November, 2023 – Hello! A lot has happened and, this group of volunteers has not been keeping the website up-to-date. But, just because the site isn’t updated doesn’t mean we’ve gone away. Below is a quick summary of what’s happened this year. For more, poke around this site to see some of what’s happened the past 5 years. Or, to see more current events and to stay up-to-date, monitor our Facebook page. That’s a lot easier for this group of volunteers to manage. https://www.facebook.com/WBANCCG OR, just google Water Gremlin. (Nothing else needed in the search terms.)
What’s happened between Dec 28, 2022 and November 2023?
When Water Gremlin contested the permit in 2022, the MPCA reissued the permit in early 2023. When that comment period was over on March 3, the MPCA had once again received an incredibly high volume of comments from the community, in addition to pages and pages (759) of comments from the company. (Here’s a link to the comments submitted by NCCG.) The company again contested the permit, saying that it was unjust and too restrictive. Plus, they really disliked a requirement in the permit where they are supposed to meet with the community once a year. (NOTE: They have only once talked to the community and that was in a heavily scripted, one-way ‘webinar’).
In June of 2023, the MPCA denied the contested case and issued the permit. NCCG and representatives from the community were invited to watch the signing of the permit. Water Gremlin was finally regulated! See here for the findings of fact and conclusions of law that accompanied the issuance of the permit. It’s long, but it’s a pretty easy and interesting read that covers much of the history. Shortly after, Water Gremlin filed an appeal and the court accepted the appeal. NCCG signed on as a “friend of the court”.
In April, 95 civil lawsuits were brought forth by an attorney not affiliated with NCCG. One of the cases involving a child severely impacted by take-home lead was settled quickly. The others are still pending, based on our limited knowledge.
During this period of time, Water Gremlin started talking a lot on LinkedIn and other media about all of the good things they were doing with their operation. (Here’s an easy link for you if you want to see what we’re talking about.) We are used to Water Gremlin putting their own version on the narrative. And they are doing what seems like some good things. We’re happy to see this. But, let’s be clear. What Water Gremlin is doing is what the community fought for. And it’s what Water Gremlin fought against. Hard. The activities they are taking credit for as innovative and as being environmentally friendly are requirements mandated under the permit. The credit goes to regulatory and to the community.
In late October 2023, Water Gremlin filed for bankruptcy. They said they needed to do it in order to entertain possible offers for a sale. Bankruptcy would allow them to address all of the pending litigation at once and put it to rest. We have our POV on this. Check out our Facebook for more on it.
AND, while all of this is going on – the Federal Government is working to ban TCE. Minnesota was the first state to ban the use of TCE and that legislation was driven through the extreme pollution by Water Gremlin.
Oh. Wait. There’s more.
In April of 2023, a whistleblower came forward, saying he had evidence that Water Gremlin had vastly exceeded their limits on lead in the workplace. MN OSHA investigated. And found that Water Gremlin did not exceed their levels. Water Gremlin told the story of them them being in compliance, which, technically, they were.) The kicker is that the MN OSHA lead guidelines are extremely dated (1978( and the levels allowed are extremely high. As a country we have learned a lot over those decades about the impact of lead in the bloodstream of children and adults. No level of lead is safe. Our newly elected Senator, Heather Gustafson is preparing to put 2 bills forward for legislation that will correct this outdated standard. We are grateful to the whistle blower for coming forward and ultimately exposing this very dated regulation and we stand with Senator Gustafson as she brings forth this new legislation.
All right. It seemed like it had been a slow year – until we started recapping this It’s of note that 5 years later, Water Gremlin still continues to take up a fair share of media coverage, across all of the print, tv and radio outlets. Just google for some coverage. Or, check out our Facebook page and scroll through it for dozens of news stories that haven’t yet been posted to this site. Use this website as a place to learn the history and see the fist 3.5 years of our fight. We’ll give another update in a few (several) months, I’m sure. Cheers!
December 28, 2022- All comments to the draft permit were due by August 20, 2022. At that point, Water Gremlin submitted a request for a contested case – meaning that they strong disagreed with the permit requirements. The MPCA has been reviewing that request, along with all of the other comments received and has let us know that they will be reissuing another version of the permit shortly. (Expected late Jan/early Feb.)
Click here to view all of the responses to the first permit, including the responses from NCCG and from Water Gremlin. You’ll see Water Gremlin in general feels that permit was too restrictive and too cumbersome. And, you’ll see that the community is asking to make sure that we are protected though monitoring and other ongoing reporting requirements.
Taking action to protect our White Bear area.
THE BACK STORY:
In March of 2019, the MPCA announced a stipulation agreement had been signed with Water Gremlin. As the White Bear area community began to read the agreement, we learned we had been exposed to highly excessive levels of TCE for 17 years. Check out this page on the MDH website for a Public Health Assessment summary (draft version published in Q2 2022) of what the community may have been exposed to as a result of years of highly excessive pollution at the hands of Water Gremlin.
As 2019 progressed, additional actions were taken against Water Gremlin by the MPCA, the MDH and the Dept. of Labor and Industry for poor handling of lead, for hazardous waste violations and more.
In the 4 years this has been going on, 2 administrative orders and 2 stipulation agreements have been issued. And, in August the MPCA, after almost 3.5 years of research and back and forth with Water Gremlin, issued the first version of the permit As outlined above, it is being reissued due to the number of comments and required changes.
Frankly, this website (maintained by community volunteers) hasn’t been kept as up-to-date this last year or so. But, now that there is some more progress, we’ll try to get it updated to reflect some of the more current happenings so that you can hear the community-based perspective.
OH, by the way. Out of all the bad that has been exposed by Water Gremlin’s actions (check out the OLA for a summary), there has been some good.
* Due to all of the remediation work, 1,4 Dioxane was found in Gem Lake private wells and citizens were provided with safe drinking water. Water Gremlin is not thought to be the cause of the 1,4 Dioxane, however their actions did lead to the work that found this issue.
* A joint powers agreement was signed between Ramsey County and the MPCA, enabling the two groups to work together during issues like this.
* The MPCA made changes in how they train permit engineers and now cross-train and have peer reviews as a formalized process.
* The MPCA changed how their databases ‘talk’ to each other. Different types of data were going into different places and not being shared or connected.
These are just some of the positives that have come out of all of the pain caused by decades of highly excessive pollution by Water Gremlin.
Jennifer Mayerle in “The Reporter’s Notebook” Part 1.
In less than 9 minutes, you’ll hear a quick overview of 2019. (Recorded 1/17/2020)
When is enough enough? Water Gremlin was permitted to release 10 tons of TCE per year. Over 17 years, they released more than 1000 tons into the White Bear area community. (Page 9, Stipulation Agreement)
And, regarding lead, 24 children have been found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood. The lead was “brought home” from workers.
To learn more about what happened from the NCCG community perspective, click here for a series of articles summarizing our findings and research.
Citizens are fearful about health impacts and environmental damages. The community is asking a lot of questions of the MPCA, the MDH and our local and state officials to understand.
We have health concerns for children living in the area during the 17 years of excessive pollution. And, we’re worried about the children who have attended elementary school ‘in the zone’.
White Bear Area Citizen
Join us as we learn more about the Water Gremlin contamination issues.
Our goal for this site is to provide you with a resource for learning more. And, if you’d like to get involved or stay in-the-know, scroll to the end of this page to sign up for update emails. Or, join our Facebook page.
Our Strategic Focus:
Understand the Past
Water Gremlin has exposed our community to unsafe levels of TCE and possibly other pollutants since 2002 or earlier. We need to know the full scope of the incident in order to identify health needs of current and past residents, workers and students in our neighborhood.
I want to know what the real pollution was so that I can help my kids understand what they need to watch for as they move on into the next stage of their lives.
White Bear Area / Whitaker Resident
Protect the Future
We are working to ensure that Water Gremlin stays in compliance with the stipulation agreement, that the community is informed if they are out of compliance and to ensure that the replacement to TCE is the best alternative – for the community and the environment.
We have been asked repeatedly by community members – Are we safe with the new chemical and pollution control equipment? What other VOCs are in the area that we don’t know about?
NCCG Board Member
Maintain Accountability
NCCG is working with elected and regulatory officials to ensure that there is accountability for the citizen’s “right to know” and to ensure a transparent and participatory process with ongoing citizen information and input.
Also, NCCG is working to understand what went wrong and how government, regulatory, industry and citizens can impact different outcomes for our future.
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Copyright Neighborhood Concerned Citizens Group (NCCG) 2019 – All rights reserved
White Bear Area Neighborhood Concerned Citizens Group 