Project isn't catching fire with neighbors

It's known as the "Midtown Eco Energy" project because developers say it will burn wood instead of coal to generate electricity. But people who live near the site of proposed burner in south Minneapolis are seeing red, not green, because they're worried the new smokestack will contaminate their neighborhood with soot, arsenic and other pollutants.

The plant would be built at the site of a former city incinerator at 28th Street and 20th Avenue, used more recently as a trash transfer station. The City Council voted last year to sell the land for the plant, and Mayor R.T. Rybak supports it as a renewable energy project that creates jobs and fights global warming.

The burner would incinerate wood chips and residue, but not plywood or treated lumber. It would generate 24 megawatts of electricity to be sold on the grid, and it would produce enough hot water to heat businesses including the nearby Midtown Exchange, Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Minneapolis Children's Hospital.

It would create about 20 full-time jobs, which are much needed in the neighborhood, said Kim Havey, project director and co-founder of Kandiyohi Development Partners, the company behind the project.

"We're committed to having the lowest emission wood-burning facility in the state," Havey said.

That hasn't reassured neighbors, many of whom wonder whether the plant will burn garbage if the wood supply runs low. Carol Pass, president of the East Phillips Improvement Association, said she was initially in favor of having "our own little power plant" in the neighborhood fueled by renewable wood.

But the association withdrew its support for several reasons, she said. The area already has two asphalt plants, a Superfund site contaminated with arsenic, and lots of lead in the soil and paint in older homes, she said. "I think the power plant will be quite clean, but we are already so overwhelmed with stuff in the air and in the ground and everyplace else," she said.

Many of the neighborhood's residents are Hispanic and American Indians with poor health, making them particularly vulnerable to any new health risk, Pass said.

The draft air-quality permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency requires filters and other equipment to minimize pollution, but some people remain unconvinced.

"There's pollution control equipment put on everything, but it doesn't mean that it'll eliminate the small particles that have some of the biggest health effects," said Carol Greenwood, acting chairwoman of the Seward Neighborhood Group's environmental committee.

Dave Bicking, resident of nearby Corcoran neighborhood, said that there's no guarantee that there will be enough wood to supply the plant, because District Energy St. Paul already uses wood waste and the Rock-Tenn paper recycling plant in the Midway area would like to do so in the future. "Once this plant [in Minneapolis] is up and running, if they don't have enough wood, you've got to believe that the plant is going to have to burn something," Bicking said.

Mike Krause, co-founder of Kandiyohi Development Partners, doesn't doubt that there's plenty of wood to burn. There are approximately 1 million trees in Minneapolis alone, he said, and the waste from dead trees, regular pruning and limbs trimmed because of disease and storm damage could easily provide much of the fuel.

"If the system becomes more efficient at collecting the wood, we could easily get 60 percent of our wood from Minneapolis," Krause said.

Krause did acknowledge that if wood ran short, the plant can burn natural gas, which would be clean but not a renewable source of energy. He does not intend ever to burn garbage at the plant, and would not be allowed under its permit to do so.

Greg Pratt, MPCA air quality research scientist, said that the draft air permit would allow the plant to test burn other plant-based materials such as switchgrass, oat hulls and cornstalks. He said that the wood-fueled energy plant would be a very small source of emissions compared with vehicles, that its health risks are low and that its benefits include reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"Some people don't want to have these air emissions near them, but if not for facilities like this, we instead have to burn more coal, which is contributing to climate change," Pratt said.

The MPCA is receiving public comments on the draft air permit until Jan. 14, and officials expect that concerned citizens will request an independent environmental assessment of the project. If such a study is authorized by the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, it would likely take three or four months to complete, officials said, after which the assessment and the draft permit would be taken to the MPCA Citizens' Board.

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388 Steve Brandt • 612 673-4438