West 7th / Fort Road Federation
AIRNET resources for the West 7th / Fort Road Federation neighborhood
The West 7th / Fort Road Federation is a community partner interested in understanding vehicle and truck traffic pollution impacts, and whether there may be local influences from the local Xcel Energy natural gas plant. Learn more about the community below.
Presentations
Workgroup session 1, May 20, 2025, Palace community center (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 24, 2025, Palace community center (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 West 7th / Fort Road Federation (West 7th) is the District 9 planning council in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Federation coordinates participation in advocacy and planning and builds community connections for the residents, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, so that it is a place where people want to live, work, and play.
The neighborhood currently has no publicly available air quality monitoring data. The nearest regulatory air monitor run by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is ~0.4 miles east of the neighborhood at Ramsey Health Center in downtown St. Paul, which measures volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbonyls, coarse particulates (PM10), and fine particulates (PM2.5). 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 MPCA’s Near Road I-35E/I-94 site in the Phillips/Ventura Village neighborhood in Minneapolis, about 6 miles from the northwest curved boundary of the Federation neighborhood.
The Federation currently has 12 active air permits within the neighborhood. MPCA’s records going back to July of 2021 show that none of these permits have been violated.
Air monitoring objectives
The Federation neighborhood sees a large amount of transportation on its multiple major roadways, from I-35E to the Federation itself, to Shepard Road. We want to monitor transportation pollution in the neighborhood to locate pollution hotspots in the community and learn more about the spatial extent of impacts from these high-traffic roads. Our main concerns focus on passenger vehicles and light-to-medium duty trucks (non-diesel). This project will extensively monitor NO2 and PM2.5 at high-traffic locations, and at locations we predict will see relatively little traffic pollution. We will also look at PM10 near the new FCC trash truck lot, with the goal of looking for changes in roadway dust that may indicate increased road usage.