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Radford Arsenal incinerator completion delayed to 2027
The Radford Army Ammunition Plant has again delayed completion of an incinerator at the site, pushing the project into 2027.
Commonly known as the Arsenal, the plant began construction of a $145 million energetic waste incinerator project in 2023, which it says would virtually eliminate the need to open burn materials used to make gun and rocket propellants, thus reducing air pollution. According to the U.S. Army Munitions Command, construction was originally expected to be completed by the summer of 2025 before being delayed to June 2026. The Army now says the project will not be finished until September 2027.
“The extensive safety and quality control reviews required of a unique facility like this one led to unplanned changes in the design and construction schedules,” said Mark W. Haviland, a spokesman for the Norfolk District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is coordinating the project.
Multiple reports and investigations have looked into the plant’s disposal of hazardous materials. In 2017, researchers conducted an air quality test over the open burning site with a drone and found higher-than-expected levels of lead and arsenic, among other pollutants. More recently, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality identified BAE Systems as the state’s largest on-site emitter of Toxic Release Inventory chemicals to the air in 2023, according to its 2025 Toxics Release Inventory report.
When asked if he was confident that the incinerator project will address concerns about toxic chemicals released into the air from previous burning at this site, Haviland said, “Yes, this facility will nearly eliminate the use of the open burning ground with a first-of-its-kind Contained Burn Chamber (CBC) and air pollution control system to thermally treat energetic waste streams.”
Democratic candidates respond to Griffith’s birthright citizenship bill
U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith last week introduced the End Birthright Citizenship for Territories Act, which would reserve birthright citizenship for those born in the country’s territories only if they are born to parents who are already U.S. citizens.
The bill is a direct response to the Trump vs. Barbara case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship for nearly every child born on American soil.
“I am leading a bill to crack down on birthright citizenship in the territories and combat foreign nationals who are exploiting loopholes in our citizenship laws to take advantage of U.S. generosity,” Griffith said in a statement. “This way, you have to be born to a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident to have American citizenship in the territories!”
Democratic candidates running in a primary to challenge Griffith voiced their disapproval.
Joy Powers said Griffith’s bill is not a concern for voters.
“I have spent the last few months talking to thousands of people all across the Ninth District, and not a single time has a single constituent of Morgan Griffith ever brought up to me that they had a concern about birthright citizenship or birth tourism in our U.S. territories,” Powers said. “This is absolutely not important to the constituents in the Ninth District.”
Adam Murphy also questioned the bill’s necessity — “I don’t really see this bill as a needed bill. It’s literally three pages long, so I know he didn’t spend a lot of time writing it up.”
If elected, he says he would vote against any such measure and would be open to discussion to reconsider the country’s territories to become states.
Currently, four of the five inhabited U.S. territories — Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico — have been granted U.S. citizenship through acts of Congress. People born in American Samoa are considered American nationals but are not automatically granted citizenship status.
Powers and Murphy, as well as candidate Douglas Crockett — who did not respond for comment prior to publication — will first face each other in the Aug. 4 primary election before facing Griffith in November.
Crockett did not respond to a message left for him last week.
