On a beautiful spring day, northside residents came outside to walk, bike and play with their kids. The buds were bursting from the trees along Shingle Creek. But the northbound wind carried wafts of a tar-like stench through the air.
Owens Corning, a shingle factory in the northwest corner of Minneapolis, is unmistakable in the neighborhood. Trucks constantly flow in and out of the facility, located just 90 feet from Shingle Creek, bringing in raw materials and taking out freshly pressed roofing shingles.
The factory has been here for 80 years and harks back to a less-regulated past. Living near the factory means dealing with asphalt-like odors on a regular basis, nearby residents told Sahan Journal. Now, a group of neighbors is organizing, looking for ways to address the smells and health concerns about pollution.
“In this pocket of North Minneapolis we face a disproportionate amount of environmental hazards,” neighbor Janae Murphy said. “It’s something that we are super frustrated by.”
Owens Corning is one of the largest pollution sources in Minneapolis for smog, sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds—carbon based chemicals that evaporate into gases, according to MPCA data. Pollutants like smog and sulfur dioxide can harm the respiratory system and make breathing difficult, particularly for children and people with asthma, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Murphy, a 38-year-old mother who works for a housing nonprofit organization, is working with neighbors to raise awareness about Owens Corning and pressuring regulators to pay more attention to the factory.
Highly incompatible
Laura Olson-Langmade, 61, rode her bike down 49th Ave. N. right past the factory on April 16. She’s lived in the neighborhood for 14 years and said the smell and emissions from Owen’s has always bothered her. Sometimes, she gets migraines that last three days.
“When the wind is coming from the south we can smell it,” she told Sahan Journal. “I don’t know if everyone gets migraines like I do but it must affect everyone.”
Shingles have been produced at the factory since 1945, when the locally-owned Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Co. began operation. Ohio-based Owens Corning bought the facility in 1977.
Owens Corning would not be allowed to open a new shingle factory in Minneapolis today. Under city zoning codes, the facility is labeled non-conforming, meaning it doesn’t align with permitted uses in the area. Like many old factories in the Twin Cities, the residential neighborhoods around Owens Corning were redlined, the 20th Century zoning practice that limited people of color to buying homes in less desirable neighborhoods.
Today many of those neighborhoods are considered an environmental justice area under Minnesota law. These are census tracts where at least 40% of residents are people of color or have limited English proficiency, or where 35% of households earn below a threshold of the federal poverty line, roughly $60,000 for a family of four.
That makes Owens Corning subject to the state’snew cumulative impact law, which means when the company applies for its next permit in 2029, the company will be required to conduct a robust environmental analysis and community engagement process.
Unlike many old factories, Owens Corning is required to update its state air emissions permit every five years. The company last updated its permit in 2024, according to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency records. It was last formally inspected in 2022, but an MPCA spokesperson told Sahan Journal that state and federal regulators have visited the facility in the past year.
Owens Corning applied for a new Minneapolis permit to allow for them to switch their production method in 2023, just before the city updated its zoning code to prevent facilities like it from expanding. The change allowed Owens to install large liquid storage tanks on its campus, which it uses to store adhesives. The move was supposed to bring minimal changes to its environmental impact, according to a city report.
Yet that same 2023 city report states: “The existing use of the subject property as an asphalt shingle mill is highly incompatible with adjacent properties and the neighborhood.”
Owens Corning updated its state permit in 2024 when it installed the new liquid adhesive storage tanks allowed by the zoning ordinance the company was granted by the city.
The factory has long been on regulators’ radar. The city received 27 reports from residents complaining of odors, noises and pollution from the factory in between 2018 and 2023, according to the report. Odor was the biggest concern.
Owens Corning said the company abides by its state emissions permit from the MPCA and regularly maintains its pollution control equipment. The company has created a community call-in line and says it is working to minimize odors.
“We understand that manufacturing operations can have real impacts on surrounding communities, and we do not take that lightly. We are committed to listening to our neighbors, learning from concerns that are raised, and continuing to make improvements while operating a facility that provides local jobs and essential building materials,” the company said in an email to Sahan Journal.
Roughly 100 people work at the factory, one fifth of whom live within a “few miles” of the site, according to an Owens Corning spokesperson.
In early April, Murphy met Roxxanne O’Brien at a northside coffeeshop. O’Brien is a veteran environmental justice advocate who helped organize campaigns against Northern Metals, a scrap metal recycler in 2019 and GAF, another Minneapolis shingle factory. Both the facilities have since ceased production operations in Minneapolis, a step environmentalists cheered. But the battle to raise awareness and put pressure on both the companies and regulators was hardfought.
“You get discouraged a lot in the beginning,” O’Brien told Murphy.
But they’re determined to do what they can to improve their community. Murphy’s three-year-old daughter has severe allergies, she said, and she fears it will become asthma. But she doesn’t want to move, she wants to make things better.
What’s that smell?
Odor is the top complaint for Owens Corning’s neighbors. Producing asphalt shingles is a smelly business.
Jeffrey Moores and his partner bought a house about six blocks from the factory in 2022. They weren’t aware of the facility when they moved in, but caught a whiff within the first week.
“I smelled a tar-like scent and literally assumed they must have been resurfacing a street nearby,” Moores said.
Moores keeps track of when he notices the smell in a spreadsheet. There was a time in the fall 2024 when he made a note almost everyday.
He has called Minneapolis 311 to report the smell multiple times and said he’s appreciated the response from the city inspector.
Minneapolis has an odor ordinance that property owners must comply with, and prefers residents make complaints via 311, according to Kelly Muellman, director of environmental programs for the Minneapolis Health Department.
When 311 receives an odor complaint, the health department sends the smell inspector for the coordinating quadrant of the city, Muellman said. Inspectors work a typical Monday to Friday work week and aren’t able to respond at all hours of the day. By the time one responds to a complaint, the odor could be gone, she said.
City inspectors call the complainant, come to their home and attempt to measure the smell using a tool called an olfactometer. The olfactometer has a series of diluting filters, and inspectors note at which threshold they can detect the nuisance order. The tech is simple, Mullman said, a filter and a human nose.
If a violation is detected, the city issues the facility with an order to correct the smell. The company has a week to get in compliance, and if the inspector detects it again, there is a $200 fine. The fines double until reaching $2000.
Since 2024, the city has received 22 311 complaints about odors from Owens Corning, according to a data request filed by Sahan Journal. The company received one $200 fine in 2025.
“Odor is a very challenging area for enforcement,” she said.
The MPCA has received five odor complaints in the past five years, none of which resulted in citations or fines, according to an agency spokesperson.
Any time a complaint comes in to Minneapolis 311, the suspected source of the complaint is notified and the MPCA is informed if it’s from a permitted facility, Muellman said. The city recently hired an industrial outreach specialist who is working with facilities with state emissions permits to address health concerns. The specialist has been working with Owens Corning.
“In the last year there has been an increase in really productive conversations, specifically with Owens Corning and bringing the state in,” Muellman said.
Owens Corning told Sahan Journal the company is committed to collaborating with residents to explore ways to minimize odors.
“We continue to evaluate our operations to identify potential odor sources and voluntarily trial temporary measures to evaluate whether they have measurable impact, such as treating our bulk tank asphalt with odor suppressant, in addition to enhanced filtration and ongoing coordination with the City of Minneapolis Department of Health,” Owens Corning said in a statement.
For neighbors like Olson-Langmade, those solutions can’t come soon enough. It’s spring again, and she wants to be able to enjoy it.
“You want to be able to open your windows when it’s nice out,” Olson-Langmade said. “Please regulate it.”
How to report odors or other concerns about Owens Corning:
- Owens Corning has a community information line that residents can call or email: 612-287-0118 or OC.imput@OwensCorning.com
- Minneapolis 311 takes odor complaints. Residents can call, email or text 311. www.minneapolismn.gov/contact-us/
