Hunger strikers say Hennepin County commissioners won’t meet with them

Six days into a hunger strike, members of the Zero Burn Coalition say Hennepin County commissioners have refused to meet with them to discuss forcing a vote to close the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center trash incinerator.

Coalition members Nazir Khan, Natasha Villanueva and Joshua Lewis made the announcement April 15 outside Zion Baptist Church in North Minneapolis. The three are demanding a vote to close the incinerator, known as HERC, by December 2027. Environmental activists say Hennepin County is the only governing body with the authority to force the closure.

The standoff comes after the county board passed a resolution in October 2023 committing to eventually close the facility, sometime between 2028 and 2040, without setting a firm timeline.

The following day, clinicians, scientists and coalition members gathered at the Minneapolis American Indian Center to make their case for why that timeline isn’t fast enough. Speakers argued that HERC’s emissions pose an ongoing public health threat to surrounding North Minneapolis neighborhoods, and that the science used to permit the facility is dangerously out of date.

County officials have defended the facility, saying HERC’s air emissions over a 10-year period from 2016 to 2025 were on average 80 percent below permitted levels from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. David McNary, assistant director of Hennepin County Environment and Energy, called the facility “highly regulated” and operating “well below” permit levels.

But Doug Gurian-Sherman, a risk assessment scientist and former EPA official, challenged that framing directly. “The permit that the county touts as being so protective of us is like 30 years old from old, outdated science, and it was never based on protecting the public,” he said. “The Clean Air Act provision used for those permits was just based on what pollution control equipment is out there and available.”

Gurian-Sherman said that under pollution limits proposed by the EPA during the Biden administration, which would have cut 14,000 tons of toxic emissions annually, the HERC would have exceeded safe levels for hydrogen chloride. He added that nitrogen oxides, linked to asthma and heart disease, would be emitted at levels nearly double what the proposal would have allowed. The EPA under President Donald Trump ultimately finalized a weaker version of the rule, limiting standards to only 3,269 tons of pollution per year and giving waste incinerators significantly more operating room.

The health consequences of living near the facility are visible in the data. The 55411 zip code in Minneapolis has recorded some of the highest asthma hospitalization rates in the seven-county metro area, with asthma-related emergency room visits reaching up to 43 per 10,000 residents, nearly six times the state average. Former state Rep. Hunter Cantrell, who works at a Northside clinic less than two miles from HERC, said he sees the impact firsthand.

“We see significant rates of asthma exacerbations among particularly children, but we also see asthma and COPD exacerbations among our elderly patients as well,” Cantrell said. “The vast majority of the children I see in clinic with asthma exacerbations who live in the surrounding areas are children who are people of color. This is fundamentally a racial justice issue because there’s a reason why the HERC isn’t in the most affluent or least diverse communities in Hennepin County.”

University of Minnesota School of Public Health professor Peter Raynor has said HERC’s emissions are a valid concern, though he characterizes them as a contributing factor rather than a sole cause. “The concentrations we see are unlikely to, by themselves, cause asthma or cause cancer, but it could worsen other conditions, like underlying cardiovascular disease or respiratory problems,” Raynor told MN Daily in 2024.

Back at the April 15 press conference, the coalition described a wall of silence from elected officials. “Commissioner Fernando has not responded despite multiple requests,” Khan said. “Members of government have reached out to her. It’s been total silence, which, as chair of the board, is extremely disappointing.”

Villanueva, who lives in the Jordan neighborhood near the facility, said the breakdown played out in real time at the Hennepin County Government Center. “When we began the hunger strike on Monday, on Tuesday we were told that Chair Fernando was not in the office,” she said. “And then shortly thereafter, a county staff person arrived and said, ‘I have a meeting with the chair.’ And then we saw them go around the back.”

She said repeated emails sent before and during the strike have gone unanswered, and that basic access to commissioners remains out of reach. “I’m feeling exhausted on day six,” Villanueva said. “What’s sustaining me is the community, the support of my fellow hunger strikers, the cause. We’re doing this for folks who can’t go on a hunger strike… people who already have cancer, people who already have respiratory illnesses.”

Khan described his only direct interaction with a commissioner as tense. He said Commissioner Kevin Anderson, encountered leaving the county offices, accused the coalition of being tied to landfill companies. “It just speaks to the desperation of the county to throw false accusations and question the integrity of our movement,” Khan said. There has been limited progress with at least one other commissioner. A coalition member was able to reach Commissioner Angela Conley, who tentatively agreed to meet with the group.

University of Minnesota professor Nick Estes framed the issue as a broader failure of political responsibility. “What covenant does Hennepin County have when it knowingly keeps open a deadly trash incinerator that’s polluting everyone’s air, everyone’s water and the land we all live on?” Estes said. “This isn’t just an Indigenous problem. This is everyone’s problem.”

Organizers say pressure will continue to build. An Earth Day rally is scheduled for Saturday, April 18 at the HERC facility, with protesters gathering at Target Field Bus Station at 1 p.m. before marching to the site. On Tuesday, April 21, environmental justice activists plan to pack the Hennepin County Board meeting at the Government Center, beginning at 1 p.m. Coalition members are asking supporters to arrive at the Government Service Center by 12:30 p.m. Note that the public comment period is not publicly broadcast.

Six days in, the demand remains unchanged: a meeting and a vote.

Clint Combs welcomes reader responses at combs0284@spokesman-recorder.com.