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Scott County to push MPCA to revise draft solid‑waste report, citing waste‑to‑energy concerns
Summary
Scott County staff and commissioners reviewed a draft comment letter to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, urging revision of a statewide resource‑management report that repeatedly groups landfilling and waste‑to‑energy as disposal, a framing the board says conflicts with statute.
Scott County staff and several commissioners said the county will ask the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to revise a large draft resource‑management report and to clarify that waste‑to‑energy is treated as resource recovery, not the same as landfilling.
The board discussed a draft comment letter staff plans to finalize and bring back for adoption at the board meeting on July 7. Jake, who walked the board through the draft, said the MPCA is accepting public comments through July 7 and that the letter is intended as a policy‑level submission from the board while county technical staff may add operational comments.
County speakers singled out repeated language in the MPCA report that groups landfilling and waste‑to‑energy as forms of "disposal." "The report over and over and over ties landfilling and waste energy together as forms of disposal," Jake said, adding that "waste energy is considered resource recovery in the hierarchy, it's not considered disposal in the hierarchy." The board said that conflation could narrow options available to counties and partners that use energy recovery as a higher‑order step in the statutory hierarchy.
Commissioners said the report includes useful statewide infrastructure modeling—one presenter noted the agency estimates that achieving a 90% diversion goal would require collecting about 2 million tons statewide, with roughly 1 million tons needing to come from commercial, institutional and industrial sources—but that framing around waste‑to‑energy could be used by advocates or legislators to favor specific policies. One commissioner asked that the county's public comment be shorter and stronger: "make the bullets less words and stronger bullets," the commissioner said.
Staff recommended coordinating the county letter with neighboring counties and AMC district partners to avoid identical form letters while amplifying shared priorities. The board directed staff to revise the draft to emphasize that the document is a planning tool and not a mandate, to clarify statutory distinctions in the waste‑hierarchy, and to prepare the letter for formal consideration on July 7.
Next steps: staff will revise the letter, circulate a draft to commissioners ahead of the July 7 packet, and coordinate outreach with other counties that intend to comment, including Ramsey and Washington counties, which staff said are preparing comments.
