NSS Weekly: Breathing Easy—Looking for a Balance Between Industry and Healthy Neighborhoods

Transcript

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INTRO: You are listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a weekly newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota, produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations.

VICTOR PALOMINO: After years of litigation and community complaints about pollution, an industrial plant on St. Paul's East Side announces it is closing.

BRITT AAMODT: This week, we take a closer look at the complaints that led to the plant's closure, the effects of air pollution, environmental justice, and how community participation can shape urban planning.

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BRITT AAMODT: I'm Britt Aamodt.

VICTOR PALOMINO: And I'm Victor Palomino. First, North Star Stories reporter Xan Holston with some of the news that made the headlines around the state.

DAVID BEAN: No one voted for this. Congress has not passed any new laws on this matter.

XAN HOLSTON: Two Minnesota Ojibwe nations oppose a proposed federal rule they say could let people play sports bets by phone from reservation land without tribal approval, the ability to bet money on sports through prediction market apps from anywhere is at the center of an ongoing legal battle over Minnesota's new law banning prediction markets. But prediction markets wagering is also raising tribal sovereignty concerns and facing federal scrutiny. A proposed new rule by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the independent federal agency that regulates prediction market exchanges, would generally allow people to make sports wagers from anywhere. Minnesota's Leech Lake and Mille Lacs bands say the new rule would make the prediction markets the same as sports betting and could take place by phone on reservation land without tribal approval. At a recent House Agriculture Subcommittee hearing, Indian Gaming Association chairman David Bean says that violates existing tribal gaming regulations nationwide.

DAVID BEAN: Illegal online sports betting undermines our tribal sovereignty, state sovereignty, and those very agreements in place.

XAN HOLSTON: Minnesota's ban on predictions, markets, operations, and advertising was supposed to take effect, but a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement, while three related federal cases continue.

The Minnesota GOP itself has not announced a Sharia Law Caucus, but Republican state senator Michael Holmstrom is creating what he calls a Sharia-Free Minnesota caucus. The Buffalo lawmaker from northwest of Minneapolis says it will push legislation aimed at keeping Islamic religious law from influencing state courts. Holmstrom says the group will reaffirm the state and U.S. constitutions as the highest legal authority. He has not named any other members.

In central Minnesota, Brainerd Public Schools is reviewing how it responds to bullying reports after the deaths of two Forest View Middle School students this summer. The mother of one student says her daughter, who was black, was bullied about her skin tone and appearance. The district has called for an independent review, while the school board has held emergency work sessions and discussions about its response and future policy.

And finally, two Minnesota favorites are getting a taste of national attention. Snarky Loon Brewing in Jenkins, north of Brainerd, has been filmed for America's Best Restaurants Roadshow, a TV series featuring its food, beer, and community focus. And for dessert, Cup and Cone in White Bear Lake, northeast of St. Paul, has won America's Best Ice Cream. The soft serve stand beat 63 shops in a five round fan vote. Come for the lakes, stay for the calories. For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.

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BRITT AAMODT: For years, Northern Iron and Machine, a metalworking foundry in East St Paul, has been in legal battles with state environmental agencies over pollution standards. Recently, the company announced it is beginning the process of ending production and closing.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Reporter Maija Hecht has the story of the community involved and the events that led to the decision.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: I moved to Minnesota for health and safety. I wanted my kids to grow up with clean air, clean water, clean soil. We believed that that was something that Minnesota promised, and we've been shocked.

MAIJA HECHT: Ten years ago, Sarah Degner Riveros moved to Dayton's Bluff, a diverse and increasingly young working-class neighborhood in East Saint Paul.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: I wanted to grow a food forest. I am a mother of five kids, and it was a dream for me to raise food. We planted a cherry tree right away within a week or two of moving. We have four apple trees, peach tree, black raspberries. The chickens lay eight eggs a day, and we can't eat any of that because of our fear of the lead levels, the high lead levels in our soil.

MAIJA HECHT: Riveros's neighborhood is also home to Northern Iron and Machine, a century-old metal foundry that has been embroiled in a bitter legal battle with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or MPCA, for the past two years. After modeling suggested the foundry was emitting lead and particulate pollution above national standards, after intense pressure from the community late last month, the company announced it is closing the foundry for good.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: I'm afraid it's not safe. The health department says the lead levels in our soil are high.

MAIJA HECHT: According to MPCA records, after failing to prove compliance with environmental regulations, the agency moved to revoke Northern Iron's permit in June of last year, but Northern Iron contested the case. In its statement announcing the closure, the company said the facility will continue operating during what it calls a wind-down period. The closing announcement is welcomed news for neighbors raising health concerns in the area.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: There are a lot of sources of lead that we're already stuck with. Right, little by little, they're replacing the lead pipes in this neighborhood. They haven't gotten to our street yet.

MAIJA HECHT: According to state statistics, blood lead concentrations in children surrounding the foundry are two to three times higher than the state average. Riveros is aware of the other risk factors for lead and air pollution that come with living in an old urban neighborhood, lead paint, pipes, and city traffic. But to her, the foundry, which is the seventh largest lead polluter in the state as of this year, according to the MPCA, represented an additional risk and an unknown.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: I guess the way I frame it is, we don't need even more lead in our system.

MAIJA HECHT: Environmental lawyer Mel Lorenz also lives near the soon-to-be closed foundry. She recalls attending a public meeting between the MPCA and her neighborhood council years ago, after learning about Northern Iron's settlement with the agency.

MEL LORENZ: People were asking, "How does this affect me? How much pollution is there?" And unfortunately, we're still trying to find some of those answers. MPCA really did not provide much information at that meeting, so I put in a public records request and started digging into the history of what I've been going on at this facility and what the violations were.

MAIJA HECHT: Northern Iron and Machine, owned by Lawton Standard since 2022, manufactures large iron castings for heavy machinery used in agriculture, large locomotive, and construction industries. They have operated off of Phalen Boulevard in Saint Paul since 1892. In its statement announcing the closure, Northern Iron said it is deeply disappointed that, despite years of investment, collaboration, and good faith efforts to address environmental and permitting concerns, it was unable to reach a path forward to continue operating.

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MAIJA HECHT: The MPCA's dispute with the company goes back to 2020, when the agency learned Northern Iron had made unauthorized changes to their facilities, resulting in increased air pollution from the foundry. A facility inspection in 2022 resulted in a fine of about $40,000 for air permit violations, and in years since, Northern Iron has submitted multiple incomplete applications to update their permit, finally resulting in MPCA's rare move to revoke the permit altogether.

MEL LORENZ: And I'm speaking now, more in my capacity as an attorney, and sort of generally, what we do see is that not only MPCA but other state regulatory agencies often will really try to help business stay in business, even if they are causing some pollution or you know could be doing more to protect the environment. Recently, in neighborhoods surrounding the foundry, people have been going door to door to share information. You know, residents have continued to see soot on our homes, and that soot has been tested to contain the same heavy metals that are inside Northern Iron. So there are really strong indications that something's wrong here.

MAIJA HECHT: The same soot lands on the soil, trees, and crops in Sarah Degener Riveros's backyard.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: I want to be able to use our backyard safely. I want to be able to harvest food from the food forests that we that we've grown and cultivated over the past decades.

MAIJA HECHT: Studies show that there is no safe level of exposure to lead, especially for children who have a smaller capacity to tolerate the pollutant. Elevated blood lead levels disproportionately affect people of color, people living in poverty, and those living in houses built before 1950, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Neighbors are hoping the closure will mean a healthier environment for those living in the area.

SARAH DEGNER RIVEROS: We all deserve to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

MAIJA HECHT: Northern Iron says it is committed to providing timely and transparent communications to all affected parties throughout the wind-down process. This is Maija Hecht reporting for North Star Stories.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: Air pollution is not only a product of industry; other aspects of our daily life can also change the environment around us.

BRITT AAMODT: To help us better understand the different sources of air pollution and how to protect ourselves, we're joined by Greg Pratt, a faculty member in environmental health at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. He also previously worked at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Welcome to the program, Greg.

GREG PRATT: Thanks for having me.

BRITT AAMODT: We've heard about the effects an industrial plant can have on an urban environment. What are some other common sources of air pollution?

GREG PRATT: Well, the biggest source of air pollution is automobiles, but industrial facilities are second, close second behind that. And then there are all kinds of other smaller sources. For example, home heating, lawn maintenance, all kinds of smaller sources, but the big ones are automobiles and industrial sources.

BRITT AAMODT: So it's in the news that Northern Iron is closing. So when a plant like that closes, does air pollution end immediately, or is it a gradual decline? Is there some pollution that's going to outlive all of us?

GREG PRATT: Well, there will be ongoing pollution from other sources, but in that area, Northern Iron is the biggest player and creates an unhealthy environment in the area around the facility. And so, when Northern Iron closes, that will be a benefit to the neighbors. Their air pollution levels will go down.

BRITT AAMODT: Immediately?

GREG PRATT: As soon as they close. Yeah, so the air inside the plant can be quite dirty, and then the vents will vent out into the local air. People have complained about all kinds of particles on their cars and their houses and their windows and their streets, sidewalks, and all that. So those kinds of things that are coming from Northern Iron will stop when the facility stops operations.

BRITT AAMODT: So something else we've been talking a lot about lately in Minnesota are the wildfires, which have led to air quality alerts in parts of Minnesota. How can poor air quality affect people?

GREG PRATT: The most important effect, of course, is on the lungs. You inhale air pollution; it gets into your lungs and affects your respiratory system. But also, gasses and the very small particles can get into the bloodstream through the lungs, come into, you know, you breathe it in in the deep lung, can transfer to the bloodstream and be transported around the body. And so air pollution can that way affect all of the organ systems in the body.

BRITT AAMODT: So, how much of a difference can staying indoors really make on an alert day?

GREG PRATT: Staying indoors can be very helpful when there's when there are alerts. One of the things, interestingly, that I have studied is indoor air pollution as well, and it turns out that many people have lots of sources of indoor air pollution. Cooking adds pollutants to the air. Vacuuming brings up dust and increases the dust levels in the house. Also, if you have all kinds of different appliances produce air pollution in the house. So you know the house is not necessarily completely clean, but in when there are air quality air pollution episodes outside, that is a real big problem for people's health. And being inside will provide some prevention.

BRITT AAMODT: It sounds like a conundrum to me because you know you talk about the indoor air pollution, and in a situation like that, I'd imagine you'd want to have good air circulation from outside, get that air out. But on air quality days, you want to shut everything up.

GREG PRATT: That's exactly right.

BRITT AAMODT: Are air filters going to fix some of that problem, and what type of air filters?

GREG PRATT: There are standalone air filters that one can use. Also, many furnace air conditioning systems have filters on them. One needs to be aware of the type of filters that are on one system. Some of them are better than others, and we want you would want filters that are going to particularly remove particles, especially small particles.

BRITT AAMODT: So, what rating are we looking for?

GREG PRATT: First of all, your home has to be able to accommodate that. There are standalone ones that you can put in a room, but you can also have ones attached to your heating or air conditioning system. What I would look at carefully on the filters is what kind of organizations are rating those filters and what kind of rating are they giving them. The rating can list or show the types of particles and gasses that would be removed by the filter. So I would look carefully at that.

BRITT AAMODT: Thank you so much for all of your insight on air pollution, Greg, and thank you for coming on North Star Stories.

GREG PRATT: Thank you for having me.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: After the break, we take a look at how community participation can shape the planning of cities and neighborhoods. And, do we all have a right to a better environment?

BRITT AAMODT: This is North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's Community Radio Stations, with support from the State of Minnesota. We'll be right back.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: You are listening to North Star Stories. I'm Victor Palomino.

BRITT AAMODT: And I'm Britt Aamodt. Cities and towns change over time. Sometimes, the construction of a new highway forces people to leave their homes, factories have to move away from neighborhoods, or a new industry plant is built in a rural area.

VICTOR PALOMINO: To understand how planning shapes the development and history of places, we're joined now by Daniel Trudeau, professor in the Geography Department at Macalester College. His research focuses on ways that social, political, legal, and economic
processes influence city life and landscapes. Welcome to the program.

DANIEL TRUDEAU: It's a pleasure. Thanks for asking me to be on.

VICTOR PALOMINO: So, when you look at city life and how do planning and public policy shapes the way people actually live day-to-day lives?

DANIEL TRUDEAU: Planning is an endeavor in bringing idealism to organize where people live, and those ideals, even though we call it idealism, are not always ones that are just or thinking about people's livelihood and well-being. Sometimes it's about maximizing profit or enabling companies to get the most extracted out of location. So, if there's anything I can emphasize is that the endeavor of planning is really situated in the time and space that it operates, and so it's it will look different accordingly. But also, there are some similarities too.

VICTOR PALOMINO: You said that sometimes it affects people against industry, and it might affect. And we see in cities how some parts of the cities are more affected than others. Is planning can help to prevent that, or this is something that is going to happen is unavoidable?

DANIEL TRUDEAU: I mean, I think what's interesting about planning as an enterprise, so it operates in government structures, and so governments have the legal power to do certain things. They also have responsibilities to do other things. So, for instance, back 50 years ago, we ended up seeing one really important legal obligation emerge around environmental protection, and so all projects of a certain scope have to undergo an environmental review, and that is designed to kind of slow down the process of development and create space for the opportunity to ask questions about what are the other impacts to people, to non-human species, to water quality that that might cause, and I think in that sort of slowness and deliberateness of a review, you might be able to introduce other kinds of local knowledges. Similarly, we could look at similar kinds of interventions that occur through legal mandates like the Americans with Disability Act.

VICTOR PALOMINO: So thinking about that, what should be the role of the community and this input and this kind of like so they are a little bit more proactive and not reactive when something happened?

DANIEL TRUDEAU: I think we would say in the kind of experience of the United States, there is a impulse of allowing people in local places to have a substantive impact on their future. You know, this is in some ways the foundation of self-government, of having town halls and electing officials. The idea is that people are experts of their lives and should have some say, if not a lot of say, over the decision making planning as a profession has become really technical and specialized, and it can all of a sudden be intimidating, if not hard, to interact with. It's not always easily translated, but at the same time, I think certainly in the last 40 years, there's been a demand for more interaction with local peoples and ways in which planning can operate in collaboration with local peoples, rather than merely creating an opportunity for someone to show up and say something. So, to bring a local example, about 20-ish years ago, there was an ongoing conversation about investing in a light rail line that would go down University Avenue between downtown St. Paul, ultimately into downtown Minneapolis, and the funding model suggested that. So to create the quickest moving route that we should only have let's I don't know the exact number but let's say it was 10 stops. So there is this model that came from the Department of Transportation and the Met Council implemented it, and they provided a route map. And I remember being at a couple of different meetings with communities, and there was a really well-organized response from people who lived in the area where the train was slated to travel, saying, "We're going to experience these disruptions, we'll see the train go by, but we will never never be able to get on that train." And so that means that they don't have access to that form of public transit. It also means that the businesses that will be experiencing that disruption, they will never get the potential benefits from it either. And through this really well-organized campaign—it's called Stops for Us—they were able to have a conversation with the Met Council that then went up to the national level of the Department of Transportation to change the funding formula and actually allowed for a net increase in the number of stops. And the City of Saint Paul supported this by also bringing money to install the stations at three more stops, but it was predominantly areas along University Avenue where black and brown communities have roots.

VICTOR PALOMINO: How should we think about the cities today, or the things that we're building today, so they have a lasting impact on the communities starting now, and the people in the future?

DANIEL TRUDEAU: One of the things that's really important to consider is that in the enterprise of planning, those decisions made today usually aren't implemented for another 10 years, and then we're stuck with them for multiple generations. You might think about the creation of the interstate highway system. They optimized the routes to connect cities and to go through cities so that you can move quickly. But locally, many of those decisions were implemented in ways that disrupted selectively certain areas, and we have been dealing with the consequences of that, both good and bad, for generations. And so while these decisions are long lasting, they're not inevitable. We don't, we're not stuck with them forever, but it will take significant work and conversation to think about an alternative. And then, of course, the investment. I think the other thing related to that is trying to make investments that are conducive to adaptation and adjustment, that you're not necessarily stuck with what you thought was the coolest thing and the state of the art in year X, and 20 years later you're like, "Well, that was a fad that we didn't realize has unmounted."

VICTOR PALOMINO: I think that that was a really good word to just say that adaptation. You know, it's like planning, but being flexible about the fact that things change and things happen. Are there any good examples you can think about?

DANIEL TRUDEAU: One of the efforts is to shift from zoning to say like a legal code that that expects certain land uses to be here and certain land uses to be there, and kind of separating uses from the start to shifting. Say, actually, we want the built environment to look this way here and to look that way there. We actually don't care what gets used in these buildings. We'll allow that to be sorted out, of course, within some within some limits. But so it's called form-based codes rather than zoning-based codes, in which there's an effort to build the kind of environment-built environment that we think will be long-lasting. And then whether it's used for retail business or for housing, like it could be adaptable, it could be flexible. You're not stuck with it being just what we expected should work according to a plan that some people hatched decades ago.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Well, Dan, thank you so much for your insights and adding to these conversations.

DANIEL TRUDEAU: Thanks for the opportunity and the invitation. It was great to speak with you.

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BRITT AAMODT: What do we really mean when we talk about the environment, and do people have a right to a healthy one?

VICTOR PALOMINO: To help us think that through, we're joined now by Evan Mulholland, Healthy Communities Program Director at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. A nonprofit organization that uses law and science to protect Minnesota's environment, its natural resources, and the health of its people. Thank you for joining us.

EVAN MULHOLLAND: Yeah, thanks, Victor. I'm really happy to be a part of this.

VICTOR PALOMINO: For listeners that might not be familiar with the term, what does environmental justice really means?

EVAN MULHOLLAND: It's really a term that came about in the 1980s. That's a response to environmental racism. Environmental racism is this idea that's borne out in in many places in the United States that environmental impact is specifically where polluting industries and waste facilities and things are often coincident with race, class, and income in the United States, and the response to that is environmental justice. What we're trying to do as a as a community and as a movement is to change that, to move towards a world where environmental harms and benefits are more equitably distributed, where the process is more fair, where people have a say, and really to repair some of these environmental racism harms that have happened over decades and decades and decades in the United States.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Is this something that can be enforced?

EVAN MULHOLLAND: President Biden had issued several executive orders that had the effect of pushing agencies, both on the federal level and on the state level, towards more procedural environmental justice and some substantive environmental justice as well. You know, more things were translated. There was more outreach. There was more emphasis given on getting more people in the room where decisions are made and also trying to figure out how we can actually reduce pollution levels in places that are most vulnerable to pollution and most hard hit by pollution. A lot of those executive orders have been rescinded by the current administration, and it comes down now to state level work and local work.

VICTOR PALOMINO: If a community is in in that situation, they're seeing that their environment is being polluted, what are what are some of the first steps?

EVAN MULHOLLAND: I think one of the most amazing things about organizing, about these advocacy campaigns that we get involved in, is the power that people realize that they have when they work collectively. You know, one person calling up their city councilor, their state rep, or writing a letter to the editor, or posting on Instagram or something like has some effect. Like I don't want to discourage people from like you know advocating for themselves and their family, but it's amplified like 10 or a hundredfold when people get together. So the first thing is to get together and talk to each other. We're so much stronger when we learn from each other and we work together on these advocacy campaigns. Number two is to talk to organizations like MCA, for instance, like we're set up to, like really be in solidarity with community groups and community organizations that are trying to work on these problems. It's also like not giving up, like realizing the power that you have when you are bounced back from setbacks, and then you keep going. That's something that I learned from working in community and with people who are most affected by these sort of things.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Well, thanks so much for your time.

EVAN MULHOLLAND: Yeah, thanks so much, Victor. Happy to do it.

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BRITT AAMODT: This is it for today's program. If you missed any part of today's newscast, you can find this and past episodes at AMPERS.org or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

VICTOR PALOMINO: You can also get North Star Stories Daily on our website or check your favorite station's schedule. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with more stories and voices from the North Star State.

OUTRO: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations with support from the state of Minnesota. Online at ampers.org.