HERC. Photo: Paul Schmelzer, MnIndy

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is requiring a new environmental review of Hennepin County’s plans to burn 212 more tons of garbage per day at its downtown Minneapolis incinerator.

Hennepin County has been seeking a permit for the increase by relying on an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) that was completed for the Minnesota Twins’ new Target Field across the street.

That raised concerns about health impacts beyond the ballpark last summer at the Minneapolis City Planning Commission and City Council, leading the incinerator’s private operator, Covanta, to withdraw its application for pull back on its pursuit of city approvals.

In September three citizens filed petitions for a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) to specifically study increased burning at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC).

“It looked like there were going to be ways for Covanta to circumvent the public process,” petitioner Justin Eibenholtzl told the Minnesota Independent.

Those petitions were pending in November when Covanta tried to get state approval via an MPCA administrative process that is reserved for changes so minor they require no public hearing. The MPCA turned back that effort.

Last month Covanta submitted a new application to the MPCA, triggering the agency’s examination of whether state law requires a mandatory EAW. It does, the MPCA decided.

The EAW will take an initial look at the effects of burning more municipal solid waste at the facility. Depending on what’s found, an EAW can lead to a more extensive EIS.

“The MPCA will be getting the EAW process under way shortly,” the MPCA wrote in a letter to the citizen-petitioners (pdfs: page one, page two).

Photo: MPCA

The skies over Northern Minnesota’s signature natural areas will get 30 percent clearer — by 2018 — under new rules approved today by a 7-1 vote of the state Pollution Control Agency board.

At that rate it will take a century to totally clear the air in the Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Not good enough, say the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service.

The PCA’s new Regional Haze Plan targets polluters that are grandfathered in under existing Clean Air Act regulations.

Among the new rules’ omissions, says Jim Sanders, supervisor of the Superior National Forest: curbing emissions from the region’s taconite plants.

Hennepin Energy Recovery Center. Photo: Paul Schmelzer, MnIndy

Stymied by citizen resistance, the operator of Hennepin County’s incinerator in downtown Minneapolis tried — in vain — this month to get the state’s OK to burn more trash with an administrative end-run around a public hearing.

Now two state legislators accuse Covanta Energy of trying to “railroad the expansion through without further public input” (pdf).

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) agrees that Covanta was out of line in seeking a low-level administrative amendment to its permit in order to increase the amount of trash it’s allowed to burn.

“It was a little puzzling for us,” Carolina Espejel-Schutt told the Minnesota Independent last week. “Administrative amendment is not the correct process to follow.”

Rather than being the most minor possible kind of alteration to its permit, MPCA sees the change Covanta seeks as rising to the most significant level. “We think it is major,” she said.

Even changes of minor or moderate significance can require public hearings if there is substantial public interest, Espejel-Schutt said. And “clearly for Covanta there is a lot of interest,” she said — both from the public and elected officials.

Last summer, the Minneapolis Planning Commission voted down the plan for burning more trash at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC). Opponents turned in force for that hearing and again when Covanta appealed the commission’s decision to the Minneapolis City Council’s zoning and planning committee.

But the company put its appeal on hold at the last minute, promising to make an application to the MPCA. Then Covanta waited until Nov. 3 — Election Day, as it happened, in Minneapolis — to submit its application.

In the meantime, opponents petitioned for environmental review, but the MPCA said it couldn’t act on that request until Covanta submitted an application.

Opponents rallied again for the postponed appeal hearing before the city council zoning and planning committee Nov. 19, but the item was tabled again. That same day, the MPCA issued its letter turning back the administrative-amendment request.

Covanta’s play for under-the-radar approval was not only inappropriate given public interest, Espejel-Schutt said, but any change without a public hearing would violate the terms of the existing permit for HERC.

Her letter to Covanta (pdf) quoted from the HERC permit:

Fuel usage: less than or equal to 365,000 tons [per] year of waste for the total facility. An amendment to increase this fuel usage must undergo public notice and comment.

Covanta is seeking to burn 442,380 tons of trash per year.

Justin Eibenholtzl, one of three Minneapolis residents to petition for an environmental review beyond the study done for the adjacent Minnesota Twins stadium, says an expansion of burning at the state’s leading source of dioxin merits study.

Until it gets state and city okay to burn more, Covanta must stay in compliance with the existing limits in its permit, MPCA’s Espejel-Schutt wrote in her letter.

But she told MnIndy that, practically speaking, Covanta could temporarily get away with burning more on a day-to-day basis without violating the annualized allowable maximum. “It would be a while” before burning more trash would exceed those limits, she said.

Covanta didn’t respond to a request for comment from MnIndy.

Hennepin Energy Recovery Center with Target Field (background right). Photo: Paul Schmelzer, MnIndy

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) won’t take a position — yet — on whether to require a new environmental study before Hennepin County’s downtown Minneapolis incinerator can burn more trash, because the agency doesn’t have a pending application for the project.

Foes of the expansion at the Hennepin facility petitioned the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) for a new environmental assessment.

The EQB assigned the MPCA as the responsible governmental unit to decide whether the county’s proposed 20 percent increase in burning at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, operated by a private contractor, Covanta Energy.

The MPCA told three petitioner groups in letters sent this week that the agency won’t say whether a new assessment is needed without having a pending permit application from Hennepin County.

The petitions will stay current for one year, said Craig Affeldt, head of the MPCA’s environmental review unit, and the agency would restart its review upon receiving an application. The petitioners could also renew their requests if an application is still not in by September 2010, Affeldt tells the Minnesota Independent.

Covanta was stymied last summer by the Minneapolis Planning Commission, which voted down the burner expansion plan on the grounds of potential health impacts from burning more trash. Commissioners weren’t satisfied with information from the environmental review done two decades ago at the facility’s construction, and another more recent study for the new Minnesota Twins stadium across the street.

Covanta appealed to the Minneapolis City Council’s zoning and planning committee, but abruptly withdrew its application at a public hearing. A new hearing before the committee is set for next month.

Nancy Hone of Neighbors Against the Burner, interviewed before learning about the MPCA’s action, said the group is looking beyond merely stopping an expansion. “We’re going to shut it down,” Hone vowed.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning … 

DULUTH: Locals claim best foreclosure-assistance outreach programs in the state. But consider the competition: Minneapolis boards up people in their own houses. [Duluth News Tribune; Star Tribune]

PIPESTONE: City reeling from green job losses. By October, Suzlon will employ only half the 324 workers who now manufacture wind-turbine blades at a plant built three years ago with free land and tax breaks from the city and state. [Worthington Daily Globe; Pipestone County Star]

LONG PRAIRIE: Paintball vandalism hits home. On an otherwise gray Sunday morning on Pinto Blvd., residents woke to find fresh red splotches on numerous houses. [St. Cloud Times]

HIBBING: ‘Eclipse’ sighted. A 20-foot steel site-specific sculpture by hometown artist David Aho was unveiled outside the Hibbing Courthouse Annex Building. Anyone got a photo or is it too dangerous to look at, like the real thing? [Hibbing Daily Tribune]

STILLWATER: State patrol clamps down on Lift Bridge traffic. Truckers apparently have their own plan for the historic but nettlesome bridge: Wreck it by crossing in vehicles that are too tall or overweight by 5,000 pounds. [Stillwater Gazette]

STATEWIDE: New law letting cops stop cars for failure to wear seatbelts clicks in Tuesday. Hey, wait a sec: The Stillwater story cited above said, “Passenger vehicles were pulled over for seatbelt violations” — last Friday. [Minnesota Public Radio; Stillwater Gazette]

“Information on the health and safety of our lakes empowers all of us. We want Minnesotans to enjoy these summertime sports based on the best data and advice,” said Paul Austin, Conservation Minnesota’s executive director.

Right on cue, the MPCA just issued its first “No Water Contact” recommendation for the Park Point New Duluth Boat Club/14th St. Beach. The warning stems from a positive test result for e. coli and comes one day after the MPCA began its seasonal monitoring.

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/3292/let-a-thousand-star-chambers-shine/feed 0 http://minnesotaindependent.com/2995/minnesota-organizations-to-participate-in-emissions-registry http://minnesotaindependent.com/2995/minnesota-organizations-to-participate-in-emissions-registry#comments Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:12:19 +0000 Dan Haugen http://www.minnesotaindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=2995 Five Minnesota organizations are among the first to sign up for a national greenhouse gas emissions registry.

Xcel Energy, Great River Energy, the Metropolitan Council, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and The Appliance Recycling Centers of America have joined The Climate Registry, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit hoping to standardize emission reporting and measurement. The registry is expected to simplify any future plans for emissions trading, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Fifty-five founding reporters from around the country will begin submitting their emissions totals to the registry beginning June 30. It will track greenhouse gas emissions including CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

The last year has been marked by three separate but significant failures of state government: the collapse of the 35W bridge, the revelation of high rates of mesothelioma in taconite miners, and the discovery of more perfluorochemicals in our drinking water. In each instance, there is a state apparatus in place to prevent and protect the tax-paying citizenry from such incidents. In each instance, the state failed, and those responsible received the steadfast support of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The most dramatic was, of course, the collapse of the 35W bridge on Aug. 1. The calamity brought down the curtains that concealed a MnDOT that’s ineffective, over budget, and functionally broken. For years the decaying bridge was ignored as repairs were shelved in favor of inaction, a far less expensive and less bothersome option for MnDOT.  That failure came at the expense of 13 lives. MnDOT commissioner Carol Molnau, now known for her light post-collapse work schedule, will likely be ousted by the state legislature in 2008, but has continued to recieve the strong backing of Gov. Pawlenty.

On Aug. 22, three weeks after the 35W bridge collapse and amid calls for Molnau’s resignation, Dianne Mandernach quietly resigned as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health, which brings us to the state’s second significant failure. Results of a study on mesothelioma in taconite miners obtained in March 2006 by the Department of Health revealed that 35 Iron Range miners died of the asbestos-related cancer between 1997 and 2005, twice as many as in the previous nine years. Mandernach suppressed the results of that study for more than a year, as hardworking men and women continued to subject themselves to the carcinogenic conditions on a daily basis. It has since been determined that 58 miners have died since 2003 due to mesothelioma.

Most appalling was that Mandernach tipped off Cleveland-Cliffs Mining Company one week before finally releasing the information to the public.

In the months before Mandernach’s resignation, Gov. Pawlenty acknowledged that what Mandernach did was wrong but stated that her actions did not rise “to the level of termination.”
The actions of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) commissioner, former 3M environmental manager Sheryl Corrigan, didn’t rise to Pawlenty’s standard of termination either — until she became a political liability. Corrigan was responsible for the suppression of research into the 3M chemicals that this year were found in Twin Cities drinking water. Unlike Molnau and Mandernach, Corrigan didn’t get to stick around to see the fruits of her labor as she was unceremoniously dismissed four months before Pawlenty’s reelection.

The MPCA’s lead scientist on new environmental threats, Dr. Fardin Oliaei, discovered high levels of PFBA in the Washington County Landfill in 2005 and urged the Department of Health to test the drinking water out of fear the chemical was seeping underground. In January 2007, perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA), manufactured by 3M for film processing until 1999, was discovered in the water supplies of six east metro suburbs, confirming Oliaei’s suspicions. Unfortunately for Oliaei, she was forced out of the MPCA in early 2006, suggesting that discovery of a problem makes one more culpable than those who ignore it. In February, the agency paid Oliaei $325,000 to drop a federal whistleblower lawsuit.

The conditions that have been created by Pawlenty’s business-first approach have damaged the credibility and effectiveness of state government and the agencies that Minnesotans rely on to act in their best interests. The obligation of the state is to its citizens, not to dutifully avoid controversy and protect industry. There is a mountain of evidence that several agencies throughout this administration have failed the people of Minnesota. It is no wonder why the Governor has set such stringent standards for termination.

In May, 3M reached an agreement with the MPCA’s citizen board to handle the cleanup, pay $8 million to reduce the leaking of PFCs from a landfill in Lake Elmo and $5 million for research into the effects of PFCs. At the time, MPCA Deputy Commissioner Leo Raudys was quoted by the AP calling the $13 million in payments a “gift” because 3M isn’t obligated to make them.

The chemical compound has been found in lakes and drinking wells throughout the Twin Cities after seeping from 3M-owned waste sites. The company produced PFCs for Scotchgard as well as products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water. Research has shown PFCs can be harmful to the liver and other organs in animals, but no direct health threats in humans have been identified. The chemicals are bioaccumulative in humans and animals and are highly resistant to breaking down in the environment.

The money for PFC cleanup is part of a two-year, $17.6 million budget for the state Superfund Program. The program determines cleanup plans for abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous-waste sites where there is a risk to human health or the environment. State Superfund dollars are limited, and laws governing the use of such money is restricted to preliminary site investigations, emergency actions, cleanup of sites where those responsible are unknown  and as matching funds for federal Superfund actions.