We’re going to get another Virginia DEQ public hearing on the request of Northrop Grumman for a state permit allowing the company to dump tons of hazardous pollutants into the air in and around Waynesboro.
It will be up to us to sleuth when this mysterious public hearing ends up being set.
“No, we do not publish press releases about agency hearings. We post them on the calendar on our website, in a local newspaper, and on the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall,” was the message to me from Irina Calos, the communications manager at the DEQ, on Wednesday.
I waited 48 hours to write about this because I replied with a follow-up:
“Our local newspaper has a print circulation of less than 700. Is there not a better way to get the word out?”
No reply from Calos or anyone else in the DEQ.
We had this issue before, you may remember.
The DEQ published a “public notice” on the beginning of a public comment period on the permit request in The News Virginian in March.
As we noted in reporting on that rather weak “effort,” according to the Virginia Press Association, the News Virginian has a print circulation of 692, and it stopped printing daily in 2023 – it’s now available three days a week.
A three-days-a-week circulation of 692, in a city of 23,951.
Quick math: at absolute best, 2.9 percent of us saw it.
But that will be it, again, in terms of any proactive “effort” from DEQ to let us know that a follow-up public hearing will have been set on the Northrop Grumman request.
Aside from quietly posting something to the agency’s online calendar.
It’s almost as if they don’t want people to know what they’re up to.
ICYMI: Northrop Grumman air permit request
- Northrop Grumman announces plans for $200M manufacturing facility in Waynesboro
- Waynesboro: DEQ needs to grant extension on Northrup Grumman SOP
- Waynesboro: DEQ to set public hearing on Northrup Grumman permit request
- Waynesboro: DEQ sets public hearing on Northrop Grumman permit request
- Locals gave Virginia DEQ an earful on Northrop Grumman permit request
- Waynesboro: DEQ says it’s OK for Northrop Grumman to pollute our environment
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Chris Graham
