Community organizers in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood say they’ll meet on Tuesday with the chief executive officer of a longstanding foundry that the state says has run afoul of air quality standards.
The Northern Iron and Machine foundry, which came under new ownership in 2022, maintains it will improve operations after state regulators discovered permit violations dating back more than a decade. Alarmed by new air quality data, state officials this week gave the foundry 30 days to comply.
Northern Iron has cast metal products and machine parts for more than a century in St. Paul, most of that time situated on Forest Street between Wells Street and Phalen Boulevard. Neighborhood advocates have grown increasingly concerned that its equipment and technology hasn’t kept pace with the times.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency fined Northern Iron LLC $41,500 last fall for longstanding air quality violations, including removing or replacing pollution control equipment without updating permits over the course of 15 years, and on Tuesday followed up with an administrative order giving the company 30 days to meet air quality standards.
“For over a decade, Northern Iron operated with equipment that was not included in its air permit issued by the … MPCA,” said Jack Byers, executive director of the Payne-Phalen Community Council, in a written notice to community residents this week.
In February, the MPCA, which recently installed two of its own air quality monitors in the neighborhood, received new information on lead and particulate emissions at the facility based on computer estimates, or “air modeling.”
The data is preliminary, but it shows “the foundry is very likely emitting lead and particulate matter at levels above national ambient air quality standards,” reads a statement this week from the MPCA. State regulators are requiring the company to reduce emissions of lead and particulate matter, and to demonstrate how it can operate within state and federal standards for ambient air quality.
Northern Iron says new ownership will bring changes
Northern Iron was acquired in 2022 by Lawton Standard, which is led by Alex Lawton, a fifth-generation foundry owner whose holdings include foundries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Delaware, most of them run under different brand names. The St. Paul foundry specializes in gray iron and ductile iron castings up to 250 pounds, including austempered ductile iron, the kind of pliable metal used in agricultural machinery that has high contact with soil, such as digger grabber-teeth.
Organizers with the Payne-Phalen Community Council said Lawton, the chief executive officer of Lawton Standard, will attend a community discussion from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, at the Arlington Hills Community Center at 1200 Payne Ave. They said Lawton confirmed his attendance. Residents and business owners are invited as well.
“Yes, I do think he’ll be there,” said Byers on Thursday. “His office reached out to us.”
The MPCA, which is responsible for issuing and enforcing Northern Iron’s air permit, will hold its own community meeting in late May to address public concerns.
A Northern Iron employee answering the phone at the St. Paul location on Thursday directed media inquiries to an email address.
On Feb. 22, Northern Iron issued a public statement, published on its website, saying the air permit issue was “initially identified under previous ownership,” and it was “proactively working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency” to resolve outstanding concerns.
The statement noted that the company submitted a plan to ensure annual hood certifications are completed on time, and it said it would operate air quality control equipment according to current permit requirements and the company’s updated operations and maintenance plans. Northern Iron said it had submitted a major permit amendment to incorporate changes made prior to coming under new ownership.
In a subsequent written statement on Thursday, the company acknowledged that the operation’s failings “had been known for five years and was a concern when we inherited the problem as we purchased the foundry. Our team has been working to address concerns about emissions since we purchased this important business only a short time ago, and we are committed to acting swiftly to fix it.”
In 2020, the MPCA found unauthorized changes to Northern Iron’s equipment that resulted in increased emissions of particulate matter. In 2022, the agency conducted an announced inspection, and then last year instituted the air quality monitoring and fined the company $41,500 for air permit violations.
The Payne-Phalen Community Council has asked the MPCA to take additional steps, such as notifying households and businesses within a 10-block radius of the Northern Iron facility about its enforcement actions.
“I expect a state agency to be getting that information out to the public,” said Byers on Thursday. “Don’t lean on us. We’re not their communications arm.”
Community organizers also have called upon the MPCA to direct fines collected from Northern Iron and Machine back to community health facilities in the area, but they say they’ve been told to make that request directly to state lawmakers. The Payne-Phalen Community Council has convened a working group to focus on that effort, among other outreach to public health officials and state lawmakers.
Frogtown, East Phillips foundries draw scrutiny
Northern Iron isn’t the only Twin Cities foundry to run afoul of state and federal regulators, as well as community watchdogs.
In February, the Sahan Journal reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was investigating a Frogtown foundry, St. Paul Brass and Aluminum on West Minnehaha Avenue, for allegedly failing to resolve issues that had been discovered by inspectors in July 2022. The problems included underperforming filtration equipment designed to limit pollution, as well as lapses in record-keeping.
In August 2023, the federal agency issued the Smith Foundry, located in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, a violation notice for allegedly releasing air pollution at levels that exceed regulations. A December stack test, conducted by a third party as part of an ongoing EPA investigation, did not find more lead, or particulate matter, than allowed by its permit. The facility’s air permit with the MPCA is up for renewal, and the state agency has required the foundry to produce a plan for further emissions monitoring.
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