Lead battery casings were found in an Eagan property. Who is responsible for the cleanup?
Folks in Dakota County, Minnesota, are raising environmental and health concerns after lead battery casings were discovered in the ground.
Brian McMahon documented what he discovered while helping to redevelop a property in Eagan, taking pictures of what he says are chopped-up lead battery casings in the ground.
"The pictures showing the trench with the battery casings and the containers being hauled off by the roll-off truck. Those are literally the truck was parked right in that area there. The battery casings were over here," McMahon said.
McMahon says the reason for the buried casing goes back decades. It's a practice he believes stopped around 2000.
"Pea gravel is one of the more expensive gravels, and battery casings or chips work well as a replacement or substitute for pea gravel. Cities allowed it. It was common practice back then, and it was also used as a road base. Underneath the asphalt, there were concrete, driveways, parking lots, that kind of thing," McMahon said.
McMahon explained the danger of having battery casings in the ground.
"The most obvious one is lead, because everybody understands that lead is, you know, bad. It's not 100% efficient. You're not going to get all the lead out of the battery casings," McMahon said.
McMahon showed us what he's talking about.
"These are typical batteries that you'd find in automobiles or semi-trucks or lawn and garden equipment and snowmobiles," McMahon said.
He explained the lead in the plastic casing is removed.
"You've got lead studs, lead plates in here. They claim now that they're washing the battery casings, that's a very costly process. But in the old days, they would literally just break them open. The main goal was to get the valuable part out of there, which is the lead, and the remaining black plastic is still saturated with the lead. So what a lot of guys would do is they literally just throw them in a pile and break them up with an excavator or some type of equipment, and have laborers just hand sift the lead out of there as best they can," McMahon said.
University of Minnesota professor Carl Rosen is an extension soil scientist who has studied lead in soil.
"There are things that we have done in the past that would not be acceptable today. Maybe 50, 60 years ago, it was thought that this was a good way of reusing plastic, reusing something, and getting more life out of it. But I don't think they thought about the contamination from lead," Rosen said.
He says there's no way of knowing how much contamination there could be from the battery casings.
"It just tells me that it's in the soil. It could be more widespread than we think, but I don't think there's any way of being able to find out where it is, unless you do a test on every area where there's a house," Rosen said.
In 2018, WCCO shared the story of a Ramsey County couple who learned their home was built on battery casings.
The homeowner told WCCO, "I figured I got about a thousand batteries on this lot. No one ever suspected they were contaminated."
The couple felt stuck, unable to sell with the known danger. The home has since been demolished.
"What is your concern with all of this?" Mayerle asked McMahon.
"My main concern is that we don't know the extent of it," McMahon said.
Dakota County Environmental has started keeping a list of sites where battery casings have been identified. Some areas reportedly treated, others unknown.
A number of them are on Gopher Resource property, a lead battery recycling plant. Others are nearby.
A resident provided WCCO with documentation regarding their subdivision formerly being a recycling/salvage facility, noting "clean-up ... to remove remnant battery casings" and that "homeowners may find remnants of battery casings located on their property."
Gopher Resource told WCCO:
"Gopher Resource is committed to the safe and responsible recycling of lead batteries, which helps reduce landfill waste, conserve natural resources, and strengthen the domestic supply chain. Our work supports one of the nation's most successful closed-loop industries, with over 99% of lead batteries being recycled and each new battery typically containing 80% recycled material.
Decades ago, it was not uncommon for entities throughout the state, including scrapyard operators and similar businesses in Dakota County, to collect spent lead batteries. Some of those businesses would separate the battery casings from the lead and provide the casing material for use in construction, landscaping, septic systems, drainage fields, and similar projects. To be clear, Gopher Resource was not one of those businesses and such activities were not part of our operations. In the past, we have collaborated with Dakota County to assist homeowners who discovered battery casing materials on their property by processing the materials when they were removed even though we had no connection to or responsibility for the placement of the materials on their land. It has never been our practice to give away battery casings or any other byproduct of our recycling process. In fact, for decades, Gopher Resource has processed, treated and pelletized plastic battery casings so that we can sell the plastic back to battery manufacturers for use in the production of new batteries. This is a key part of our business and reflects our commitment to safety, regulatory compliance, and environmental responsibility."
In the last year, casings found on the upcoming Amazon site in Eagan prompted the state pollution control agency to respond. The online retail giant bought the former Thomson Reuters campus for tens of millions of dollars earlier this year. Dakota County documents show the lead-impacted soil was properly disposed of in September.
McMahon says he felt compelled to speak up.
"So it's a serious health issue, it's a serious governmental failure on my I believe, on their part, and I think that somebody needs to point that out and see what, if anything, can be done about it," McMahon said.
Click here to see information shared by MPCA about what to do if you discover battery casings.
The state health department told WCCO no one could speculate about how much lead could be left or the health impact.
Have you come across battery casings in the state? We want to hear from you. Send us a tip here.