Editor’s note: The wood-burning Midtown Eco Energy (MEE) plant — near 28th Street South and Hiawatha Avenue, just west of the Longfellow and Seward neighborhoods — has been the subject of heated debate, with supporters (primarily the project developer, Kandiyohi Partners) claiming the burner will be a safe, renewable energy source, while opponents have fought vehemently against what they view as an unwanted source of pollution.

After three months of trying to gain audience, individuals on either side of the issue stated their cases at the Longfellow Community Council’s March board meeting. As the city reviews the project’s progress and an environmental review continues, The Bridge asked those speakers to summarize their positions for and against the burner.

Midtown Eco Energy project will support local ‘green collar’ economy

Can we lead the transition to a “green collar economy” in South Minneapolis? With projects such as Midtown Eco Energy (MEE), the answer is clearly yes.

The MEE project provides an immediate opportunity to harness innovation and take action to create a local, balanced renewable-energy solution that supports neighborhood economies and the global environment.

This project will provide renewable electric energy and district heating in Minneapolis, all the while reducing our carbon footprint and the current level of emissions for energy production. Our best-in-the-nation emissions control systems will drastically reduce the impact of local energy production on the environment.

The project meets the Minnesota renewable energy portfolio standards passed into law last year, generating electricity for approximately 18,000 households and heat for over 2 million square feet of commercial and hospital space.

The facility will create 20 new jobs in the neighborhood, at an average annual salary of $63,000, as well as up to 200 union construction jobs. The project is ready to go this year. It will provide millions of dollars of new revenue to local and state government and a $2.5 million annual payroll to Minnesota residents. With this level of economic benefit and emission achievement, this facility will help jump-start the green economy in South Minneapolis and will be a model for other urban neighborhoods across the country.

The MEE team is also working closely with government at all levels to make sure the project meets or exceeds all regulatory requirements. We have received three unanimous votes of support from the Minneapolis City Council, and the Minneapolis Planning Commission unanimously supported the required permits. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is finishing a voluntary environmental review process to make sure all impacts of the project are carefully studied.

We continue to share up-to-date information with neighborhood groups and collaborate with them wherever possible. We will continue an open dialogue with all stakeholders to get the facts out about the project throughout its development.

In mid-March, an MEE supporter called us to tell us [Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board] staff with gas cans were open-air burning tree branches and limbs in Minnehaha Park. What a waste of potential renewable energy!

My message to you today is this: Projects like this are the future, and we are on the leading edge of change. I encourage you to learn more about the project and support other innovative projects like this one as the green economy develops in Minneapolis.

— Craig Wilson
Minneapolis resident and principal, Kandiyohi Development Partners

Midtown Eco Energy Power is an environmental injustice

The proposal for the Midtown Eco Energy wood-burning power plant comes wrapped in a slick presentation of high technology that appears to answer the hunger for a solution to global warming and the energy crisis. But the question “What is the cost, and who pays?” is nowhere to be found.

Few have been told that the proposed facility has been declared “a major source of Hazardous Air Pollutants” by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), according to its July, 2007 Technical Support Document (TSD). Each year, the burner could be permitted to pump as much as 1 million pounds of a large variety of pollutants into the air over Phillips, Corcoran, Powderhorn and much of the Longfellow neighborhoods.

A fair number of these pollutants are carcinogenic. Perhaps some of the worst of these toxic emissions are the 130,000 pounds of particulate matter that could be allowed under the permit. These are a major cause and enhancer of respiratory disease, especially asthma. The worst and most lethal of these are the tiny particles of 2.5 microns, about which the MPCA says there is limited data and few who can even test for this. But the MPCA also says there is uncertainty surrounding the emission factors used … with regard to dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and mercury — pollutants known to be carcinogenic to human beings — and that “the effect of the control type … is unknown and unproven.” The East Phillips Improvement Coalition voted to oppose this project because we are not prepared to gamble the lives of Phillips children on more pollution and “uncertain … unproven” technologies.

The claim may be correct that the power plant offers a lower “carbon footprint;” however, it brings significant dangerous pollution to an already heavily polluted neighborhood in which more than 80 percent of the residents are minorities, and 40 percent are children. Of those children, 40 percent live in poverty, and many have health challenges. East Phillips families already contend with an asphalt plant, a foundry, an arsenic superfund site, a roofing company’s hot asphalt storage, the future site of the city’s hot asphalt storage, and high levels of lead contamination in homes and yards.

This project offers no significant direct economic or social benefits to the large, dense, and low-income minority and indigenous population of East Phillips. The gain for the project will be primarily financial for the developers who live upwind on the more affluent side of town. The real cost of years of pollution will be born by the families and children of Phillips. The project is a clear example of environmental injustice.

—Carol Pass
Board chair, East Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC)

last revised: April 7, 2008

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