The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) issued a dishonest email Monday, saying Smith Foundry’s recent air pollution test results “verify” that the foundry “is not emitting more particulate matter than allowed by its permit.”
The air tests didn’t “verify” anything.
Continue readingIn this post:
In this post:
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA’s) mission statement is “To protect and improve the environment and human health,” but you wouldn’t know it looking at the agency’s website, a main vehicle for the agency to communicate with the public.
The agency does not have its mission statement quoted anywhere on its website, according to a site search Friday.
It seems the agency is waving the white flag of surrender on its ability “to protect and improve the environment and human health.”
It’s seen in everything from the agency’s failure to address nitrate-polluted water — including in private wells — in parts of southeastern Minnesota, to its approval of a waste water permit for the proposed Polymet copper sulfide mine in the Lake Superior watershed. (The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled the agency acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner in approving the permit.)
Continue readingNorthern Iron LLC, a St. Paul iron foundry, had “removed, modified, or replaced pollution control equipment” without the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA’s) review or approval, the agency said in a media release Oct. 24. It “was operating some of its pollution control equipment out of permitted ranges.”
“The violations occurred over 15 years, during which the MPCA conducted five separate inspections of the facility — and each time, the company failed to disclose updates or changes made to equipment,” the agency said.
Continue readingFor the Rule of Law to mean anything, it has to be able to hold wealthy people and large companies accountable as well as the average person. One of the sadder chapters in the Line 3 pipeline pipeline saga was the pitifully meager penalties available to hold Enbridge accountable for blatant permit violations.
Enbridge completed the pipeline two years ago. Groups of advocates still are trying to force the state to do what it should have done immediately: Hold Enbridge responsible for the environmental damage it created.
Advocates have filed a pleading in District Court in Clearwater County to enforce the one weak criminal charge the state brought against Enbridge: A misdemeanor for the unpermitted discharge of state waters. A year ago, the state and Enbridge entered an agreement, where Enbridge would admit to its wrongdoing. In return, the state said it would dismiss the charges in a year as long as Enbridge remained law abiding.
The charge is set to be dismissed this week/
Advocates say Enbridge hasn’t remained on good behavior. They have identified sites of suspected aquifer breaches that neither the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) nor Enbridge have made known publicly.
Enbridge knew or should have known about all of these breaches and done something about them.
The pleading asks the Court to enforce the misdemeanor charge: specifically to order the imprisonment of responsible Enbridge executives for 90 days or an otherwise definite term, “and to order each Enbridge executive to individually pay $1000 for each aquifer breach in Minnesota along the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline corridor.”
Continue readingIn this post:
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when it issued wastewater permits for the PolyMet North Mine, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Aug. 2 on a 6-0 vote.
A concurring opinion, signed by five justices, criticized the MPCA for failing to recognize and follow the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s stricter water quality standards, as required by law.
The decision highlights (again) the MPCA’s failure to live up to its mission: To protect and improve the environment and human health.
Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision returns the permit to the MPCA for further consideration.
Continue reading
This post was written in collaboration with Waadookawaad Amikwag.
Construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline has created at least four artesian aquifer breaches – at Clearbrook, LaSalle Valley, Fond du Lac, and Moose Lake – all from the same cause: Driving sheet pilings too deep into the ground. A fifth site – Walker Brook – technically might not count as an artesian aquifer breach, but the environmental damage there is significant and needs to remain in the public eye.
Line 3’s 337-mile route went through many areas with high water tables, making it difficult to install the pipeline. If workers starting digging a trench, it would quickly fill with water.
Construction workers would drive 30-foot-tall sheet pilings into the ground, one on each side of the planned trench. The goal was to block groundwater flow into the trench so it would be dry enough to work.
However, Line 3 also crosses lands with shallow artesian aquifers. These are areas where groundwater is held underground, under pressure, by an impervious layer of soil, such as clay. Break the clay seal with a sheet piling and the water rushes to the surface.
Enbridge either didn’t do its homework on artesian aquifer locations on Line 3’s route, or it chose to be willfully ignorant of them. Either way, it kept repeating the same kind of damage.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) failed to intervene effectively. It wrote a weak permit. It didn’t even know the amount or location of the sheet pilings Enbridge used for the project.
Randall Doneen, Section Manager for the DNRs’ Conservation Assistance and Regulation unit, wrote Healing Minnesota Stories: “We do not have sheet piling locations across the entire line. When we investigate specific locations we get the sheet piling information on that location from the company.”
Continue readingLast updated: Aug. 8, 2023
This post written in collaboration with Waadookawaad Amikwag
The following summarizes the causes and impacts of aquifer breaches resulting from construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline. This post will be updated when new information becomes available.
Line 3 construction ended more than 19 months ago, Oct. 1, 2021. State regulators have been slow to announce all the environmental damage that occurred. They say they don’t release information until they finish their investigations.
A volunteer group called Wadookawaad Amikwag (Anishinaabemowin for “Those Who Help Beaver”) has been concerned about state agencies’ seeming lack of urgency and the lack of public information available. Volunteers are investigating on their own.
Continue reading
healingmnstories.wordpress.com 