Arsenal breaks ground for long

Project personnel pose for a photo Thursday during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Energetic Waste Incinerator/Contaminated Waste Processor at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.

Lt. Col. Adrien Humphreys, commander of the Radford arsenal, stands with an aerial photo of the plant at Thursday's groundbreaking for a new incinerator. Arsenal officials say the new technology — not expected to be operational until 2026 — will continue to significantly reduce the plant's environmental footprint.

A line of earth-moving equipment was parked next to the tent that sheltered those attending Thursday's rainy event at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.

Aug. 6, 2023, 9:36 a.m.: Belview Elementary School is near the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect name of the school. The story has been updated.

FAIRLAWN — A ground-breaking ceremony Thursday at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant signaled the latest step toward the long-discussed construction of a new incinerator for the facility’s explosive waste – and with it, the shutdown of nearly all the much-criticized open-air burning along the banks of the New River, plant officials said.

The event’s final speaker, Amy Borman, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for environment, safety and occupational health, called the building of the Energetic Waste Incinerator “really a clear statement by the Army and this installation regarding our commitment to environmental stewardship.”

Borman described the new incinerator as part of a decade of steps taken to decrease the propellant plant’s environmental footprint. She said that the cumulative effort, which includes replacing the plant’s coal-fired power plant with natural gas and recycling 98% of the acids used in production, is one of the biggest developments at the arsenal since its founding in 1940.

Plant officials said that in the past 10 years, $715 million has been spent reducing the environmental impact of the arsenal’s work.

Still, the new incinerator, a $145 million project, will not be operating until 2026, plant officials said.

That will be a decade after a previous plant commander, Lt. Col. Alicia Masson, said that replacing the open burning of waste with a closed incinerator would be a priority “in the near term … not 10 years out there on the horizon.”

The present plant commander, Lt. Col. Adrien Humphreys, said Thursday that the long timeline was due largely to how long it took to get environmental permits for the new incinerator.

The open burning of waste at the Army-owned, contractor-run plant has long drawn attention because of the possibility of emissions affecting the New River or blowing into nearby residential areas or onto Montgomery County’s Belview Elementary School and Virginia Tech farmland where vegetables are raised for students. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has listed perchlorate, chlorate, chlorite, chloride, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, methylene chloride, chloromethane and methane as “constituents of concern” from the open burning.

The arsenal is said to produce some part of more than 90% of U.S. military munitions, as well as commercial ammunition. Most of its waste already is burned in closed incinerators that trap and filter emissions. However, some waste has been too explosive or otherwise dangerous to put in the existing incinerators and is disposed of in fires built in open pans.

A state permit that took effect in 2021 limits “dry” burns to 5,600 pounds per day, for no more than 183 days a year. So-called wet burns, which require diesel fuel and kindling such as cardboard, are allowed a maximum of 2,000 pounds per day for 365 days a year.

At Thursday’s ground-breaking, Humphreys and other officials noted that the plant has reduced the amount of waste burned in the open by more than half since 2017, and usually burns only a small fraction of what the state permit allows.

When the Energetic Waste Incinerator is built, it will handle “nearly 99%” of what is now burned in the open, Humphreys said.

Mike Gangloff (540) 381-1669

[email protected]

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