As tires pile up, so do complaints

Roughly six years after it overcame neighborhood protest to gain approval to shred old tires, a company operating on land north of Cloquet is under state investigation for its possible failure to meet permitted standards.

Tire Aggregate, Inc., located along Minnesota Highway 33 just across the Carlton County line, was permitted by both St. Louis County and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2017 to shred used tires to make a construction product called tire-derived aggregate.

New complaints from neighbors say the company is burying shredded tires in groundwater and allowing overflowing used tire bins to exceed a 10-foot height limit.

"I have zero problem with gravel pits - there's one on each side of us," said Bonnie Vanderpool, who owns 40 acres next door. "But these tires are a different story."

They're solid waste and not being disposed of properly."

In August 2022, while four-wheeling on her family property, Vanderpool noticed an unusual sight.

"I was like, 'What the heck is this?'" she told the Pine Knot. "I saw shredded tires above the waterline, and a newly made gravel road where trucks came in and dug this hole."

Vanderpool filed a complaint with the MPCA, requesting the tire shreds be dug up and water tested.

After some initial responses seemed to affirm the complaints, the MPCA went mostly quiet, causing Brevator Township's chairman Carey Ferrell to file another complaint last month, reciting Vanderpool's complaints from a year ago.

"Worthless," Ferrell said of the MPCA. "They haven't done anything. St. Louis County is the same way. They issue the permit and they never follow up on it."

The MPCA said it is investigating the site and would have no further comment. St. Louis County said key employees in the land use permitting process were out of the office this week and, thus, unavailable for comment.

Changes

Originally, Tire Aggregate had been launched and overseen by company president David Chmielewski, who died in a construction accident in 2021. Located on land owned by Carlton-based Omar's Sand and Gravel, Tire Aggregate is now under new leadership.

Officials from neither Tire Aggregate nor Omar's responded to inquiries from the Pine Knot.

Because of fire risk associated with collections of junk tires, Cloquet Area Fire District has kept tabs on the operation.

"(W)e have participated in multiple site visits to evaluate the conditions present at the site," wrote fire chief Jesse Buhs in response to an email from the Pine Knot about the tires. "I have been in touch with the State Fire Marshal's office and evaluated fire department access and water supply in case of a fire incident. The MPCA is taking the lead on the investigation and working to ensure compliance by the owners with associated state regulations."

But complainants say the state agency isn't working swiftly enough.

Sources shared emails received from a solid waste compliance staffer within the MPCA who originally indicated the tire shreds would be excavated once the ground thawed last spring.

That apparently never happened.

Emails shared with the Pine Knot indicate the MPCA staff inspected the site last September, telling the operator and landowner the agency did not approve of waste burial - a practice not outlined or allowed in the state permit. The anticipation was that tire shreds would be trucked out of the facility.

"They're not permitted for that," Vanderpool said of shred burial. "There's no barriers or nothing, just tires in the ground, underwater. No other measures whatsoever."

On the scene

Earlier this week, Vanderpool had a Pine Knot reporter on her property just north of Tire Aggregate. Shredded tires are clearly visible on the edge of a pond and a nearby stream. Additionally, overhead Google Earth images captured in 2023 appear to show some bins overflowing with tires, and other random piles of tires located throughout the approximately 6-acre site. Two piles are visible from cemetery on the south side of the site.

"They have way too many tires over there," Vanderpool said. "That's a huge fire hazard and it's not compliant with their permit."

A petition in 2016 featured more than 200 signatures opposed to the operation, claiming the project could damage wells, wetlands and a nearby trout stream.

The MPCA confirmed there was a favorable environmental review of the site in 2016, prior to issuing the permit.

Violations?

Complainants say they're back to square one.

"The permit specifically says if the bins are filled they're supposed to cease and desist until they clear up the bins," said Ferrell, who speculated that Tire Aggregate could be burying shreds in order to create more space so it doesn't have to stop operations.

In its solid waste facility permit with the MPCA, it does allow that, "A tire derived aggregate storage area shall be designated," the permit says. "Only TDA may be stored in the designated waste tire storage area."

The permit says nothing about burying tire shreds at the level of what sources say is a shallow water table.

In another email shared with the newspaper, a government relations official with the MPCA noted that the county has "observed ... alleged violations as well, which are also in violation of the local conditional use permit."

The official told Ferrell that the state and county were in communication about any developments "as they occur."

But now, a year after first being apprised of the alleged violations, the site seems to remain non-compliant.

Ferrell wondered aloud if the MPCA was being slow to act, so it would not be stuck with a clean-up effort of its own.

So far in 2023, the MPCA has issued violators correction orders and fines over $5,000 more than 40 times, with dozens of other fines and correction orders coming under that figure.

In yet another email shared with the newspaper, the MPCA said it has issued "alleged violations letters" to the operators and landowners asking for how they intend to remove all of the disposed of shreds from the property. As of December, the staff had not heard back and planned to reach out again.

Then in June, sources received another response from the compliance staffer that seemed to U-turn from previous discussions, saying "there's a chance [the shreds] are being used according to how they're supposed to be."

The compliance officer argued the water the shreds were in was not considered a wetland and that tire shreds "are typically used to improve drainage or as a substitute for conventional aggregate."

Since that correspondence, that staffer has gone silent, with a different official becoming mostly tight-lipped, sources said.

"I sent a photo and said, 'I still see tires going in there,' and if I get a response it's, 'Thank you' or 'Maybe, it's tires going out,'" the Brevator's Ferrell said. "Why would I send photos of tires coming out?"