Many of the roughly 50 Valley residents demonstrating outside Waynesboro City Council chambers Monday evening had a message for the city’s nearby Northrop Grumman plant: “we’re watching.” WMRA’s Christine Kueter reports.
[crowd chanting and cheering, “no Dupont 2.0! No DuPont 2.0!”]
Milio Curcio has a neighbor problem. The Augusta County farm where he raises chickens, goats, and turkeys lies less than 1,000 feet from a massive Northrop Grumman plant that’s applied for a state operating permit to begin manufacturing.
MILIO CURCIO: And all this with Northrop Grumman is absolutely a threat to not only the success of the homestead, but to the health of us, our family, our animals, to the soil we’re trying to grow our food in. It’s really frightening. It keeps us up at night for sure.
The permit would allow the company to emit nearly 25 tons of hazardous air pollutants each year, including chemicals such as toluene, xylenes, and MIBK, once it starts building aerospace and defense machinery.
Northrop Grumman says it will capture much of the pollution it emits using charcoal filters, booths, and special spray guns. It says it wants to be a good neighbor. But many aren’t convinced.
CURCIO: I don’t believe that they have earned the trust of this community, and I think that everybody should be skeptical about their claims that they will self-monitor.
While some oppose Northrop Grumman’s operations outright, many Valley residents say they’re realists, too. They’re urging city leaders and DEQ officials to require an outside company to keep tabs on Northrop Grumman’s emissions and report out to the public.
Retired Naval Officer Emily Harman lives in Staunton. Her wish?
EMILY HARMAN: Ideally? Northrop Grumman doesn’t move down here, you know, and move into the building . . . but at a bare minimum, they should not be allowed to do their own testing. We need to do, get third-party testing, and . . . With their history of other places that are Superfund sites, why are we allowing this here? Why are we trusting them now? I just don’t get it.
Waynesboro social worker Brittany Centeno points upstream. More than 75 years after the DuPont plant stopped dumping its mercury-laden wastewater into the South River, the Virginia Department of Health still warns people not to eat fish caught from the river, except for stocked trout.
BRITTANY CENTENO: The history here, with our drinking water, and people that really rely on these resources that we cannot get back. And it just feels really scary when it’s like the longevity of our community is being traded for money, and it can’t be repaired once it’s done.
Waynesboro vice mayor Lorie Jean Akanbi issued a statement last week asking DEQ to require Northrop Grumman to hire an outside firm to track its pollution. Now, it’s up to DEQ, which says it’ll decide about Northrop Grumman’s permit by October 22.
A final community meeting takes place Tuesday evening at the Waynesboro High School auditorium starting at 6 p.m.
