Community members, activists demand the closure of Northern Iron foundry
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For decades, residents near the Northern Iron foundry in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood say they’ve lived in its shadow.
Now, residents are fed up and want the iron foundry to leave.
On Sunday afternoon, neighbors and environmental activists from the Climate Justice Committee gathered to voice their frustration over ongoing lead emissions and the foundry’s impact on the community’s health and quality of life.
In February 2024, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency received air modeling data that indicated air emissions were likely exceeding air quality standards. This year, the MPCA started the “rare” process to revoke the foundry’s permit, citing constant incomplete permit applications and other violations.
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In response, Northern Iron challenged the regulator’s decision in court, arguing that the MPCA is “consistently changing the permit process” and requesting information that is “not required.”
Foundry officials also said air monitors installed in the neighborhood haven’t shown excess pollution and that shutting down the foundry is unnecessary.
At the weekend demonstration near the foundry, community members expressed frustration that the foundry is still open.
“That company has poisoned this community, burnt bridges with a state agency, and then decided to throw a legal hissy fit when those actions are coming to bite them in the ass,” said Mordecai Mika, a member of the Climate Justice Committee.
Brittney Bruce, a resident of Payne-Phalen, lives right across the street from the manufacturing plant and has filed a lawsuit against the company. When she first moved into her duplex with her children, she was unaware of the foundry’s threat to the surrounding community, but after seeing her neighbor leave, the signs of excess pollution have become alarming.
“When you come into my house, my windowsills, my baseboards — they’re lined with soot. It’s something you can see, something you can touch. No matter how much I cleaned, I could see it,” Bruce said.
The group believes the foundry is putting profit over community well-being.
“What the MPCA is asking is not outrageous. They’re asking that the company abide by standards that make sure employees and the people in this neighborhood are safe — and consistently, the company has chosen either not to respond or to fight,” said Tracy Molm, an organizer with the Climate Justice Committee. “There is no reason they need to do that. The profits are not more important than the people of the east side of St. Paul.”
Protecting the surrounding community isn’t the only reason the group is advocating. Members of the demonstration expressed sympathy for the workers of the plant, who are exposed to the same pollutants that the protestors accuse the foundry of putting into their community’s environment.
“As frustrating as this has been here, it’s also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to organize together the workers inside the plant and the neighbors who live around it — all of us who are impacted by the pollution that Northern Iron is spewing,” said Peter Rachleff, a labor scholar and retired professor at Macalester College.
