FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: Thursday October 22, 2026
MEDIA CONTACT: Geoff Dittberner, geoff@mnejtable.org, 612-309-6304
WATCH: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1PF6BVC7fN/ | Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EL5pEoKoyc2IRPjsnJGTEGARyvZu5Can/view?usp=drive_link
Community Speaks Out as Hennepin County Records Reveal Surveillance of Activists Opposing HERC, Intel Shared With Incinerator Operator
Records show county staff surveilled community members and briefed HERC’s private operator on rallies, meetings and legislation. The coalition is speaking out as it renews its demand for a closure date and a Zero Waste transition being blocked by the Minneapolis trash burner.
MINNEAPOLIS — Community members and the Zero Burn Coalition are raising alarms highlighting internal Hennepin County records that reveal what they describe as government surveillance of environmental justice organizations and frontline community members advocating for the closure of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) trash burner.
The records show that county director David McNary and county manager Angie Timmons, starting in 2023, directed county staff to monitor Zero Burn Coalition events and create reports. These reports documented the coalition’s organizing strategies, planned actions, and the roles of individual community leaders.
The county’s activities extended beyond the HERC’s closure campaign into legislative efforts they saw as threatening to the existence of the facility and other polluters.
Staff reports described what coalition members planned and who was doing what. The records also show how David McNary kept Great River Energy, the private company that runs the HERC incinerator, updated on the coalition’s rallies and legislative work. McNary is the county’s Assistant Director of Environment and Energy and also Secretary-Treasurer of an incinerator industry trade group—the MN Resource Recovery Association, which has lobbied for years at the Capitol to promote incineration and oppose incinerator regulations. The coalition obtained the records through public data requests.
Read the report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W6GV4Vnw96w8XgmapMPRh1myU8cEmtOG/view?usp=drive_link
The coalition is particularly concerned about the extent to which government surveillance has taken place under the oversight of the county Board, including Chair Fernando, at a time when federal crackdown and targeting of Twin Cities continues to escalate, as well as an attempt to identify a whistleblower.
Audua Pugh, Executive Director of the Jordan Area Community Council and a Hennepin County District 2 resident, said the county was not listening to residents: it was listening in.
“The county will say this is community engagement, but the county wasn’t listening to our concerns. Instead, they were listening in. Government surveillance will not intimidate me or force me to stop fighting for clean air in my community on the Northside. I want to know why county leadership has allowed this to happen. We’re not the problem. The trash burner is,” she said.
Kent Mori, a member of the Climate Justice Committee and a Hennepin County District 4 resident, was named in the county’s records.
“The surveillance by Hennepin County is government repression to curtail the democratic rights of climate justice activists,” he said.
Patty O’Keefe, a District 4 resident who was detained by federal agents and held at the Whipple Federal Building during Operation Metro Surge, said the county’s surveillance fits a bigger pattern.
“The federal government is already in our neighborhoods, using every lever it has to quiet dissent. I’ve felt it. We don’t need that from the county. Hennepin County says it’s our partner. Partners don’t take notes on us and hand our private conversations to the company that burns the trash we breathe,” she said.
Kenya McKnight-Ahad, CEO of ZaRah Integrated Root Center and member of the One Heritage Park Coalition alongside the NAACP and several others who are working to improve the conditions at the Heritage Park housing complex, spoke at the press conference held in view of the trash burner.
“Government officials know about the dangerous conditions residents are experiencing at Heritage Park. The housing units are in deplorable condition, and residents have been neglected for years. Hennepin County keeps up that pattern of neglect by not taking action to support Heritage Park residents and by letting a dangerous facility operate and poison these residents while surveilling the community. It is unconscionable. It’s time to address the trash burner and get more assistance to Heritage Park residents. Closing it is overdue,” she said.
The coalition's demands:
The county spent years tracking us instead of collaborating in good faith with the community. Yet we have remained consistent in our demands:
The county must vote to initiate the closure process immediately, set a closure date no later than January 1, 2028, and follow the transition plan Zero Waste USA wrote, which ends the harms of incineration, meaningfully addresses the waste crisis and takes advantage of the opportunity of Zero Waste as an economic multiplier and job creator. As Zero Waste advocates all over the world have concluded, incineration blocks Zero Waste.
The county must truly commit to partnership with the community, working with frontline residents to determine the path ahead.
As we wait for HERC to close, the county must install continuous emissions monitoring (CEMS) and bring HERC's emissions in line with the EPA's stricter proposed 2024 standards for new incinerators.
BACKGROUND
The campaign to close HERC has recently garnered national and international attention, including a 12-day community-led hunger strike and HERC’s inclusion in a report by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) highlighting 20 incinerators worldwide. Environmental justice organizations and community members have continued to demand accountability for HERC’s operations, its public health impacts, and the county’s failure to establish a firm closure date. Recently, the county has also refused to adopt the coalition’s proposals to strengthen HERC’s emission limits to modern standards and install continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS).
About the Zero Burn Coalition: The Zero Burn Coalition consists of more than 75 organizations and hundreds of community members, including impacted neighbors, health professionals, waste experts, labor unions, faith groups, and businesses. We are working to shut down the HERC trash burner that has polluted Minneapolis since 1989. We’re demanding the Hennepin County Board vote to close HERC, set a firm closure date, and create a community-led task force to build a just transition to Zero Waste.
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