action to the gridlock of divided government. “They’re looking for people who can get things done,” she said.
These last-minute get-out-the-vote efforts come as Democrats around the country push to keep control of state legislative chambers and try to flip a few statehouses that Republicans hold by just a few seats.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the arm of the national Democratic party that works on statehouse races across the country, has spent $500,000 on Minnesota races this year, including House races and the state Senate contest.
