The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is threatening to revoke an essential permit for a long-running metal foundry on St. Paul’s East Side.
The MPCA has given Northern Iron until May 8 to provide key information related to its operating permit and efforts to capture emissions from its Forest Street foundry. Frank Kohlasch, assistant commissioner for air and climate policy at the regulatory agency, said if company does not provide the requested “building capture” data by that deadline, the agency will begin to revoke its permit.
Northern Iron, which was acquired in August 2022 by Lawton Standard of De Pere, Wis., has maintained a foundry near Phalen Boulevard and Arcade Street in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood since 1906. It employs about 80 United Steelworkers manufacturing metal casings and machine parts.
The company was fined $41,000 by the MPCA in October 2023 for permitting and air-quality monitoring violations that occurred over the course of 15 years. Since then, Northern Iron and the regulator have warred in court over whether the company is making a good-faith effort to meet state emissions and air quality monitoring standards written out in a 2023 stipulation agreement.
Requests for data
MPCA officials said they had made multiple requests for building data related to operations and emissions at the facility itself, mostly recently in a March 6 letter. The company, they said, refused to provide data related to a requirement that it maintain 100% “building capture,” and did not implement its own “building capture” plan.
“Northern Iron failed again to provide the information MPCA has been requesting for months and what little information was provided remains deficient,” said Kohlasch, in a written statement issued Thursday. “Minnesota law requires that the MPCA be satisfied the permitee will achieve compliance, that the applicant will maintain compliance with all conditions of the permit, and that all laws … have been fulfilled. Once again, based on the information Northern Iron has provided to date, the MPCA cannot make the determination that Northern Iron has met those conditions.”
In addition to the building capture data, the MPCA has demanded that the company complete stack testing and submit a plan to support that testing, with the goal of improving lead detection. Hood evaluations and certifications also must be completed.
Multiple court actions
In the past three years, the MPCA has maintained that the company’s own modeling information showed emissions levels of three different pollutants far above acceptable levels established by the Clean Air Act. Lead emissions, large particulate matter and fine particulate matter have all at times registered many times above the national standard for ambient air quality.
The company, in response, has maintained that those errors took place under previous ownership, or readings near the foundry came in high on days the foundry was not in operation, such as during the Fourth of July or Canadian wildfires. Northern Iron presented to the courts readings from 10 company and MPCA air-quality monitors showing air particulate matter to hover around 30% of national air-quality standards, or 70% below limits.
Calling the company’s PurpleAir testing equipment outdated, the MPCA issued an April 2024 order limiting Northern Iron’s material processing to 10 tons per day, or roughly a third of its normal 25- to 30-ton production. That limit, which reduced the company’s workforce, held until a July 2024 decision from Ramsey County District Court Judge Leonardo Castro lifted it.
The company’s petition to the court, filed in May of last year, called MPCA pollution modeling assumptions off base and computed on a 24-hour production schedule rather than on actual output. The company offered alternative compliance plans, which the MPCA rejected.
State regulators have maintained the company is still responsible for removing and replacing emission units and control equipment, failing to recertify hoods after making changes, and operating some of its pollution-control equipment out of permitted ranges. In its previous permit applications, Northern Iron also failed to fully list the facility’s activities that would have required it to conduct ambient air-quality modeling, according to the MPCA.
Class action lawsuit
In March, residents in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood filed their own class action lawsuit, claiming emissions have lowered their home values, damaged property and left homes coated in soot and dust.
The civil action, filed in Ramsey County District Court, seeks unspecified damages and names the Lawton Standard Co., Northern Iron LLC and Specialty Metals Holdco, LLC as defendants.
The lawsuit notes that an MPCA investigation tested soot collecting on homes near the foundry and found toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and manganese, which the suit calls evidence it originated from the Forest Street metal plant.
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