Becker City Council held an impromptu, special meeting last week in regards to Northern Metal Recycling relocating to Becker from Minneapolis. The operations coming to Becker would be a shredder, a metal separator and a receiving yard for the general public and possibly end of life for vehicles.

 

 All of the items that would be moved to Becker would have to be included as part of the permitting process with the MPCA.

 

NMR has been on the radar of the City of Becker for many months, but the commitment to moving to Becker hit a snag when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had concerns over air quality.

 

NMR reached an agreement with the MPCA over some long-running legal disputes and will pay $2.5 million in costs and penalties prior to the move.

 

In 2015, NMR went to court to try and shut down MPCA air monitors near their facility along the Mississippi River near Lowry Avenue. A year later, the MPCA moved to revoke NMR’s air quality permit after investigations at the site revealed the company was not following the permit and omitted information during the permit process.

 

The $2.5 million settlement includes a $1 million civil penalty, payment for three years of air monitoring, reimbursement to the state for monitoring costs, court costs and legal fees and $600,000 for community health projects in area neighboring the facility.

 

At last Friday’s meeting in Becker, City Administrator Greg Pruszinske introduced COO Scott Helberg of NMR and said, “Northern Metal Recycling would be a good fit for the industrial park as they were a recycler just like Liberty Paper. NMR needs an abundant power source — which would be provided by Xcel energy and they also need the rail spur.”

 

Helberg gave an overview of the company by saying NMR is subsidiary of  EMR Group, which is a European Company. He went on to say four companies merged in 2007 to form Northern Metal Recycling. They currently have 17 operating facilities in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota With the bulk in Minnesota. 

 

Helberg said they have outgrown their facility in Minneapolis and need a property with rail, power and close to a landfill.

 

“Looking at Becker, it was a good fit,” he said. “Also because of its central location and access to Interstate 94 and Hwy. 10.”

 

In regards to the violation at the Metal Recovery Plant, Helberg noted the MPCA was informed of the company’s new equipment; however there were no official plans drawn up, which was the reason for the violation citing. 

 

“Even with the new equipment installed, we were still compliant with our permit,” he said. “In addition, we have annual audits, complete additional testing, install control equipment and take daily air readings.”

 

The ambient air quality violation was discussed as well. Helberg said there were two monitors placed, one at each end of their buildings, which have read air quality at elevated levels. These monitors, he said, were on the outside of the building and there were other industries and traffic that most likely contributed to the readings. 

 

“On days when Northern Metal's stacks were not in use, the reading levels were shown elevated, suggesting it was not all from their plant,” he said.

 

With settlement  of the MPCA issue, Helberg said his company allows OSHA to come into their facility every two years to inspect their plants, take additional air readings and he assured the City of Becker that testing was completed on a regular basis to insure the safety of their employees.

 

Helberg said when they took over the facility in Minneapolis, they remediated the ground to 12 feet, installed storm drains and rebuilt the barge dock walls. 

 

“We have been and continue to be committed to safety and the environment,” he assured those in attendance.

 

Helberg told of the process of breaking down a vehicle and the metals “harvested” for recycling.

 

The current method of processing the vehicles and the proposed method for the City of Becker, would be an enclosed building with negative pressure. That would mean any opening in the building allowing products in would actually pull air from the outside into the building. All the air in the building would then be processed through a cyclone, water scrubbers and filters prior to being released through one stack.

 

Helberg says the MPCA had completed testing of their current stack in Minneapolis and those results were available, most of which were at 20% of what was allowed. 

 

In addition, water cannons and sweepers were used daily to keep the area clean and control the dust. Of all metal shredding companies in the United States, Helberg said, the permit that Northern Metal Recycling holds was the most restrictive of them all.

 

Helberg then discussed noise pollution in which he stated there was more noise pollution from the Lowry tunnel than that from their Minneapolis facility.

Traffic is another concern and Helberg says  the recycler would see around 100-to-200 roundtrips of traffic per day at their new facility.

 

He said approximately 40% of the current workers are expected to transfer. The state-of-the-art recycling facility to be built is expected to bring 85 jobs to the area.

 

The site NMR is looking at is expected to be around 50 acres as compared to the 12 they now own in the cities. He said very little material from recycling will need to be stockpiled and their business model is to process items and ship them out — possibly directly to rail cars.

 

The permitting process is expected to take place in the next two to three months. An environmental assessment worksheet would be completed as well as modeling and risk assessment, all of which would be voluntary and upfront. The site area would be identified and would need to be in place before applying for the permits.

 

Construction would hopefully begin this year with an expected opening date of late summer 2019.