Minneapolis Waste-to-Energy plant’s Nasal Rangers search city streets for polluted air, but is it enough?
Taylor Rivera
Most people go out of their way to avoid bad smells. Randy Kiser, the operations and compliance manager at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) in Minneapolis, and his team search for them to protect the city.
HERC processes 1,000 tons of trash each day, turning the city’s garbage into an energy source that produces enough electricity to power 25,000 homes, according to a study published by Hennepin County. The waste-to-energy facility in Minnesota serves the energy needs of facilities in Minneapolis, including Target Field and 3M’s Abrasives Plant in partnership with the Minnesota Resource Recovery Association.
The hum of city life, the crushing sound of garbage trucks and smoky horizon views are the norm for Nasal Rangers and they are familiar with the many unpleasant smells that come from a busy city. Donning a hard hat and orange safety vest, the rangers are ready to measure odor concerns in the HERC neighborhood. But critics — and there are many of them — say that just because you can’t smell something, doesn’t mean it can’t harm you.
Through the use of a device called a field olfactometer or, as it has also been called, the Nasal Ranger, staff members on the environmental control team patrol the city streets surrounding the HERC plant taking “smell readings” that indicate any potential air pollution concerns. The megaphone shaped device acts as a super nose, giving readings not of smells themselves, but allowing an operator to compare an ambient odor to fresh air. “For us, this is all about being a good neighbor,” Kiser said.
HERC has also implemented a strategy beyond the Nasal Ranger team that cleans and treats air emissions before they are released, Kiser said. The facility’s air permit requires the center to follow both Minnesota air pollution regulations and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines. Hennepin County boasts air emissions “well below” European Union standards for waste-to-energy facilities, according to the county’s website.
The plant has been subject to heavy criticism because of the risks of pollution, but Kiser said Minneapolis Public Works and HERC have created a mutually beneficial relationship. Since waste no longer needs to be hauled so far from where it is produced, the city can spend less on garbage trucks and landfill maintenance.
“Minneapolis City Public Works saves a lot in expenses and spends a lot less on residential commercial waste when it goes to HERC, which is much closer than most residential landfills. We make sure our system is easy to use,” Kiser said.
Some residents disagree with the trash-burning operation in Minneapolis. Nazir Khan, co-founder and organizer of Minneapolis Environmental Justice Table, started his grass-roots local movement in part to combat HERC in Minneapolis.
Khan’s organization stresses that Minneapolis needs more than just a Nasal Ranger team to keep residents safe. HERC is located in a neighborhood that’s predominantly home to groups that are already traditionally mistreated or forgotten by city government policy.
“There are many, many things you can’t detect with a nasal test,” Khan said. “You can’t detect some of the dangerous chemicals that can be emitted from these types of facilities, like nitrogen oxide and dioxins that make up some active ingredients.”
The pandemic has affected parts of Minneapolis in many different ways, including the work of the smell squad. The plant — which has been in constant operation almost 365 days a year since it first opened in 1989 — ran low on waste in 2021, leading to fewer smell patrols than usual.
“We couldn’t burn at a maximum capacity for about a week last winter,” Kiser said. The lack of smell patrols was due to a reduction of waste during the pandemic. “That didn’t really come as a surprise because most of our commercial waste comes from people working in the city, and at that time most people were working from home,” he continued.
Some amount of their waste also originates from The University of Minnesota, as the HERC is only five miles away from campus. The school’s proximity is something Khan stresses should be a concern. Students should consider the impact of their waste and keep the potentially dangerous pollutants in the air around them in mind.
“For us, this is all about being a good neighbor.”
Randy Kiser
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reports that in the Twin Cities, yearly average temperatures increased by 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2012, which was faster than both national and global rates of increase. Most of the excess greenhouse gas emissions come from human impacts including burning fossil fuels and electricity generation plants similar to HERC.
Although HERC continues to divert trash and plastics from our landfills, an upcoming local initiative for zero waste could be an obstacle for the facility and its workers. According to 2021 Hennepin County projections, the county is seeking to adopt a zero waste model by the end of the decade, eliminating burning practices as well as landfill options.
This makes Minneapolis a particularly important voice on this topic pending their choice to either ditch waste-to-energy plants all together or if HERC’s presence is here to stay in the Twin Cities amid zero-waste plans set for 2030.