Back in the 1990s, when I was an information officer at Virginia Tech's Water Resources Research Center, the Radford arsenal invited the public to an open house -- a PR stunt intended to alleviate realistic fears of environmental contamination -- and I drew the short straw in our office and attended. We were given gift bags containing a refrigerator magnet, a coloring book and other absurdities. Then we were taken on a (very) limited tour of the facility.
The highlight for me was when our proud guide showed us the "state of the art" water protection system on the bank of the New River. This consisted of a treatment lagoon that contained the effluent from the explosives manufacturing process. The water was a non-transparent, shimmering, neon-opalescent green.
I asked where the second and third treatment lagoons were (lagoon treatment systems should have at three lagoons, with the liquid passing from one to another before being discharged into surface water). I was told there were no second and third lagoons -- the toxic effluent was discharged directly into the New River.
And this was approved by the Dept of Environmental Quality. It was business as usual.
The Roanoke Times
The Army plant in Radford discovered it miscalculated the amount of toxins it has released into the environment.
"Even though it released 13.7 million pounds of toxic chemicals -- more than twice the amount of the second-largest polluter -- into the water and air in 2006, the Radford plant is still well within the limits set by the EPA and DEQ for its wastewater emissions, company officials said. .... Statewide, industries released 66.3 million pounds of chemicals on-site, the inventory found."
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/156175
Industries have been dumping more toxins into Virginia's land, water and air than had been thought for years.
That's largely because of recently discovered underreporting by the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, which released about 13 million pounds of chemicals into the New River in 2006 -- by far the largest discharge in the state.
In its annual Toxics Release Inventory report, Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality this week reported a 19 percent increase in the chemicals released on-site by industries statewide.
Much of that increase was attributed to corrections made after a decade of underreporting by the Radford plant and the company that operates it for the Army, ATK Alliant Techsystems.
After discovering last year that it had been using the wrong calculations to report emissions to DEQ, the plant submitted revised numbers this year that more than quadrupled its totals. That in turn reversed a trend of decreased emissions statewide as shown by previous inventories.
"It does raise concerns that overall the numbers are going up," DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden said.
However, officials at the Radford plant stressed that the volume of nitrates and other toxic wastes produced from their manufacture of ammunition has not increased as dramatically as the numbers suggest.
"This is not really an increase in actual emissions to the river," said Phil Lockard, ATK's environmental compliance manager. "It's simply that we've changed the means of our calculations."
The 2006 numbers do reflect an increase of about 20 percent. But plant officials said that was because of a manufacturing process no longer in use.
Lockard said that as soon as plant officials discovered the underreporting through an audit last year, they alerted the DEQ and submitted new data using the correct calculations.
Although the Radford plant had been submitting artificially low numbers since the advent of the TRI in the mid-1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to waive a potential fine of $123,000 because the violations were self-reported.
"EPA appreciates ATK's willingness to identify and disclose its violations," Abraham Ferdas, director of the agency's waste and chemicals management division, wrote in a letter this week to plant officials.
Even though it released 13.7 million pounds of toxic chemicals -- more than twice the amount of the second-largest polluter -- into the water and air in 2006, the Radford plant is still well within the limits set by the EPA and DEQ for its wastewater emissions, company officials said.
Many of the chemicals measured by the TRI are permitted by state regulations. Nonetheless, DEQ director David Paylor expressed concerns about the statewide increases.
"It is imperative that Virginia businesses and industry continue to reduce the amount of chemicals entering the environment," Paylor said.
The 2006 TRI, which contains the most recent data available, relied on self-reported numbers from more than 400 factories, utilities and power plants across the state. They were asked to report the volume of 162 different chemicals or chemical categories that they released into the air through smokestacks, into rivers or streams through discharge pipes, or into the ground through landfills or other methods of disposal.
Statewide, industries released 66.3 million pounds of chemicals on-site, the inventory found. Behind the Radford plant's total of 13.7 million pounds, the Chesterfield Power Station ranked second with 5.4 million pounds.
Other Western Virginia industries in the top 10 list of polluters were the MeadWestvaco plant in Covington and the Clinch River plant in Russell County.
At the Radford plant, complications arose in how the company reported the amount of nitrates that passed through its wastewater treatment plant and then to an underwater pipe in the nearby New River.
ATK discovered last year that it had been measuring just the nitrogen part of the nitrate compounds that were released into the river. Because nitrate is more than four times heavier than nitrogen, not including it in the calculations skewed the annual totals dramatically.
For example, the plant reported to the DEQ in 2005 that it had released 2.6 million pounds of toxins -- an amount that rose to 11.5 million when recalculated correctly. The company has since revised all of its past reports.
"It was a mistake, and it's not a pretty mistake," Lockard said. "But we've done the best we could to correct it."
Although nitrate compounds accounted for 98 percent of the top 10 chemicals released into water that were tracked by the inventory, plant officials noted that other chemicals they don't release -- including lead, zinc and arsenic -- are more potentially harmful.
The TRI tracks only the estimated and self-reported release of certain chemicals; it does not measure the public's exposure to those chemicals or make an assessment of the risks associated with them.
According to the inventory, a statewide total of 769.9 million pounds of chemicals were released on-site, transferred off-site for disposal or recycling, or managed on-site in 2006. That's a 29 percent increase from the year before.
Lt. Col. Jon Drushal defended the environmental record of the Radford plant, a sprawling, 6,900-acre complex that produces propellant and explosives for the U.S. Armed Forces.
"The U.S. Army in conjunction with our partner, ATK, are absolutely committed to being environmentally aware and conscious down here at the plant," said Drushal, commander of the plant. "And that is indicated by our self-disclosure on this issue."
Search this database to see the release amounts and ranks of Alliant and 329 other industries, and locate those polluters on an interactive map:
http://www.roanoke.com/datasphere/wb/156117
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