News Archive

For decades, the majority of the Twin Ports lived under the threat of a concentrated chlorine spill, which could have spread over 10 miles and sickened up to 128,000 people in an unlikely, though technically possible, worst-case scenario. Then in 2006, Western Lake Superior Sanitary District decided to do away with the risk altogether. “While […]

ST. PAUL PARK — The St. Paul Park refinery, recently sold to Marathon Petroleum, is under fire from legislators and the community for housing hydrogen fluoride after the explosion at Husky Energy refinery in Superior, Wis. The Star Tribune reported last week that records found at the Chicago Environmental Protection Agency office record a “worst-case” […]

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum said the use of hydrogen fluoride in a major population center is “unacceptable.” U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum is asking Marathon Petroleum to stop using hydrogen fluoride at its St. Paul Park refinery, citing EPA records that say an accidental leak of the highly toxic chemical could, in the worst-case scenario, put […]

Release of hydrogen fluoride in metro could imperil 1.7 million people. Ten miles south of downtown St. Paul, on the banks of the Mississippi River, sits an oil refinery that is by far the largest repository of hydrogen fluoride in Minnesota. In the nearly 80 years the plant has been operating, it has never experienced […]

DULUTH, Minn. – Duluth Mayor Emily Larson released a statement this afternoon in response to last week’s explosion at the Husky Energy refinery plant: “We call ourselves the Twin Ports for a reason. When something significant happens on one side of the bridge, we feel it on the other. I consider last week’s explosion at […]