Alright, Step 1, the effort at getting the Virginia DEQ to slow things down on the request of Northrop Grumman for a permit that would allow the release of hazardous air pollutants into our local environment, success.
It had seemed that DEQ was looking to fast-track the request, but after getting more than 200 requests from locals for a full-fledged public hearing, we’re getting our public hearing, next month – July 23.
ICYMI
- Waynesboro: DEQ sets public hearing on Northrop Grumman permit request
- Locals gave Virginia DEQ an earful on Northrop Grumman permit request
The advice that I’m getting from an environmental lawyer is: it’s not going to be enough for several hundred folks to show up at the public hearing to say “pollution: bad.”
People are going to need to be specific with objections, or, and this isn’t from me, but from our guy in the know: DEQ, which has a staff report on file from its Valley Regional Office recommending approval of the permit request, is going to lean in the direction of approving the request.
The problem I see here: I’m not an environmental permit request expert, by any means, and I don’t know that a lot of us who are reasonably concerned about the proposed release of tons of hazardous air pollutants into our local environment are, either.
The experts at DEQ are telling us that this proposed limit of 24.9 tons of hazardous stuff going into environment is somehow acceptable; I’m betting most of us laypeople think the limit should be at or near zero.
I’m just one guy, but I tried to read through the staff report on the Northrop Grumman request that is on file with DEQ, and while I can get my head around the contours of what is being proposed, and what the experts at DEQ seem to think, the report is so jargony as to be practically impenetrable, in terms of trying to reach my own conclusions.
My new environmental lawyer friend is telling me that “the engineering jargon and opacity of that report is absolutely intentional.”
“I saw this all the time years ago when I was doing environmental law regularly. If and when any of this stuff gets out into the public, the companies absolutely do not want Joe and Jane Sixpack to be able to understand it. They want their eyes to quickly glaze over and for them to turn to something else,” I was told.
Which, oddly, makes me feel better, because I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but being blunt here, I couldn’t make hide nor hair of what I was reading, in terms of being able to get to a point where I could understand why the DEQ folks are saying that 24.9 tons of hazardous pollutants going into our local environment is somehow acceptable.
My best attempt at a bright idea here: I’m going to reach out, on all of our behalf, to folks I’m in regular communication with about environmental issues at the state and federal level – folks at the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, Appalachian Voters – to see if they can help us.
It’s either that, honestly, or trying to cram several years of undergrad- and grad-level study of environmental engineering into three weeks.
The better bet here is going with the people who are already well-versed in environmental issues.
My new lawyer friend is surprised, as am I, these groups have already taken this issue on.
Literally all we have to work with is what Northrop Grumman has laid out as its case for a permit in its request, and what DEQ has produced in terms of its review.
Not to cast aspersions on our DEQ, but the matter of tons of hazardous pollutants being released into our local environment needs to be better explained to those of us who will be affected.
At the moment, all we have is this jargony, impenetrable document that makes our heads hurt.
Going forward, maybe our state legislators need to address this kind of thing, by requiring DEQ to produce public reports on these sorts of matters that the average person can actually understand.
That’s for the future.
In the here and now, we have until July 23 to figure out how much damage is about to be done to our local environment, and why we’re being asked to accept that.
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Chris Graham
