Natasha Villanueva doesn’t want to starve herself.
She’d rather spend time off work on self-restoration. Instead, starting April 10, the north Minneapolis resident intends to give up food for over a week to urge Hennepin County commissioners to commit to a date for closing the garbage incinerator in Minneapolis.
Villanueva is part of a group of county residents planning to go on hunger strike to push the board of commissioners to set a closure date for the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, the downtown Minneapolis incinerator commonly known as the HERC.
She and fellow strikers say county officials have done little since the board passed a resolution in 2023 saying that the incinerator’s pollution creates public health issues and agreeing to close the facility sometime between 2028 and 2040. They’re demanding the county set a closure date by the end of 2026.
For the strikers, every year the HERC remains open means more pollution for people living near the facility who are exposed to smog, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, all of which are linked to health problems.
“It’s terrible that as elected officials, instead of realizing they are killing constituents, that we have to resort to this,” Villanueva told Sahan Journal. “I don’t want to go on hunger strike.”
The HERC has been controversial since its construction in the late 1980s. It’s located in the North Loop neighborhood next to Target Field on the north edge of downtown and near the Minneapolis farmers market.
The area around the HERC has changed in the past 30 years, and is now home to sought-after apartment buildings and fine dining establishments. But the incinerator is also near Interstate 94 and just across the highway from the Near North neighborhood, a working-class, majority Black area.
Janet Kitui, an Edina resident who plans to go on the hunger strike for a week, told Sahan Journal she became passionate about the HERC after learning about its health impacts. She had a longtime friend and hairdresser who lived on the Near North side and died at 50 after suffering a massive asthma attack.
Kitui was among the activists who pushed the county board to pass the 2023 resolution, but now, nearly three years later, she believes that resolution has confused the public into thinking a real closure plan is in place.
County officials in 2024 identified several policy changes on recycling and waste diversion benchmarks they believe need to be accomplished before they can shut down the HERC. One of those, a state law requiring all packaging to be recyclable or compostable by 2032, passed in 2024. Activists believe a commitment to closing the HERC will spur greater effort toward waste reduction goals.
“We want to escalate this, bring it to a different level to create the urgency to close this facility,” Kitui told Sahan Journal.
Residents have protested the HERC for more than 30 years, and there have been serious organizing efforts to pressure county commissioners to close it. Although those movements have made progress, Villanueva said she realized just asking nicely wasn’t going to accomplish their goal.
Going on strike
Villanueva and Kitui are affiliated with the Zero Burn Coalition, an alliance of environmental and labor groups pushing to close the HERC and other garbage incinerators across Minnesota.
Other people will join the hunger strike for a few days at a time, according to Nazir Khan, executive director of the MN Environmental Justice Table, a coalition member. The group plans to hold events across the county to draw attention to the strikers and their goal through rallies and social media posts. Coalition members from the organization Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate will check in on the strikers regularly.
Although the strikers themselves want to see the HERC close as soon as possible, their demand for commissioners is lower: They want a firm date within the 2028 to 2040 range, and a commitment to involve the public in what happens next at the site.
Kitui walked around the HERC on a sunny February afternoon and watched as dozens of garbage trucks entered the HERC. They beeped loudly as they slowly lumbered through the gates. She turned across the street and saw the playground at Mary’s Place, a large homeless shelter run by Sharing and Caring Hands. She didn’t realize how close it was to the incinerator.
“I’m more stressed out now,” Kitui said.
Kitui immigrated to the United States from Kenya 37 years ago to study at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She now works as the director of procurement at Normandale Community College.
She sees the lack of commitment toward closing the HERC as a failure to recognize the health risks posed by asthma. Asthma rates are disproportionately high in Minneapolis neighborhoods near the HERC, where there are highways and other industrial facilities.
“I am putting my own body on the line because there are people suffering the effects,” Kitui said.
County hesitant to commit
County leaders fear shutting the HERC will divert more waste to landfills. The MPCA’s waste hierarchy, which ranks the methods for processing waste from best to worst, favors incinerators over landfills. Landfills are known sources of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The state calls incinerators waste-to-energy facilities because they burn trash to generate power.
That hierarchy was reinforced to commissioners at a Feb. 5 county board meeting when assistant Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Commissioner Kirk Koudelka gave a presentation about waste reduction goals. Koudelka told the board the MPCA appreciates Hennepin County keeping its incinerator going instead of sending more trash to landfills. The HERC burns about 45% of all trash generated in the state’s largest county.
“There are lesser climate and long term pollution impacts from waste-to-energy than there are from landfilling. Landfills are there forever,” Koudelka said at the meeting.
The state’s goal is to prevent waste and to increase rates of recycling and composting, he said. Asked by Commissioner Angela Conley about capacity at landfills, Koudelka said closing the HERC would require much more waste to be split up among various landfills located outside of Hennepin County, or the construction of a new landfill. The county does not currently have a landfill; most trash not burned at the HERC is brought to landfills in Dakota County.
“The closure of a waste-to-energy facility like HERC would mean we would need,” Koudelka said at the February meeting as he snapped his fingers, “like that, a new landfill to be the second largest in the state.”
Sahan Journal contacted all seven county board members for this story. Two, District 1 Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde and District 6 Commissioner Heather Edelson, agreed to interviews. A third, District 2 Commissioner and County Board Chair Irene Fernando, submitted written statements. The others didn’t respond to questions.
Lunde told Sahan Journal he believes the county is abiding by its 2023 resolution and says progress is being made toward waste reduction goals. The hunger strike shows commitment that Lunde respects, but he said it doesn’t mean he would change his approach to the HERC and waste issues.
“I think it’s a fair and respected way to draw attention,” Lunde said. “Will it lead to action? I don’t think so. I’d be lying if I said it would.”
Edelson echoed his views. She was a state representative in 2023, not a county commissioner, but believes that Hennepin County is taking steps to reduce waste and promote recycling. There is no landfill currently in Hennepin County, and she worries that setting a date would be symbolic. But Edelson said she wants to see the HERC closed, and agrees that the process isn’t going fast enough.
“I respect the passion of this group and their conviction,” she told Sahan Journal. “At the same time, as a government, it’s important for us to look at planning and sequencing in a measurable system and just setting a date shifts a lot of things.”
Fernando, whose district includes the HERC, said in a written statement that she supports closing the facility in the fastest and most responsible manner possible, adding that she wants to see a detailed plan on where trash would be dumped when it can no longer be incinerated at the HERC.
“I oppose any effort that will lead to an increase in landfilling,” Fernando wrote. “I will not support any plan to close the HERC without a plan for the trash. Without a plan, such an action would increase landfilling, which is unsustainable and in contradiction with Hennepin goals, community goals, and the State of Minnesota’s waste hierarchy.”
Fernando called for a larger effort from the city of Minneapolis, which produces about 75% of the garbage burned at the HERC. The Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in 2024 supporting the incinerator’s closure and agreeing to work with the county to reduce waste.
Edelson said she is concerned about the well-being of those planning to go on a hunger strike, but feels she has to continue her work as she otherwise would.
“Closing the HERC, I think makes sense, I don’t disagree with that, but I think we have these pressing issues,” Edelson said.
Lunde said he thinks the county needs to add multiple new waste transfer facilities that can divide out recyclable materials from garbage. Currently, the only county-owned transfer station is located in his district in Brooklyn Park.
“I know they’re frustrated, but they’re focused on a single aspect of the trash puzzle,” Lunde said.
For Villanueva, county commissioners’ lack of urgency is not just disappointing, it’s harmful. The HERC is the 32nd most polluting facilities in the state and the second largest source of industrial pollution in Hennepin County, according to MPCA data, and it’s controlled by a publicly elected board.
“Something has to be done,” Villanueva said.
