Aerospace and defense manufacturer Northrop Grumman is still waiting for the state to green-light an operating permit that would allow it to emit nearly 25 tons of pollutants from its Waynesboro facility each year. Opposition from Valley residents, however, continues to mushroom. WMRA’s Christine Kueter reports.
It’s a steaming hot August morning, and a woman and her dog are enjoying some shade at Coyner Springs Park in Waynesboro. The woman, who asked that we not use her name to protect her privacy, meets friends here most days.
ANONYMOUS WOMAN: Puggles. My dog, yeah. Yeah, because we live in an apartment, you know? And this dog park has been here forever.
There’s been a lot of talk at the park lately, Puggles’ owner says, about the nearby Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility which has applied for state permits that would allow it to release up to 24.9 tons of volatile organic compounds each year. Those VOCs include chemical solvents, adhesives, and coatings such as MIBK, a carcinogen, toluene, which can cause organ damage and lead to pregnancy loss, and xylenes, which can trigger respiratory and neurological problems.
ANONYMOUS WOMAN: I was born and raised here at the old Waynesboro hospital, lived here my whole life, and just to see something like this come in is just scary. All these big companies that’s done destroyed these little towns, how do we really know what’s going on? So it makes you worry, you know, it’s a lot, they’re talking about tons of pollution coming in; that’s a lot. So, who knows the long term health effects on that, down the road?
Northrop Grumman’s property line nestles against Coyner Springs Park, 145 acres of woods, fields, and streams that feed the city’s municipal water supply. If the company gets the permit, it’ll begin building electrical components for aerospace and defense machinery using what it says are safe, proven methods to capture most of the emissions it generates.
Northrop Grumman, the world’s fourth largest defense company that posted $41 billion in revenue in 2025, says it can be trusted to track its own pollution. Some Valley residents, though—including those who remember when the city’s DuPont plant drained mercury-laden wastewater into the South River, where it’s still present in fish and snakes today—don’t buy it.
CARRIE EHEART: They can still do it if there’s nobody standing over top of them to make sure they’re not.
Stuart’s Draft resident Carrie Eheart grew up in Waynesboro. She’s part of an opposition group demanding Northrop Grumman’s permit be denied—or, next best, that Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality requires it to pay an outside company to track emissions and issue public reports.
EHEART: It’s important that people keep fighting. Because we’re losing it, unfortunately. And, you know, when you don’t care that you pollute, you lose a lot of things, not just the air. Everything below it goes, too. Once it’s done, it’s done.
Some argue the company should have revealed its pollution plans before moving to town. It’s now been more than two and a half years since they broke ground. The fact that Northrop Grumman’s leasing the 315,000 square-foot property clouds things further.
Waynesboro vice mayor Lorie Jean Akanbi, who represents the ward where the facility is located, sent WMRA a statement saying she supports independent emissions monitoring as well as a strong business community. Akanbi’s statement reads, in part, “Waynesboro knows first-hand that environmental impacts can remain with a community for generations. We have lived that history and as such we should learn from it. Independent monitoring provides another level of verification and transparency and gives our community greater confidence in the information we receive about emissions and potential environmental impacts.”
Back at Coyner Springs, Puggles’ owner says it’s a dirty but likely a done deal.
ANONYMOUS WOMAN: I think you’re fighting a losing battle here now. The only solution is just to move away somewhere where you feel it’s safer. Because I don’t think they’re not going to give them their permit now because it’s a billion dollar company. They’ve let them build it, now they’re not going to stop them from getting a permit. They’ll just give you a pat on the head and tell you what you want to hear.
After a packed community meeting in July, DEQ issued a lengthy written response. Eheart’s group plans to speak at Waynesboro City Council’s Sept. 14 meeting and to show up at DEQ’s next community meeting Sept. 15, at 6 p.m. at the Waynesboro High School auditorium, too.
In a statement, Northrop Grumman officials wouldn’t say if they’d attend either meeting but said they “expect [their] actual emissions to be much lower than the [24.9 tons a year] cap.”
“Northrop Grumman is committed to being a responsible neighbor,” the company said.
DEQ officials say they’ll announce their decision on the operations permit by October 22.
