Residents gathered Friday to celebrate the closure of Smith Foundry, ending more than 100 years of production and pollution in south Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood.

“Every little ingredient that went into this fight led to this victory,” Joe Vital, an organizer with the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, told a crowd in Cedar Field Park.

Vital grew up in East Phillips, and was one of the first residents to hear about the federal pollution violations that led to the foundry’s closing. He and dozens of residents gathered, shared food and enjoyed the moment. They screen printed fresh t-shirts with the slogan, “When we fight, we win,” and basked in the rhythm of an Indigenous drum circle.

The group included neighbors who complained about the foundry for years, citing the acrid smell and black dust the building emitted. Their fears were substantiated in May 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a surprise inspection. The EPA found that from 2018 to 2023, the foundry emitted nearly double the amount of pollution allowed by its state-issued permit. The EPA cited the foundry in August 2023 for nine violations of the Clean Air Act.