For the last year, communities on St. Paul’s East Side have been advocating for justice and accountability related to a regulatory enforcement investigation of Northern Iron & Machine, a metal foundry owned by Wisconsin-based company Lawton Standard.
In February 2024, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was notified that Northern Iron’s emissions are likely exceeding national air quality standards. The foundry was given 30 days to meet air quality standards, and the agency entered into an agreement with the MPCA to address the lead and particulate emissions. To further track the scale of harmful emissions, the MPCA placed air monitors and conducted air monitoring to measure the surrounding air.
After over a year of monitoring, and pressure from East Side residents, it looks like accountability is within reach. In January 2025, the foundry was required to renew its air permit, and submitted an incomplete application to the MPCA. The MPCA announced in April that the foundry had been given a deadline to turn over its emissions data by May 8. This is an important step in repairing the harm of the historical legacy of neglecting communities who have lived in the crossfire of harmful emissions of industrial pollutants.
As East Side neighbors began organizing, members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators Climate Action Team joined in these efforts. In April 2025, the Federation voted unanimously on a resolution that called on the MPCA to enforce the law, and for Northern Iron & Machine to follow the law. There are eight public schools within two miles of the foundry, with up to 5,000 students and hundreds of educators being exposed to these emissions on a daily basis.
Short-term exposure to high levels of particulate matter are known to cause respiratory irritation, and long-term exposure can lead to cardiovascular disease and even lung cancer. Lead exposure can lead to negative neurological impacts and damaging brain development.
Bruce Vento Elementary will be opening in 2025 as a newly built environmental magnet school, and sits one mile (true distance) from the Northern Iron Foundry. Students at this school will be offered opportunities for specialized learning that enhances their understanding of the environment and climate.
As a union, we acknowledge that the United Steelworkers (USW) at Northern Iron & Machine are some of the most directly affected people when it comes to air quality. All workers have a right to work in a safe and healthy work environment, and if Northern Iron is not collaborating with its neighbors, we are extremely concerned with how it is treating its union employees.
As educators, we have a mission to ensure that all students are able to live and go to school in communities where the air is healthy to breathe. If Northern Iron & Machine is unable or unwilling to comply with our federal air quality standards, then they need to face accountability. For too long, the MPCA has granted impunity to Northern Iron Foundry despite the undeniable proof that harmful emissions have an extremely negative impact on public health.
Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency is being politicized. Grants supporting environmental justice have been revoked, requirements for pollution standards are being loosened, and the ability to track important emissions data is being made less accessible. We have to work with our state agencies to push back against these reversals.
The willingness of the MPCA to impose deadlines on the foundry represents a giant step in the right direction. It also supports the will of Minnesotans and the Minnesota Legislature, which in 2023 passed the historic “cumulative impacts” legislation also known as the Frontline Communities Protection Act.
This legislation would change how air permitting is done in Minnesota. Instead of treating each facility as a standalone entity, it would require a facility to take into account the surrounding air quality, or the “cumulative impacts” when seeking a permit.
This can help to alleviate communities who have been overburdened by multiple point sources of pollution, and eventually it can undo the historical harms of concentrating that pollution in working class, immigrant and BIPOC neighborhoods. This is what environmental justice looks like: accountability, parity, equal access and the inalienable right to clean and healthy air.
Thomas Lucy
Linda Jones
Sofia Cerkvenik
The authors are members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators-Climate Action Team (SPFE-CAT).
