North End Neighborhood Organization (NENO)

NENO is a community partner with concerns around vehicle and truck traffic pollution, train traffic, a local asphalt plant and other industry, and auto use businesses. Learn more about the community below.

Presentations

Workgroup sessions

Workgroup session 1, May 2025 (view presentation): First community meeting that discussed the project goals and objectives as well as timelines. The participants received a brief air quality introduction and discussed the main concerns related to air pollution in their neighborhood. The top three air pollution sources of concern were identified to further narrow down and identify specific pollutants to monitor for the project.

Workgroup session 2, June 2025, virtual (view presentation): Second community group meeting that built upon the sources discussed in the first session. Top pollutants to monitor were identified, and two to three options, along with suitable sensors and associated costs, were presented based on previous source discussions. A tabletop mapping exercise was conducted to identify potential sites for placing monitors.

Quarterly reports (forthcoming 2026)

Deployment plans (forthcoming 2026)

Introduction to the community

The North End Neighborhood Organization (NENO) is the District 6 planning council in St. Paul, Minnesota. NENO works on planning, policy development, and neighborhood revitalization work relating to land use, housing, transportation, economic development, waste management, neighborhood livability, public safety, and the natural environment within the North End community.

The neighborhood currently has no publicly available air quality monitoring data. The nearest regulatory air monitor run by the MPCA is about 0.8 miles south of the neighborhood at Ramsey Health Center in downtown St. Paul, which measures volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbonyls, coarse particles (PM₁₀), and fine particles (PM_2.5). There is also a temporary regulatory station located at the Northern Iron facility to the east, measuring total suspended particulates, metals, and lead. The nearest site measuring nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) is at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Near Road I-35/I-94 site in the Phillips/Ventura Village neighborhood in Minneapolis, about 6.3 miles from the southwest corner of the North End neighborhood.

The North End currently has six active air permits within the neighborhood. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s records going back to July 2021 show none of these permits have been violated.

Air monitoring objectives

The North End is bounded and intersected by major highways, arterial roadways, and train tracks: Dale St. (W boundary), Larpenteur Ave (N boundary), 35E (E boundary), Rice St. (N-S), in addition to others. We want to monitor transportation pollution in the North End neighborhood to identify pollution hotspots in our community and learn more about the spatial extent of impacts from these high-traffic roads. Concerns focus on multiple forms of transportation traffic in the North End community: gas- and diesel-powered vehicles and trains. This project will monitor transportation-related pollutants, NO₂, PM_2.5, and black carbon, at locations of high traffic and at locations we believe will see relatively little traffic pollution for comparison.