Under pressure to curb pollution, Minneapolis foundry announces it will shut down

Smith Foundry will shut down next month after more than a century of operations in south Minneapolis, saying that increasingly stringent pollution regulations made it impossible to stay in business.

The announcement will eliminate jobs but also bring relief to those in the diverse, low-income East Phillips neighborhood, who have complained for years about acrid and potentially toxic emissions from the facility.

The company announced the closure in a Friday statement to the Star Tribune. Some parts of the operation, including the furnace, were scheduled to close the same day, and the rest will close by Aug. 15.

“Unfortunately, our employees and their families will be impacted the most by this closure, which I deeply regret. I wish there was more we could do,” Adolpho Quiroga, the president of the foundry, said in the statement. Smith has previously reported it employs about 50 workers.

In his statement, Quiroga blamed “arbitrary and opaque” requirements from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for the closure. The agency has been working to update Smith’s air permit.

When the current owner, Zynik Capital, bought the foundry in 2022, “MPCA approved the transfer of the existing air permit without a single question and without expressing any concerns. They never informed us they had any concerns about the foundry, its operations, or its existence in the neighborhood,” Quiroga wrote.

The agency responded that it expects all companies in Minnesota to follow the state’s environmental laws.

“Smith Foundry is located in an area of the state that demands additional information [to] demonstrate that the company could operate while meeting air quality standards,” the MPCA said in a statement Friday. It also said the company told the agency it planned to close, “rather than provide information necessary for an operating air permit.”

The announcement follows months of heightened scrutiny of Smith Foundry by the neighborhood and pollution regulators. It started with a surprise inspection by the EPA in May 2023, and then intensified last fall as the neighborhood learned that inspectors found uncontrolled dust that could float out of open windows, broken equipment, and emissions the federal agency said broke air quality rules.

In the ensuing months, frustrations from activists and East Phillips residents spilled out during public meetings, as many contended that state and local regulators had ignored years of complaints. MPCA promised to fast-track a newer and more stringent air permit for the plant.

Neighbors of the foundry, and many families who sent their children to a daycare nearby, organized into a persistent voice for shutting the business down entirely.

“It’s such a relief and super rewarding to hear,” that the foundry was closing, said Tania Rivera Perez, program manager Circulo de Amigos Childcare. “For a minute, it seemed like it was going to be impossible.”

She added that neighborhood organizing efforts should now focus on the workers who would soon find themselves without jobs.

The foundry had reached a settlement with EPA, announced in June, that allowed it to keep operating parts of its business, including engineering and design work and metal finishing for iron components that had been cast elsewhere.

Under that agreement, the company agreed to close down its central furnace and casting operations. It was given a year to do so. Even then, many who lived nearby worried about what pollution might still be present from those operations, and how long it would be allowed to keep running under the settlement.

Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez, who represents the area, said Friday he was “very excited for the Phillips neighborhoods.”

“They’re continuing to push for change in our community and continuing with the push to breathe clean air. We have to make sure that all polluting [entities] are gone,” he said.

Steve Sandberg, a board member at East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, said that he’d been skeptical that the foundry would have been able to convert its operations, as the EPA agreement required.

“It just shouldn’t be in a residential neighborhood, and it took too long, but I’m glad today is here,” he said.

A foundry has operated at 1855 E. 28th St. in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood for about a century.

“We regret that we were not able to do business in Minnesota. But, going forward, we will look to other states and jurisdictions that mirror our mission to better the lives of everyone we come across and that want responsible companies and good, well-paying jobs in their communities,” a Zynik spokesman said in the foundry’s statement.

Reporter Dave Orrick contributed to this story.