South St. Paul Community and Sanimax

Summer Seasons – Facility Update

As you’re aware, we have been making ongoing efforts to improve our operations and reduce impacts on the surrounding community. Those efforts resulted in a period of sound and stable facility performance. However, the last week of May, we experienced a setback that led to unfortunate circumstances. This was the result of a performance issue within our system, not a gap in regulatory compliance or our overall operating standards.

The circumstances were caused by a performance issue within one of our chemical treatment systems that supports our air handling process and plays an important role in reducing impacts outside the facility. During the intermittent disruption, we relied on an auxiliary system while tending to our primary system. We learned, throughout this event, that the auxiliary system didn’t achieve our same internal performance standards as the primary system.

Our team identified the issue and has taken corrective actions. These include addressing the affected system, adjusting operating parameters to improve stability, and increasing monitoring and daily management of key processes across the site.

As next steps, we are continuing to recalibrate our control systems to ensure they perform reliably under changing conditions, especially as we move into warmer weather months. We are also working with third-party engineering consultants, in collaboration with the City of South St. Paul, on a comprehensive study to better understand contributing factors and identify additional improvements. Findings and next steps from this work were shared at a recent City Council meeting.

We recognize the impact this has on the community and are committed to making the necessary improvements.