Politics & Government

Ex-MN Pollution Control Commissioner Talks Fridley Cancer Concerns

Paul Aasen, a Fridley native, spoke about the city's Superfund sites and issues raised by the Fridley Cancer Cluster group.

Paul Aasen, who recently left his post as commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for a , talked to Fridley Patch about residents' concerns that the contamination from area could be responsible for cases of cancer.

Aasen cautioned that Fridley should keep track of contamination sites so as not to make risky decisions, such as (a hypothetical example) building a school where there had been toxic leakage. But he said he believes the city's cancer rates cannot be directly tied to industrial environmental factors and that the appropriate agencies have done a good job at cleaning up pollutants.

"It's not ever as simple as, 'There's an old dump over there, and we have cancer on this street [and therefore] they're connected,'" Aasen said.

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