Waste is trucked in before being going into a boiler and being converted into energy at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, in February 2023. (David Joles, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Bloomington officials want to slow down plans to close Hennepin County's waste-to-energy incinerator in downtown Minneapolis, saying they are worried alternatives won't be viable soon enough.

Pushback from the suburbs that use the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, could be a major new complication in the drive to close the incinerator between 2028 and 2040. For Bloomington, even the 16 years until 2040 is not enough time to divert almost all of city's waste to composting and recycling to the point where the incinerator is no longer needed, city staff and council members said in a letter to the county.

"We are confident that our community will struggle to meet the goal of an 85% diversion in the accelerated timeline outlined," read the letter signed by the City Council this week to be sent to Hennepin County Commissioners.

Other cities could raise similar worries, with feedback from cities due to the county on Monday.

Reaching the county's goals to reduce trash will take more staff and money, Bloomington's letter read, and could take well over a decade.

Hennepin County is pushing to close the incinerator for several reasons. State aid for a new anaerobic digester — to deal with organics recycling — is conditioned on a timeline to close the HERC. A renewable-energy plan passed by the Legislature in 2023 no longer considers burning trash a preferred source of energy. And activists have been raising concerns about the health impacts of the incinerator, one of the largest sources of several air pollutants in the county.

In the short term, Bloomington predicted more refuse would go to landfills if the incinerator is closed before cities have time to reduce the amount of trash they produce. The letter warned of the potential for other pollution and climate impacts of closing the incinerator, both from trucking trash farther and from methane emitted by landfills.

"It does not appear that adequate consideration and study of the environmental justice impacts of closing HERC, beyond the neighborhoods surrounding the facility, has been undertaken," the letter read.

Bloomington is one of 16 Hennepin County cities that contract with waste haulers that bring all residential trash to the incinerator, according to a Hennepin County report.

St. Louis Park is planning to raise concerns similar to Bloomington's, a city spokesperson said.