Newly released emails show local government officials in Minneapolis have quietly surveilled environmental justice activists who are working to close a controversial waste incinerator that is emitting pollution into low-income neighborhoods around it, activist groups allege. County officials sent an employee who is also an environmental justice activist to collect intelligence, among other tactics, emails show. The information was then used to help successfully kill state-level environmental legislation opposed by the incinerator’s leadership, and try to stay one step ahead of activist campaigns and protests.
In another instance, a county employee presenting himself as an ally allegedly tried to obtain the identity of a whistleblower, a recording shows. The county allegedly sent other employees to try to grow close to activist groups for the purpose of collecting information, and developed reports and dossiers on local environmental justice leaders. The operation is laid out in emails that the Zero Burn Coalition, Minnesota Environmental Justice Table (MNEJT), and other advocacy groups and leaders obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.
The groups published some of those emails in a report to support their allegations. The emails reveal how information collected was shared among top county environmental officials, who then in some instances sent information to industry, including the company that owns the controversial trash incinerator. Hennepin county via a spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement that the allegations “mischaracterize the county’s community engagement work and staff responsibilities”.
It added that officials “routinely attend public community meetings, stakeholder discussions and participate in social media to listen, learn, share information, and understand different perspectives on issues affecting the county and our residents”. The north Minneapolis trash incinerator, called Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), incinerates 365,000 tons of trash annually. Nearly 100 municipal or hazardous waste incinerators operate nationally, including seven in Minnesota.
They have drawn increased scrutiny in part because they are known to release high levels of Pfas “forever chemicals” that are widely used across the economy and concentrate in municipal waste, but cannot be fully destroyed by the incineration process. They are also to emit high levels of other pollutants, but the powerful waste management industry markets them as recycling or “green” operations. Similar battles to close polluting facilities are playing out in cities like Baltimore and Miami.
Emails show much of the county’s alleged surveillance operation ran through Joe Vital, who was considered by many in environmental justice leadership to be an ally and associate, according to the report. He was previously chair of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party Native Peoples Caucus; has worked with members of MNEJT to oppose Line 3, a controversial Enbridge fossil fuel pipeline proposal; and has helped lead fights against other area polluters. Vital was hired by the county in 2021 and serves as its environmental engagement coordinator.
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