MPCA continues to battle with Northern Metals over shredder operation

The long-running battle between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and an auto shredder operated by Northern Metals, a scrap metal facility operating in Minneapolis, may be drawing closer to a resolution. The agency claims that the company’s auto shredder exceeds legal air emission standards and has been pushing to have the operation shut down.

The facility, which operates a metal shredder, is believed by the MPCA to be a primary source of particulate emissions that have repeatedly violated state air quality standards near the site since 2014 when the MPCA began operating air monitors near the facility.

The MPCA has been running two air monitors in north Minneapolis since 2014. The agency notes that newly released analysis of 2015 data shows heavy metals in the area are at levels of concern.

“We’ve been concerned about the levels of particles and metals,” says MPCA Assistant Commissioner David Thornton, “but until recently we didn’t have enough data to compare them against health benchmarks for air quality.”

The Minnesota Department of Health reviewed the MPCA’s analysis and expressed concern about the findings. “While the results in this report do not indicate a short-term health risk,” says Environmental Health Manager James Kelly, “we are concerned about the overall impact on air quality in this area and the potential for harm over the long term, particularly for those who work in the immediate area.”

Thornton says the agency has been trying to find out exactly where the pollution is coming from. Northern Metals is located between the two air monitors, but there are other potential sources in the area as well. The agency has worked over the last year with a handful of the likeliest sources in the area to reduce emissions. He says that while some progress has been made, “It clearly hasn’t been enough. We think there’s more they can do, including signing agreements with us.” To date, none have done so, Thornton adds.

One step that the agency had hoped would give it leverage over Northern Metals was taking the company to court to shut down the shredder. However, earlier this month a county judge rejected the petition, indicating he likely wouldn’t rule on it until after the planned July 31 completion of the improved dust-handling equipment.

Despite the failure to have the injunction approved, Jeff Smith, the MPCA industrial division director, says the judge requested that the two sides come together to figure out a way in which Northern Metals can come into compliance with state emission standards – an issue that the MPCA claims the company has failed to do since first receiving its permit.

Despite the two parties agreeing to work toward a resolution to the problem that has only grown more contentious since around 2012, the MPCA is taking other steps to stop operations at Northern Metal Recycling.

The unusual legal steps are underway because MPCA officials claim Northern Metals provided misleading information in the process of getting its air quality permit in 2012 and as a result is polluting the air in north Minneapolis.

According to numerous published reports, Northern Metals has been confrontational with the agency, suing in district court to stop the MPCA’s air monitoring. The company is under court order to conduct further testing to determine if the facility is in compliance with its MPCA-issued air emissions permit. But Thornton says the MPCA also recently learned that the company may not have submitted accurate information during the permitting process and may have changed operations or added new emission sources, or both, without informing the MPCA.

“These are potentially serious permit violations,” Thornton says. “We’ll be looking at all of our options, including permit revocation.”

In a public notice issued by the MPCA of its intent to revoke without reissuance its air permit, the agency claims that “there is evidence that the shredder and cleaning system do not operate in a total enclosure and never did.”

The agency also claims that Northern Metals failed to disclose or calculate emissions for emissions-producing equipment and activities associated with recovery of metals from shredder residue during the 2012 permitting process or when significant changes were made in 2014. The shredder residue-related activities occur in the facility’s metals recovery plant and the adjacent rain and snow shed,” a structure that is open to the environment.

The petition noted that “In 2014, Northern Metals LLC, made substantial changes and additions to the shredder residue equipment. These changes included expanding the processing operations in the rain and snow shed. Northern Metals failed to obtain an amendment to its permit or retain calculations that demonstrate that the 2014 changes qualified as 'insignificant.'”

Northern Metals also has failed to provide complete information to the MPCA about emissions related to the shredder residue equipment when requested to do so by the MPCA, in violation of its permit, the agency says.

Thornton points out that air monitoring will continue at least until sources of the elevated pollutants have been identified and concentrations reduced to appropriate levels. The lead findings in the analysis trigger a requirement under the federal Clean Air Act to determine if the area is in compliance with the national lead standard. Verifying compliance requires three years of air monitoring data showing lead levels in ambient air below 50 percent of the national standard.

“Based on our investigations and discussions with the company over the last year, we believe either the company did not truthfully disclose its emissions from this facility when it was last permitted, or that it has added or changed emission sources since the permit was issued without informing us, or both,” says Thornton.

“We use many strategies in our efforts to make permitted facilities comply with the environmental protections we’re charged to enforce,” he says. “Moving to close a facility and revoke their permit is a very rare step for the MPCA.”

Thornton says if the permit is revoked, the company would be free to reapply for another one but that a new permit would have to properly account for and control emissions.

The MPCA began monitoring air quality near Northern Metals after the permit was issued in 2012. The monitors began detecting elevated particulates almost immediately, at levels that have frequently exceeded state standards. Analysis of a year’s worth of data the MPCA recently completed also found that levels of airborne heavy metals near the site are near or above health benchmarks.

Phone calls to Northern Metals and the company’s attorney were not returned.