WHAT IS GOPHER RESOURCE?

Located at 685 Yankee Doodle Rd in Eagan, the Gopher Resource facility is a secondary lead smelter with the capacity to process 15 million car batteries a year. 

Gopher Resource’s industrial emissions stack is located approximately:

• 0.2 miles from the nearest house in the Bur Oaks neighborhood
• 0.3 miles from Lennar’s new Trail’s End Commons development
• 0.3 miles from the heavily used children’s soccer fields at Thresher Park
• 0.3 miles from the Yankee Doodle water tower
• 0.4 miles from the nearest house in the Wescott Square neighborhood
• 0.66 miles from the Eagan YMCA’s Early Childhood Learning Center
• 0.95 miles from Faithful Shepherd Catholic School
• 619 feet from the nearest business
• 500 feet from the intersection of Dodd and Yankee Doodle

Source: Google Maps distance calculator

THIS BUSINESS MAY HAVE EXPOSED YOUR FAMILY TO:

• Lead
• Arsenic
• Dioxins
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Methyl Chloride
• 1,3 Butadiene
• Carbon Disulfide
• Etc.

Source: MPCA Emissions workbook, EPA TRI Toxics Tracker, Farrell & Fuller Law Firm attic testing

SHOULD I BE WORRIED ABOUT LEAD?

“No amount of lead in the body is safe. Even small amounts can be harmful, especially for children.”

Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

“Among toxins, lead is a supervillain. There is no safe level of exposure to lead, which damages nearly every system in the body. Early childhood exposure leads to irreversible brain damage and permanently lowered IQ, among other severe symptoms.”

Source: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

“Lead (Pb) is a potent neurotoxicant with no safe level of exposure. Elevated levels of Pb and arsenic (As) are found in the air and soil near facilities that recycle lead-acid batteries in the United States.”

Source: USC Dept. of Medicine & Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

LEAD IN THE AIR

For the last 16 years, the area around Gopher Resource has been in “nonattainment” for ambient air lead. As of May 31st, 2026, this status remains unchanged.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency Airborne Lead Monitor

“[In 2010] Dakota County made the list of 16 places nationwide with too much lead in the air because of emissions at Gopher Resource, which processes lead-acid batteries.”

Source: Star Tribune, 2010

LEAD IN OUR CHILDREN

Children in Eagan have up to 27 times higher than typical bone lead levels.

Source: XRF (X-Ray Fluorescent) testing conducted by Farrell & Fuller Law Firm, 2024

The percentage of children with elevated blood levels in Dakota County was “significantly higher” compared to the rest of Minnesota from 2016 to 2020.

Source: Minnesota Department of Health

LEAD IN OUR HOMES

Testing conducted as part of a new class action lawsuit has found elevated levels of lead, arsenic, and dioxins inside the homes of Eagan families.

Source: Attic testing conducted by Farrell & Fuller Law Firm, 2026

“If any of these … plants were in any proximity to the corporate lawyers that live in Bethesda here, there would be outrage.” 

Source: Eric Schaeffer, former head of the EPA’s civil enforcement division

GOPHER RESOURCE EXPOSED

In 2021, a team of journalists at the Tampa Bay Times won the Pulitzer Prize for their piece exposing the dangerous & illegal business practices of Gopher Resource LLC. The piece is called POISONED.

Source: Tampa Bay Times

In 2024, Gopher Resource LLC agreed to pay out $30 million in settlement money to residents & workers in Eagan and Tampa Bay. Since then, the MPCA has notified Eagan residents that they were exposed to elevated levels of lead for the first three consecutive months.

Source: The Minnesota Star Tribune

In July of 2025, KSTP exposed Gopher Resource’s lengthy recent history of air permit violations at its Eagan facility.

Source: KSTP 5 Eyewitness News

IS PLANT CLOSURE EVEN POSSIBLE?

The short answer: yes!

Approximately one-third of the lead acid battery smelting plants in the United States have closed in the last decade. Dozens more, comprising the vast majority, have been closed in the last 50 years.

Within the last two years, the EPA has shut down a similar lead polluter in Minneapolis, and the MPCA has begun shutting down another in Saint Paul.

State and federal agencies have the authority to do this, and if we organize effectively as a community, we can pressure them to do so here as well! 

LET’S SOLVE THIS PROBLEM!

This is our home. Our neighborhood. Our community.

We are all being affected by the harmful business practices of Gopher Resource LLC and its partnerships with the MPCA, Dakota County, and the City of Eagan.

Time to tell them all: Enough is enough! Our families deserve poison-free air!

Shut. Gopher. Down.