Credit on fighting pollution where credit is due

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The environmental community is diverse in the opinions and strategies each member uses to realize a collective goal of protecting and enhancing our environment and protecting human health. This includes holding elected leadership and state agencies accountable, particularly the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). We are quick to render judgment when we’re unhappy with the MPCA, offering public criticism and making demands. I’m here to remind my dedicated colleagues and fellow environmentalists that we need to learn to be quick with praise as well. For this partnership to be impactful for future generations, we must give credit when credit is due.

This April, the MPCA took swift and decisive action to enforce air quality standards at the Northern Iron and Machine foundry in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood of St. Paul. This environmental justice neighborhood has the highest levels of lead in blood for children in Minnesota. The EPA has identified Northern Iron as among the lead-emitting facilities in the country with the greatest likelihood of impacting children.

This April, the MPCA ordered Northern Iron to reduce operations and take actions to reduce emissions. Northern Iron pushed back and asked for a stay to the order, and the MPCA did the right thing by denying that stay, which was a step taken to protect the surrounding community. In other words, the MPCA took firm action against a known polluter — behavior environmental organizations have long been demanding of the agency.

Unfortunately, Northern Iron filed a petition for an order of review with Ramsey County District Court. After settlement discussions fell through, Northern Iron asked the judge for an emergency order allowing the foundry to resume its normal operating hours for the next few months. Instead, Northern Iron can try installing pollution control equipment and see whether that will sufficiently reduce its emissions.

Lead exposure impacts almost every part of our bodies, with children being the most susceptible to injury. Exposure in people of all ages can cause detrimental neurological and gastrointestinal effects, anemia, kidney disease and more. And because this is presenting as particulate matter, pollution is being released into the air and therefore highly mobile. You don’t have to live immediately next to Northern Iron to be impacted.

As such, I feel it is only right to hold Judge Leonardo Castro as accountable as we would the MPCA for a decision made that is harmful to both the environment and human health. Judge Castro has an impressive résumé, but nowhere on that résumé lists an environmental sciences or public health degree. We must leave these decisions on how to address dangerous pollution to the experts. In this case, the expert is the MPCA.

Despite Castro’s decision, this case is not over. The law clearly states that Northern Iron must reduce its emissions. Northern Iron must install better pollution control equipment and prove that this has brought the foundry into compliance with air quality standards. The MPCA must carefully and vigilantly take all necessary steps to make sure that Northern Iron does not pull the wool over the community’s eyes again, by producing faulty modeling or by hiding the truth about its equipment. And if Northern Iron cannot reduce its emissions, Castro must reinstate the MPCA’s administrative order.

For all the complaints and bad-faith arguments polluters make when court cases go against them, it’s always crickets when judges decide in their favor. Favor that can result in serious health impacts on us, our families and our communities.

Also, consider the message sent to businesses in compliance with their permits and abiding by regulations. Why does Northern Iron get a free pass to pollute while others do not? This ruling is no way to inspire businesses to honor Minnesota law regarding what is considered allowable levels of pollution discharge. This only makes the work of the MPCA that much harder to enforce.

The MPCA did what we have been asking them to do by taking serious steps to stop Northern Iron from releasing toxic particulate matter into the air we breathe. And we need to be in their corner for this fight.

Avonna Starck, of Minneapolis, is state director for Clean Water Action Minnesota.