And the Minnesota Air pollution Handle Agency wants the proprietors to clear up the mess.
“When Oronoco Automobile Components has taken out the remaining waste car fluids that were on website, alongside with a important sum of strong squander, there is nevertheless considerably get the job done to do,” claimed MPCA spokeswoman Cathy Malakowsky. “The MPCA is dedicated to looking at the cleanup completed, and will use all the equipment in its regulatory toolbox to bring the website into compliance with point out guidelines.”
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To force the owners of the home to comprehensive the cleanup, the MPCA submitted accommodate against Oronoco Automobile Salvage and its proprietors, and a listening to is scheduled for 9 a.m. Sept. 2 in Ramsey County District Court docket.
The homeowners of Oronoco Auto Salvage – Clyde Payne, Russ Payne and Chris Eriksson – have been not able to be contacted. A quantity detailed on the website for a organization they own was not valid.
On Aug. 27, 2020, the MPCA gave Oronoco Vehicle Salvage 20 days to react to an administrative buy that integrated a collection of issues relating to reliable squander and dangerous squander at the site.
The MPCA’s concern concentration on 31 55-gallon drums made up of employed oil that have been saved at the web-site and piles of auto parts and other similar junk that is unsecured on the ground. The MPCA also has asked Oronoco Car Salvage to attain permits relevant to the storage of the materials, and to hire a certified environmental professional to “acquire a do the job program to characterize contaminated parts at the Facility . . . submit the get the job done approach to the MPCA for review and approval.”
The system, in accordance to documents submitted by the MPCA, was to incorporate a program for implementation and completion. Nonetheless, the cleanup, according to the court docket paperwork, was not done in a well timed way, and the MPCA strategies to drive the owners to end the career.
Tammy Matzke, a supervisor on the Oronoco Township Board and a property proprietor about a mile downstream from the web-site, explained the salvage lawn has been an environmental catastrophe for many years, and cleaning up the internet site is just element of the problem.

The previous Oronoco Automobile Sections web site Friday, July 23, 2021, in Oronoco. (Joe Ahlquist / [email protected])
Matzke said many years of flooding by the Zumbro River has washed down hundreds of tires and tons of auto elements debris more than the several years.
Matzke claimed she’s annoyed due to the fact she wants to see the homeowners of the salvage property held dependable for the mess not only on their assets but be economically liable for the mess that is been designed downriver.
Two several years ago, a flood washed tires, automobile areas and fifty percent-comprehensive barrels of utilised automotive fluids down the river and onto other people’s home. It was not the very first time this experienced transpired, as half-buried objects on the riverbanks attest.
If volunteers ended up to consider going some of all those products, she mentioned, she’s frightened they could trigger far more harm by going harmful squander.
“What if we run over a barrel, crack it open?” Matzke requested.
The present lawsuit handles only the salvage property web-site.
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