St. Paul to declare state of emergency to resolve trash ‘crisis’

St. Paul will start its new citywide garbage service on Tuesday, but Mayor Melvin Carter has declared a state of emergency to make it happen.

The emergency declaration will let the city’s new garbage contractor be able to use a disputed site to park and dispatch its trucks, and Carter said he wants the City Council to vote to extend his emergency declaration, allowing FCC to keep using the site.

The council is expected to extend the emergency declaration for 90 days.

Trash collection in St. Paul had already been in for a big change this week.

This is the first time a sole contractor has been working in the city, as St. Paul has spent the last decade moving away from the system of residents making individual deals with small haulers.

But a zoning vote from the City Council raised big questions about where the new hauler would base its operations. Carter raised the possibility that there would not be trash collection on Tuesday, and called the situation a crisis.

“We will ensure that there’s trash pickup,” Public Works Director Sean Kershaw said on Monday.

FCC Environmental, a Spanish garbage and recycling company, won the city’s garbage business in 2024, and bought a property at 560 Randolph Av., to use as a central dispatch yard. The site now holds a parking lot and a small office, but eventually the company plans to build a fueling station for its trucks there.

Neighbors and the local district council, the Fort Road Federation, have objected. They worried about truck traffic and said they hoped development in the now-industrial area between W. 7th Street and Shepard Road would soon sprout apartments and shops, and become more of a link between the neighborhood and the riverfront.

The City Council granted an appeal from the neighbors that would have stopped FCC using the site to station its trucks as it started citywide trash pickup this week.

State law requires St. Paul to maintain trash collection, City Attorney Lyndsey Olson said in late March, and the city’s contract with FCC specifies that the company will be responsible for most trash pickup starting Tuesday.

The question became how the company would make that happen without use of the Randolph property.

Carter’s emergency declaration will let FCC use the property for the next three days, and he said he wants the City Council to vote to let the company keep using the site indefinitely, as the zoning and permitting process moves forward.

Angie Wiese, the city’s director of Safety and Inspections, said FCC has changed some of the wording in its permit applications in recent weeks to make sure the language better conforms to city zoning for the site, and she said zoning staff recommend the City Council approve the plans.

The council voted 5-0 on March 19 against the proposal, but the members are now expected to vote to extend the mayor’s emergency declaration for 90 days.

“The emergency order is not an endorsement of their presence in the neighborhood,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker. She said she wanted to see the company use the time to find another site.

Ward 1 Council Member Anika Bowie had voted for the residents’ appeal, but during a news conference Monday said she would now vote to let FCC continue working out of the Randolph site.

“It’s not a change of heart,” she said. “It’s more, ‘We have to be practical.‘”