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Minnesota businesses, organizations, and municipalities seeking or holding MPCA wastewater permits are charged two basic types of permit fees: application fees and annual fees.
MPCA investigators say West Fraser paid a fine of $15,775 for air permit violations at their facility in Solway.
Within the three major watersheds that cover the Twin Cities area, there are 33 smaller watersheds managed by their own watershed district or watershed management organization.
Collaboration and engagement have been keys to progress in the St. Louis River AOC.
Systems to treat drinking water have been installed to address groundwater contamination in two St. Louis Park and three Edina municipal wells.
East Side Jersey Dairy Inc., doing business as Prairie Farms Dairy Inc., had several liquid sugar spills they failed to report to the Minnesota Duty Officer in 2022 and 2023. The spills created a potential for harm to the environment and aquatic life had they reached wetlands near the company’s facility in Woodbury, Minnesota.
Northshore Mining operates the Peter Mitchell Mine, a taconite ore mining operation, in Babbitt. It sends the ore that it mines there via rail to a processing plant in Silver Bay, which is a separate facility with its own individual air permit.
Cumulative impacts are the combined effects of current and past pollution and other stressors and how they impact the health, well-being, and quality of life of residents in those communities. The cumulative effects process is how we in Minnesota account for and begin to correct environmental injustices.
The MPCA has released the draft 2025 Minnesota Nutrient Reduction Strategy for public review and comment.
MPCA evaluates water quality by measuring and monitoring the health of fish, macroinvertebrates, and plants.
Learn what steps you can take to reduce the pollution from small neighborhood sources.
Find out what’s being done in Minnesota’s watersheds to protect and improve water quality.
A transport truck released fugitive lime dust that drifted and deposited on area school playground equipment, vehicles, and vegetation near its paper production facility in International Falls, Minn., in October 2023.
Water scientists from the MPCA published four watershed reports in 2025, updating the data we need to keep Minnesota’s waters clean and protected.
The Snake River Watershed is located north of the Twin Cities in the St. Croix River Basin and encompasses 1,006 square miles in five counties: Aitkin, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Pine, and Isanti.
The MPCA is currently recruiting volunteers to measure water clarity in numerous lakes and streams across the state and then report the data back to the agency.
The MPCA fined West Fraser Forest Products $24,750 for exceeding the total amount of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) allowed by the air permit for the company’s Solway facility from January 2024 to January 2025.
U.S. Steel Corp. operates the Minntac Taconite processing facility near the city of Mountain Iron, where it produces taconite pellets that are shipped for use at steel mills. U.S. Steel has applied for a reissued air permit so it can replace existing emissions controls in its pellet plant with cartridge filters.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has developed a draft air permit for MagIron LLC in Coleraine that will require a fugitive dust control plan to help reduce emissions of particulate matter from roads, storage, stockpiles, and exposed mining areas.
Groundwater is not a static thing, but moves around in the layers of rock and soil beneath our feet. How does this affect the work to treat contaminated groundwater and protect drinking water?