A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses Hennepin County of violating state law by not developing plans to reduce the quantity and toxicity of the ash produced at its garbage incinerator in downtown Minneapolis.
The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) says the state’s largest county isn’t complying with a law requiring clear plans to manage ash produced by burning roughly 365,000 tons of trash each year at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC).
That trash is burned down to about 80,000 tons of ash each year, which is disposed of in a landfill in Rosemount, according to MCEA attorney Luke Norquist. Ash from incinerators contains heavy metals that can be highly toxic, including mercury and lead.
“Because of these unique hazards in ash, and because ash is uniquely difficult waste to contain indefinitely in landfills, we have specific laws in Minnesota. They’re designed to minimize the environmental risks,” Norquist said.
State statute 115A requires counties with incinerators to include steps in their solid waste management plans to reduce the quantity and toxicity of ash produced at those facilities. Hennepin County’s most recent solid waste management plan from 2024 does not mention ash from the HERC.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of public campaigns against the HERC. Three community members — Nazir Khan, Joshua Lewis and Natasha Villanueva — went on a 12-day hunger strike in April calling for county commissioners to close the facility.
The MCEA sent county officials a June 10 letter asking for the solid waste plan to be updated to include a process to reduce the quantity of ash and its toxicity, but said the county declined, prompting the lawsuit. The suit aims to require Hennepin County to develop a plan for managing the ash.
Hennepin County officials declined to comment, because the lawsuit is pending. But in a June 25 response letter the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office sent to MCEA, the county said that supplemental materials in its solid waste management plan address the state law’s requirements. Hennepin County provided the letter to Sahan Journal.
Hennepin County says that trash burned at the HERC is reduced by 90% of volume and 80% of weight through incineration. The ash, which the county describes as non-hazardous, is screened for metals. That process removes a large amount of scrap metal for recycling, says the county’s letter.
The landfill that receives ash from the HERC is run by SKB Environmental. The company collects the ash after it’s been dampened to reduce the risk of it blowing away, and transports it in covered trailers, the county wrote. Samples from the ash are collected at the landfill and tested by SKB and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MCPA), according to the letter.
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The letter also includes a list of projects undertaken at the HERC since 2018 to improve ash management.
The MCEA says that Hennepin County has not included plans for ash from the HERC in past waste management plans. There are seven trash incinerators in Minnesota. Norquist said MCEA has found that many counties seem not to be complying with state law.
“There’s been a structural failure to follow that in Minnesota, and hopefully this lawsuit can help fix that,” Norquist said
Anita Martinez lives near the landfill in Rosemount that receives ash from the HERC. A former Minneapolis resident, Martinez said she is concerned about the landfill’s location near the Mississippi River and pristine natural areas like the Spring Lake Park Reserve.
“I thought I left that behind me, but then I found out where that ash comes — here,” Martinez said. “We are not asking for anything radical; we are asking the county to follow the law.”
Across the world, incinerators employ different techniques to more safely transport and dispose of ash, Norquist said. The MCEA lays out suggestions in its lawsuit, such as solidifying the ash by adding it to a cement mixture or using chemicals to separate out fine heavy metal particles from the ash.
The county’s response letter to the MCEA discusses its ash management practices, but does not clearly outline plans to reduce the toxicity of the waste as required by state law, Norquist said.
“There’s no discussion of all the modern options that exist,” Norquist said.
