The Case for East Phillips
A few blocks south of downtown Minneapolis, the multiethnic East Phillips neighborhood comprises a mix of residential, industrial and other commercial properties, including Little Earth of United Tribes, the nation’s only Native-preference housing project. For years residents have lived alongside heavy environmental polluters including an asphalt plant and a metal foundry that emit hazardous dust, fly ash, and fumes that are poorly monitored. One section of the community, called the Arsenic Triangle, was once home to chemical companies that produced arsenic-based pesticides. Poor control over stockpiles led to widespread soil contamination necessitating Superfund cleanup of nearly 1500 acres, including residential properties.
Although E. Phillips is a low income, high pollution neighborhood with asthma hospitalizations among the highest in the state, it is not an industrial wasteland. A virtual walking tour passes trim homes, apartments, lovely old buildings, churches, parks and gardens, public art, a community center, bike trails and multiethnic restaurants. This is home to about 5,000 people.
In 2008, longtime state representative and neighborhood resident Karen Clark successfully shepherded a bill through the legislature that required consideration of cumulative impacts of adding additional sources of pollution to this overburdened community during the permitting process for any new projects. People in E. Phillips were already suffering from excessive environmental pollution and adding more would only make matters worse. Soon after, the bill provided the basis for rejecting a proposed wood fired power plant in the neighborhood that likely would have been approved if its emissions were considered in isolation rather than added to existing poor air quality.
The E. Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC) looked for ways to de-industrialize portions of the community while seeking new opportunities to create greener jobs and address socioeconomic needs of many residents. In 2014 EPIC developed plans to acquire and convert the Roof Depot , a sprawling vacant warehouse, into a year-round organic urban farm with a farmers market, bicycle shop, a youth-led café and affordable housing for low income families. But EPIC then learned that the city had other plans for the site called the Hiawatha Campus Expansion Project. It would enable the city to relocate and consolidate the Public Works Water Distribution Maintenance and Meter Shop to a centrally located facility, replacing the existing facilities elsewhere, which are reportedly inadequate. In 2016, the city acquired the site for $6.8 million after threatening to take it by eminent domain if the owner moved to sell the property to EPIC.
The city plans to demolish the warehouse, construct surface parking for more than 100 vehicles, a four-story parking garage, heavy equipment parking, at least six other new buildings, including a hot mix asphalt storage facility, and a training building for teaching the operation of diesel equipment. Additional diesel cars and trucks will routinely be on site or traveling neighborhood streets coming and going from service calls throughout the city
EPIC argues that demolition, construction and operations associated with the public works project will add still more pollution to the overburdened community and must be considered within the context of the cumulative impacts legislative provisions and intent. The city claims that no permitting is required for the proposed facility and the cumulative impacts legislation does not apply. The community vision of an organic urban farm, diverse jobs, shops, and housing is dead if the city prevails.
East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, Inc. (EPNI) is comprised mostly of people living in the E. Phillips community. With no other recourse available, this summer EPNI filed a lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis demanding that the city not be allowed to cause further pollution in the E. Phillips neighborhood with its proposed project and against state agencies requesting that they enforce the cumulative impact statute and transfer authority for the project’s environmental review from the city to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The city has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. EPNI filed an Amended Complaint, adding the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the Environmental Quality Board as defendants. Now, EPNI is awaiting answers to their Amended Complaint.
EPNI has assembled a team comprised of an air pollution expert, soil scientists, and public health professionals, including me, to describe anticipated health and environmental impacts of the proposed project during demolition, construction, and operations. We will provide testimony in court proceedings on behalf of the plaintiffs.
EPNI, EPIC and many others are asking Minneapolis residents to “think critically about the implications of the Hiawatha Campus Expansion Project for equity, sustainability, environmental racism, and environmental justice in our city.” SEHN agrees and supports calls for a full, unbiased environmental impact analysis of the proposed project, in the context of the cumulative stresses that this community has long endured.
Ted Schettler, 2020