Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Hello again friends I'm Jason Eden's your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation today and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public Tv.

We're fortunate here in Minnesota, we live in a part of the world with very low pollution burden.

What role does the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency play in?

What does the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency do on a daily basis?

Well here to help us answer those questions is my guest Stephen Mikkelson, who's the information officer for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency out of the Brainerd office.

Stephen welcome to the conversation and thanks for making time.

Stephen: It's my pleasure, thanks for having me on.

Jason: Well I really appreciate it and I want to start with kind of a big picture question here.

I'm just curious about the value of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

So I was wondering if you could tell me where does public health end and the environment begin?

Stephen: Well we like to think they're intermingled and there's overlap you know.

Our mission is to enhance the environment and human health.

Though there are other agencies like department of health deals directly with public health.

But the connection of the health of the environment can direct have direct effects on people's physical health, whether it's the quality of the air or the water that they're drinking.

The water they're recreating in the groundwater that they're pulling into their homes it's all interconnected.

So you know we like to think of it as kind of a cohesive effort to protect and enhance both.

Jason: Well of course pollution doesn't honor state boundaries but your jurisdiction is the state of Minnesota.

So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how you grapple with that?

How do you deal with pollution that doesn't necessarily come from Minnesota.

Stephen: Yeah, there's two sides of that.

Dealing like you said with pollution that may not come from Minnesota but it's here.

And then also making sure any pollution within our boundaries isn't affecting beyond our boundaries.

So kind of coming in going out.

I think of air quality as one example, a lot of times when you see air quality alerts that are come over the news and people's phones and on websites.

A lot of those are triggered by things that are happening outside our boundaries.

Wildfires up in Canada or on the west coast.

Different kinds of weather patterns and systems can bring air that's more polluted from other parts of the country just by the way the winds are blowing.

So we have to be aware of that at all times knowing that we still need to make the citizens of Minnesota aware when that pollution may affect them.

So those air quality alerts for example, we tell people who have lung conditions like asthma which I happen to have or the elderly and real young kids you know stay indoors.

When you know there's these air quality alerts.

It's really no different with water too.

Minnesota is very unique in that we have five major river basins that originate in our state so they all flow out of the borders.

So we're very conscious of making sure that the efforts we're doing in Minnesota we're doing our best, not only to serve Minnesotans but we want to the water that we're sending out of our borders is as clean as possible for the next user down downstream.

Jason: That makes a great deal of sense but on a related note, I know that climate change and climate adaptation is a priority for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

But again a lot of what's driving climate change isn't necessarily happening here in Minnesota.

So what are your priorities with regard to climate change?

And how is the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency dealing with actors that aren't under your control?

Stephen: Actors that aren't under our control that we don't you know, we're not their permitting authority, would be probably appropriate way to put it.

You try and create partnerships educate each other keep each other informed on efforts we're doing in the state.

There are collaborations among agencies groups of state agencies.

There's a group that all states that border the great lakes.

For example: they meet quite regularly at the state level to talk about what each other is doing and try and coordinate efforts.

Because we're all impacting the same air, we're all impacting the same water.

And they want to try and get on the same page as best as possible.

Given that everyone has their own legislatures and their own state governments.

But overall just trying to have a cohesive approach to the changing climate and the adaptations that we might face.

Because of those changes to the climate, those that are out of our control need to figure out how to adapt so we can handle it for generations to come.

Jason: That's really interesting, your know reference to the great lakes.

I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the great lakes compact?

I'm assuming that's what you're referring to, because of course what happens in the St. Louis River watershed could affect communities as far downstream as Toronto.

So tell us a little bit more about those inter-agency conversations.

Stephen: St. Louis River is a great example of that the MPCA has for many years, had a lot of partnerships and collaborations that go across the Minnesota, Wisconsin borders.

Working in conjunction with that state and then also federal agencies, EPA, fish and wildlife, the coast guard.

And so what Minnesota is doing in that particular partnership with great lakes efforts identified a series of areas along the St. Louis River corridor.

And that all flows right into the Lake Superior which then goes to the rest of the Great Lakes.

And over the last 10, 15 years at least there's been a number of major cleanup efforts going on throughout that corridor.

That not only is cleaning up the St. Louis River and its tributaries but cleaning up the harbor that people love to go and visit in vacation at.

But also ensuring that what's coming out of that source the St. Louis River and feeding right into Superior, is going to be you know cleaner water, less sediment, less erosion, less historic pollution.

That a lot of it is historic pollution from industry back you know 80 and 100 years ago.

Our rules were very different and things could be were put into the rivers.

They're now being dredged out and then the bottom is being capped, to make sure that historic pollution if it can't be removed at least keep it in place so it can't further affect what's going on.

And so we're you know in contact with other Great Lakes agency or other agencies that border Great Lakes.

Letting them know what we're doing here and they share what they're doing in waters that feed into the Great Lakes.

Another I guess more recent Covid related there are states that along the Great Lakes that have been talking to each other talking about regulatory flexibility.

Where industries that are permitted by our agencies they're feeling the constraints of Covid 19.

Also and we understand that so if they're having an issue or a problem it again it gets down to just collaboration and communication.

Let's know what your problem is, if there is some flexibility in the regulations we'll talk about it and we'll work through it.

If not then you know we let them know that too.

just so where everyone knows where they stand.

Whether it's in a normal time or a tough time like we've had the last you know 12-14 months.

Jason: You know you just mentioned something that I've never heard before it's really of interesting interest to me.

You said that you'd cap the historic pollution in the harbor in Duluth, how do you do so?

How do you cap something that's that's beneath the surface of the water like that?

Stephen: I'll try and uncomplicate it as explained to me.

Right in, I guess I'll pick an example of if you're familiar with Duluth, where the William A Urban ship is docked, and that's a you know a tourist attraction.

In the last couple years that was moved out of that slip because there was a lot of historic pollution underneath at the in the ground underneath the water.

So that was a perfect example where they dredged what they could and then when they got down to a certain level you know determining, okay how much more dredging is going to maybe murk the waters more than it's worth doing.

So get out as much as is you know available and easy to access.

And then there's liners that are developed similar to liners that are at a lot of landfills that you hear of.

Capping waste it's that same concept kind of capping the waste that's there and then putting natural rocks and things over top of that to make sure it stays in place.

And then that habitat can re-establish itself when the waters settle and there's still the rock beds and things where they can they can breed and live like they normally do.

Jason: So you entomb some of the compounds but the stuff that's dredged out does that end up in a conventional landfill or how is that processed?

Stephen: It's pulled out and then the you know it's tested to determine exactly what it, is how much pollution might be in it, what kind of substances are in it and then they determine what's the best route to dispose of it.

And there are many alternatives treating it as hazardous waste that certain things that have to be done if it's treated as solid waste.

It's you know treated differently some things can be incinerated, some things can be landfilled, and others have to be handled as hazardous wastes.

Jason: Can you tell me a little bit about the enforcement powers of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency?

Stephen: I can, we are the permitting and enforcement authority for air, land and water.

So examples of what we permit, landfills like I mentioned in our solid waste hazardous waste handling facilities.

Municipal like city wastewater treatment plants, which are all over the state.

Our air quality, anything that you see that that emits air.

If there's a smoke stack they have to have certain permits for that.

There's storm water is another one that is in the water field construction, storm water meaning if you're doing a construction project and you're disturbing one or more acres of land you have to have storm water permits.

And then with those for example you know there's guidelines.

There's rules and regulations that have to be followed and if there are violations of those rules, then our agency has the authority to identify those through inspections or reports.

We might get from citizens that may notice something.

Then it gets investigated and there's many avenues that can be taken, there are a lot of enforcement actions that are don't carry any monetary penalties.

They can be simply as, hey we've identified these violations if you can fix them within 30 days then we're all good.

Just keep following the rules.

I'm simplifying a little bit but for more egregious or more serious violations then there are different levels of enforcement that might kick in.

And then after a few levels then they do carry monetary penalties.

And they can run the gamut you know anywhere from a few hundred dollars to many hundreds of thousands of dollars, We've even had a couple penalties in the millions of dollars over the many years you know.

And the whole purpose is to make sure that you know not anti-development or anti-industry or companies making progress in profit.

But in doing so we just need to make sure they're doing it in a responsible way that isn't adversely affecting their part of the world and the bigger part of our state and beyond our borders.

And when they do, we have the authority to hold them accountable and make corrections, corrective actions, pay a penalty if needed.

And then continue operating under the rules.

They've got you know set guidelines and if there's a problem down the road whether it's another year or 12 years later then we revisit that.

And past actions can be taken into account if there's a new problem too.

So if you're repeat, repeat violations then we might have to do something a little more in depth.

If it's the first time or it's a spill or an accident we take that into.

And just want to get it cleaned up and not necessarily penalize people just make sure it's cleaned up and the problem is is taken care of.

Jason: Sure, well let's talk about something that we're all fairly familiar with, which is the salting of our roads this time of year.

I understand that granular salt that's used on road applications can pose a risk to the environment, so before we talk about alternatives to that, what is that risk?

How is that affecting our environment, the salting of roads.

Stephen: The chemical that is the problem in salt is called chloride.

And what it can do it if it gets into water it is not easy to get it out.

It's not something that is easily filtered out, it doesn't dissipate on its own once chloride is in the water it's there.

To get it out is a very complex and costly endeavor, so the more chloride that gets into a waterway it affects the water chemistry, which then can affect the the aquatic life, all the bugs, fish, reptiles, amphibians that depend on the quality water to have good oxygen in the water.

And so that's what the concern is, that it will definitely affect water quality and the quality of aquatic life.

So we work hard to educate people on alternative products that have become more available that have much much less chlorine in them and will have less of an effect.

But further going further and doing extensive training to people so they know how best to apply those products.

So they don't over apply them, when it when that's not needed because more of it will wash away and cause more problems with if it gets into ditches and streams and then lakes and rivers.

Jason: So what are some of the alternatives?

Is there a salt brine or what type of non-chloride applications are there?

And do you partner with the D.O.T?

The Department of Transportation on this?

Stephen: Yeah, they're I can't talk too intelligently about the science and chemistry of what the products are.

I apologize for that but what we think... Jason: It's good because I can't either.

Stephen: But um that there are over the years been products developed that are alternatives to the traditional chloride rich salt.

Or combinations of the two traditional salt with some other alternatives or combining it with sand.

Just to an effort to dilute the amount of chloride that's going down.

And our agency has an extensive training program and there's different levels of training.

Whether it's plowing crews for county, cities, townships.

Even the you mentioned D.O.T.

the statewide D.O.T.

crews.

Just educating them on chloride and the use of it and proper application, when they're out plowing our roads and applying salt at the same time.

We also have training for business owners, if you own a gas station and you need to salt your sidewalks here's the best way to do it.

Here's how much salt you need or owners of an apartment building or a land owners association or a you know neighborhood that's got a neighborhood association a group of town homes or something.

Those folks can get trained also on what they can do, how best to apply salt.

Whether it's just on their sidewalk or in huge parking lots or roadways.

Jason: Well let's talk about per fluorinated compounds or forever chemicals.

Often referred to as PFAS or PFOA or sometimes C8.

I understand that's not only a threat in the east metro but now there have been measurements elsewhere in the state and evidently it's found even here in Bemidji.

So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the PCA's effort to either regulate or monitor forever chemicals?

Stephen: Yeah this is newer effort an endeavor for the PCA, a very large one and high priority.

I might add just yesterday we had a public announcement and a media event talking about what the PCA is doing.

And we launched a website or web pages on our larger website that has all the details.

There's a whole PFAST blueprint is what it's called.

And it's talking about what the agency is doing, how we and other partners other agencies it's not just PCA but we're kind of at the heart of it.

How we're trying to research and really find where not just where the problems are but how widespread they can be.

You were you were totally right in saying it's not just a metro area problem it you're finding it more and more at different parts of the state.

Bemidji, Brainerd had some too and there was a recent effort to clean up a lot of a problem through the wastewater treatment plant.

They were having some problems from a past industry.

But a lot of the effort is in finding where the problems are, how widespread it is and then you know the obvious next step is determining what can we do about it.

Knowing that they are forever chemicals once they're there, they're there.

How can we educate people and industry on either eliminating it from you know industry processes, reducing it and just letting people know where it's found.

What kind of products or everyday products that you're used to having in your home, might contain these chemicals.

And letting them know what all again there are alternatives look for these kinds of things that don't have those compounds in them.

It's a very large problem.

I'm not the expert at all on that topic but I do know that if folks go on to the PCA website and you know do a search, whether you're searching chloride or you're searching PFAS.

You'll be guided right to the pages that'll give you all the information you want to know.

Jason: Now it's my understanding that most of what you're doing in that regard is educational because most PFAS are not regulated correct?

So your primary role is to raise awareness then?

Stephen: Again it's a complicated process that eventually will include both aspects, not just making people aware but also working on you know what kind of rules can be developed, what kinds of new or modified regulations can be put in place.

That might be a different avenue to tackle the problem.

In early stages so there's not a lot that I can you know say that's definite but i can i can definitely say that the agency is it's a very high priority and we're working large groups of our staff working very hard on it.

Jason: Well Stephen, we only have a couple more minutes here but I've got a couple more questions for you.

So let's talk about lead, here in our viewing region of course we have a lot of anglers, so I was wondering what you could tell us about lead in tackle and used as sinkers and that type of thing?

What's the status on using lead in fishing tackle?

Stephen: We have a program called "Get the let out" so I'm glad you asked about that.

And it is educational effort, it was something that we started about 15 years ago and couldn't really get it high off the ground back then, we didn't have much funding for it.

But now we've got funding a three-year grant that is going to be a large education effort talking about why lead tackle is harmful.

It's mostly to wildlife loons, very specifically to Minnesota because that's our state bird.

They go and get pebbles to use in part of their digestion process and they can't differentiate what's lead, tackle or a lead sinker from a pebble.

So they ingest that and it's very harmful to birds.

So we are working towards, you know there are rules that are hopefully coming soon.

That will make it so you can't use lead tackle but there's so much of it out there.

And once people get their tackle box full they might have it for a long time.

So there's efforts to make exchanges, tackle exchanges.

If we can get out and be more face to face hopefully when the pandemic goes down, we plan to get out on education efforts.

Whether it's resorts or governor's fishing openers, things like that.

To have non-lead tackle on hand and exchange with with anglers, so they can turn in their lead and they get a non-lead tackle.

There's also a large database that we have on our website that shows where people can go, where they can buy non-lead tackle.

Retailers all over the state that have it and it's gotten better, the products have gotten better over time.

And the price has gotten more equal with the traditional tackle too.

So it's more attractive for people to want to do it because it's not a lot more expensive and it's as effective as the traditional tackle.

Jason: So I sourced one of my questions Stephen from some of our regional college students and their question was.

Where is away, anyway?

In other words when we throw away household waste where does that end up?

And is it safely dealt with here in Minnesota?

Stephen: Yes, it is safely dealt.

If it's a hazardous waste there are again permitted hazardous waste handlers, who are permitted to transport it and then store it in proper containment and labeling.

So everyone knows what it is, where it is, how much it is.

So a lot of it is stored, disposing of it is you know that's part of the process making sure it gets to the proper hazardous waste handlers.

It's not an easy problem but it's one that is very well regulated.

And so I think people can rest assured it's not ending up just in landfills or in the regular garbage stream.

It is being handled separately and very carefully.

Jason: How many open landfills do we have in Minnesota right now?

Germany has zero open landfills in its entire country.

I'm curious how many open landfills do we have in Minnesota?

Stephen: I can't give an exact number.

I know there are many more closed landfills than there are open landfills.

And that's not a great answer but that's my answer.

Some of the largest ones are in the metro, that you may have heard of.

But that's been a long time program with PCA2, the open and closed landfill program.

Because once they're closed there's still work to do to make sure there's proper venting of the gases that are produced.

And that they're not leeching waste out of their boundaries to get into other waters.

Jason: Sure, well I understand that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is the steward of the Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement money.

And working hard to electrify part of our transportation sector.

So can you tell us a little bit about the future of electric vehicles in Minnesota?

Stephen: Yeah the VW settlement has gone a long way in funding a lot of efforts to buses.

Not just school buses but you know city buses, a lot of them have been switched over to electric engines instead of traditional gas powered or diesel-powered engines.

A lot of the money goes toward that.

There's also a whole new initiative called the Clean Cars Initiative that MPCA is charged with making rules to work toward more electric vehicles.

Not just more on the road but more accessible to people who want to get electric cars.

So there's more charging stations, it's just one simple solution.

Right now if you're in Bemidji or Brainerd, it's probably hard to find a charging station if you have electric vehicles.

So we're working toward rules that will fund that kind of an effort too.

To get not just more electric vehicles out there but more opportunities to power those vehicles.

So people can travel from Baudette at to Burnsville without getting stranded halfway.

Jason: Well unfortunately we're just about out of time, so my last question is for you and about you Steve.

And I'm curious is this just a job?

Why are you drawn to working at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency?

Stephen: Well, I'm at 25 years with the agency and when I look back I started and never thought it was going to be my career job.

You know I was young and didn't know near as much as I thought I did.

But the longer I worked at the agency the more I saw that what I was doing was making the environment that I love in Minnesota and grew up with a little better.

And hopefully my efforts and all of my co-workers efforts are doing that collectively and making Minnesota a safer and healthier place for when my kids have their kids and so on.

And so that's what really has kept me around.

That you take pride in the work that we're doing, it's not always popular but you always feel like even if it's not popular it's still doing the right thing.

Jason: Well Stephen, I want to thank you for those efforts and I also want to thank you for your time today.

I really appreciate it.

Stephen: Thank you very much.

Jason: And thank all of you for joining me.

Once again I'm Jason Eden's your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well.

We'll see you next week.