NEWS: Freedom To Breathe Hunger Strike Launched

Natasha Villaneuva

“The obligation to stand in solidarity with people who live at the margins — it’s with that commitment to justice and more for my community that today I’m going on hunger strike.”

— Natasha Villanueva outside the Hennepin County Government Center, Friday, April 10, to begin the Freedom to Breathe hunger strike.

Three environmental activists — Villanueva, Nazir Khan, and Joshua Lewis — are leading an indefinite hunger strike until Hennepin County meets their demands pertaining to the permanent closure of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) trash burner in the North Minneapolis 55411 zip code. 

Operating since 1989, HERC is the largest industrial source of air pollution in Hennepin County. According to the Zero Burn Coalition — a network of 70 groups that organized the strike — residents in the 55411 zip code seek medical treatment for asthma at the highest rate in Minnesota. Approximately 70 percent of the waste incinerated at HERC is recyclable or compostable. 

HERC was supposed to close after 20 years — but it has now been 40. “In 2023, the Hennepin County commissioner’s office passed a resolution to shut down HERC,” said Villanueva. “My own commissioner for District Two, chair Irene Fernando, laid out a timeline to gradually reduce burning, starting in February of this year.”

Despite this, in a 2024 email, the Hennepin County compliance officer told Xcel Energy they had no plans to close the burner. No vote to close the burner has taken place; commissioner board action is required to set the closure process in motion. “We have come to this point because no action has been taken,” Villanueva said. 

The ordinance approved in 2023 would permanently close HERC between 2028 and 2040 — a range wide enough that organizers worry the burner will remain open for more years to come. In its 37 years of operation, HERC’s pollutants have directly impacted majority-Black neighborhoods, with EPA modeling linking its particulate emissions to $11 to $24 million in annual health damages. 

“We have tried every channel available,” Villanueva said, “Reports to the community are misleading or incomplete on the health impact, and gaslights constituents.”

Lewis indicated the hunger strike “is a refusal to keep consuming business as usual while our communities are consumed by it; a refusal to let death be disguised as public service; a refusal to let language of policy hide the violence of what has been done to our neighborhoods. No community should have to organize a hunger strike just to demand the right to breathe clean air.” 

Khan, co-founder and executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table (MEJT), condemned the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s inaction. “The MPCA admitted three days ago, in a Senate oversight hearing, that the HERC is indeed adding to the pollution that is killing people. They know it. We are expendable.”

Both Villanueva and Khan advocated for a decentralized waste management approach instead of the trash burner. Khan cited Kerala, India’s waste management approach, which does not send waste to a far away landfill but ecologically manages it where it is disposed.

The strikers insisted a zero waste hub in Hennepin County is the way forward. “We’re demanding a public vote to close the HERC trash burner by December 31, 2027, and a community-led task force to transition into a zero waste future,” Villanueva said.

After the press conference concluded, organizers and attendees entered the Hennepin County Government Center to present county commissioners with a letter. After reaching the 24th floor where their offices are located, organizers were told none of the commissioners were in the office that day. 

Key Events in the Freedom To Breathe Hunger Strike

• Thursday, April 16 | 6:30–8pm Public health forum: How the HERC Trash Burner Harms Health (Minneapolis American Indian Center, grandparents room, 1530 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis). Register
• Saturday, April 18 |  1pm Rally at the HERC Trash Burner (meet at Target Field Station)
• Tuesday, April 21 | 12:30pm Pack The Room: County public comment period (meet inside Hennepin County Government Center)
• Meet The Demands, End the Strike petition for commissioners