Air and water disparities, and the fight to shut down HERC

A North Loop resident submitted a video to the Zero Burn Coalition letting others hear how loud the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) trash incinerator is. HERC, located between Downtown and North Minneapolis, has operated since 1989.

“It sounds like you’re living on the tarmac of the airport,” said Natasha Villanueva, who is currently on a hunger strike with the coalition.

Others have complained of respiratory illnesses and mold growing on food in their apartment within 30 minutes of setting it out. These are testimonies the Zero Burn Coalition is trying to amplify, Villanueva said.

“We choose to believe those people,” she said. Some Hennepin County leaders have credited these problems to highways, she continued, but Villanueva believes both are impacting residents harshly.

“We need to do something about the one that we have within our control, which is shutting down HERC.”

HERC sits in a densely populated, majority-Black community, burning trash sent from across Hennepin County and surrounding suburbs, the coalition said in a FAQ document.

“That concentration of harm is not accidental. It reflects deliberate decisions about where pollution is allowed to exist and whose health is treated as expendable. The trash burner was built with a 20-year design life. It should have been retired by 2009. Instead, the county has extended its operation year after year while the surrounding community continues to absorb the pollution. Clean air should not depend on your zip code. This is urgent because people are getting sick, the county has the authority to act, and every year of delay is another year of preventable harm.”

Fifty-three percent of low-income neighborhoods have air pollution-related risks above health guidelines, and 78% of communities of color in Minnesota face the same, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

“In addition, the social, economic and health inequities that these populations face can make them more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution,” the MPCA said on its website.

Joshua Lewis, a veteran labor, climate justice and utility organizer who is also on hunger strike, named some of those social, economic and health inequities.

Neighborhoods face food deserts, lack access to healthy food and have seen freeways destroy businesses and homes, he said.

“And, ‘hey, we’re going to throw this trash burner in the community as well.'”

Lewis described these environmental disparities as a form of “slow genocide” and eugenics, arguing that the actions of the capitalist and eco-imperialist classes mirror the destructive patterns of global colonialism.

Villanueva lives in the 55411 ZIP code, which has the highest asthma and allergy rates in the state, she said.

HERC also requires water to operate, she said.

“A bunch of diesel trucks come to HERC all the time to dump there, and then water is used to create steam, and then that turns turbines, not to produce energy. So it’s a very indirect way it sullies that water, and we could just be replacing it with five wind turbines instead.”

Emissions also pollute the air.

“Every day, residents near the trash burner, and communities downwind in South Minneapolis, breathe its toxic emissions: fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides, hydrochloric acid, lead, dioxins, mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. These are linked to asthma, heart disease, stroke, cancer and premature death,” the coalition reports.

“All of this puts pressure on other parts of our society that are already suffering, like HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center), because we end up going to emergency rooms to deal with this type of tragedy.”

Villanueva added that millions in taxpayer funds are being used to maintain the aging HERC facility. She argues the public is stuck in a costly loop, either paying for expensive upgrades to keep a dangerous facility running or risking even greater safety hazards by letting it deteriorate. The only viable solution, she said, is a total shutdown to make way for zero-waste alternatives.

Mary’s Place, a homeless shelter, sits across the street from HERC. Villanueva recently spoke to someone who stayed there whose child developed asthma during the stay.

“These are some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, which we should be protecting the most fiercely. Instead, they’re right next to this giant polluter,” she said.

This is one example of why shutting down HERC is so urgent, she said.

Transitioning to sustain future generations

The Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, Zero Burn Coalition and Zero Waste Coalition do policy work and are pushing a landfill standards bill to raise accountability requirements for landfills and better protect surrounding communities from leaching into soil and water.

Drawing from examples in other cities, Villanueva said they know that when trash incinerators are shut down, cities have had to use temporary landfills while zero-waste infrastructure is built, resulting in large increases in composting and recycling.

According to the coalition, metro area landfills have the capacity to receive what currently goes to the trash burner, so no new landfills will be needed.

Lewis said policy that interfaces with and empowers communities of color is needed.

“Right now, a large issue is a lack of power by the people,” he said. “We need policy that is dictated by the people, for the people.”

Part of that ask, Villanueva said, is for the community to be involved in deciding what replaces HERC.

Lewis also believes economic empowerment, educational empowerment, voter literacy and system literacy are needed.

“What’s going to improve things for future generations is not just policy, but policy can be a part of it. We need improved processes, and this means the accessibility of our elected officials, the accessibility of the law and information.”

Community infrastructure, he said, is most important.

“As long as we are fitting into a socioeconomic culture that prioritizes individualism and every man for themselves, we are going to be susceptible to the same sorts of booby traps that keep us from being found, coherent and growing in capacity.”

Damenica Ellis welcomes reader responses at dellis@spokesman-recorder.com.