Draft Air Permit for Hopewell AdvanSix Facility Misses the Mark

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —  This week the Southern Environmental Law Center, Hopewell-Colonial Heights NAACP, Sierra Club’s Falls of the James Group, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, and Chesapeake Bay Foundation submitted comments to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) urging the agency to require AdvanSix Resins and Chemicals LLC (AdvanSix) to submit a complete and transparent Title V permit renewal application and to strengthen its draft permit.  

AdvanSix has applied for the renewal of the air pollution permit for its chemical manufacturing plant in Hopewell, one of Virginia’s most environmentally burdened communities.   

In comments filed February 26, 2024, SELC and other signees said that the lack of emission data in the permitting record made it impossible for the public to fully assess the draft permit. The signees also pointed to the absence of effective monitoring requirements for a facility with a pattern of noncompliance.  

“This facility is a perpetual offender and it’s unacceptable,” said Mark Sabath, senior attorney in SELC’s Virginia office. “DEQ has an obligation not to perpetuate environmental injustice. A weak permit with vague and unenforceable monitoring requirements risks making things worse for the residents of Hopewell.”  

This facility has a long history of chemical releases in an area severely burdened by pollution. AdvanSix is the state’s fourth largest emitter of nitrogen oxide and is close to five other major air pollution sources in Hopewell. Combined, Hopewell’s industrial sources of air pollution equate to 6.5% of the entire state’s emissions of criteria pollutants and 8% of the state’s emissions of air toxics. The city is 43% Black.  

“I’ve seen many instances of environmental injustice and air pollution, but this one is striking,” said Patrick Anderson, staff attorney at SELC. “In the last three years this facility has had multiple releases that trouble the community, and it is therefore vital that the public has access to critical emissions information.”