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Sample Letters to the Editor |
1. Safety the Only Issue in Uranium Debate (Roanoke Times, Bill Spieden)
2. Uranium Mining in Va. Faces Tough Questions (Virginia Pilot, Katie Whitehead)
3. Uranium Isn't A Gold Mine (Roanoke Times, Hildred Shelton)
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SAFETY THE ONLY ISSUE IN URANIUM DEBATE
Roanoke Times – February 4, 2008
The commentary from Walter Coles of Pittsylvania County ("Uranium mining: Can it be done safely?" Jan. 6) gives us common ground for the start of discussion.
Coles owns much of the land and his family and fellow stockholders stand to benefit the most financially from the mining and milling activity. In 1980, my family stood to gain much from uranium activities as, according to the syntilometer tests, I owned the most radioactive hill in Northern Virginia.
Some of the same men who are working with Coles approached me nearly 30 years ago. But my family would not take on the responsibility of potentially contaminating neighbors' wells and the Rapidan River, possibly for generations, for personal benefit.
Safety is the issue. The current moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia says it is up to the industry to prove it can be done safely before mining and milling is permitted in Virginia.
A "study committee" set up by the state legislature might sound like a good idea. The problem is that every year the state legislature approves many studies and appropriates little or no money for their execution. Therefore, most legislative studies are superficial, less than scientific and, in this case, may just allow the elephant's trunk inside the tent without proper scrutiny.
A proper, impartial scientific study would be a good thing, but it needs to be conducted and peer reviewed before the General Assembly gets involved in a debate over whether to lift Virginia's longstanding ban on uranium mining.
Here are some important facts to consider before removing our moratorium on uranium mining:
We are dealing with radioactive exposure to our miners, air, water supplies and neighbors. Underground uranium miners are under constant exposure to radioactivity while they work. In the American Southwest, uranium miners have historically had a much higher incidence of lung cancer than the normal population. As recently as November 2007, job deficient Navajo Reservation in Arizona resisted renewed uranium mining interests because of previous experience of cancer rates, livestock deaths and water contamination.
Never in this country has uranium been mined in an area with a climate as wet as Virginia's. In the semi-arid West (10 to 15 inches of rain a year) radioactivity and associated toxic metals have shown up miles away from the mining site in time. Our rainfall averages four times what is seen out West. As a result, tailings ponds and piles could leach into the water table much faster and with more dire consequences. Once leaching starts, the consequences can go on for generations. Tailings ponds overflowing is almost a certainty in Virginia as we have more rainfall than evaporation rate.
n Never in this country has uranium been mined in a community with such a dense population near the mine site. This is not to say uranium can never be mined safely anywhere. In fact, I know of a mine in Utah that was doing it right in the 1980s. The rainfall there was less than 18 inches a year, the outflow from tailings ponds was processed to the point that trout lived in the streams below, and the nearest house was about 25 miles away. Contrast that to the situation in Pittsylvania County, where homes and a private girls' school are within close vicinity of the proposed mine site.
n Again, safety is the issue. Legislation and regulations will change neither our population density nor our rainfall levels. Before it is mined, uranium is like a coffee bean -- a relatively harmless mass. But when crushed, and mixed with water, that bean becomes a cup of coffee. More than 95 percent of the radioactivity associated with uranium ore is retained in the tailings and its by-products. Their radioactive half-life is 500,000 years or forever, whichever comes first.
I would suggest that those concerned with making Virginia and our citizens guinea pigs in this potential experiment oppose a legislative study on uranium mining and milling until it has been properly studied independently and scientifically -- without politicians in Richmond getting into the mix. In the meantime, we need to maintain the moratorium on mining and milling uranium.
- BY BILL SPEIDEN (Speiden is a member of the Orange County Planning Commission and is legislative director of the Orange County Farm Bureau.) |
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URANIUM MINING IN VIRGINIA FACES TOUGH QUESTIONS
Virginian Pilot - April 29, 2008
IN THE LAST week of this year's General Assembly session, the House Rules Committee rejected a Senate-passed bill that would have required a study of uranium mining. Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining is one sentence in the law stating that "permit applications for uranium mining shall not be accepted by any agency of the Commonwealth ... until a program for permitting uranium mining is established by statute."
As introduced in the Assembly at the request of Virginia Uranium Inc. , the uranium study bill proposed establishment of a commission with a twofold charge: to assess the risks and benefits of developing Virginia's uranium resources and, if the commission deemed appropriate, to recommend establishing regulatory controls.
Until its last hour, the bill proposed more than a study. Only in the Rules Committee meeting did the bill's patron, Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, offer amendments that removed the commission's authority to draft the statutes necessary to lift the statewide moratorium.
The bill's assignment of two distinct tasks to the commission divided the public response among four camps. Proponents included those who simply wanted a study to determine whether uranium can be mined safely in Virginia, as well as those confident that uranium indeed can be mined safely; the latter wanted a study to convince the Assembly to lift the moratorium.
Opponents included those who were willing to consider a study but nothing more, and those convinced that uranium cannot be mined safely in the state.
Opponents had reason to suspect the motive behind the bill. VUI, in its prospectus of November 2007 prepared for potential investors, only mentions studies of the sort proposed by the uranium study bill in a section called "Permitting Strategy." The prospectus lists a $1.5 million budget for "community relations and education" of the public and lobbying the legislature to lift the statewide ban. Wagner's late changes came too late to ease suspicion of the bill's intent or to win approval of a study this year.
Before the Rules Committee voted on the uranium study bill, Wagner rejected a substitute bill offered by Del. Clarke Hogan, R- Halifax, which proposed that a group of legislators consider whether a state-contracted study of uranium mining is warranted.
In the wake of the uranium bill, elected officials, citizens and civic-minded groups throughout Virginia would do well to prepare for the next Assembly session. This issue is not going away. Nor will it ever be confined to Pittsylvania County. Wind, water, roads and living things will spread the effects beyond the county line if the state's moratorium on uranium mining is lifted.
We need to consider our questions:
- Can anyone accurately predict whether uranium can be mined safely in Virginia?
- Are there mining sites in areas with Virginia's population density, high water table, and annual rainfall averaging 45 inches that can provide evidence?
- Can uranium mining tailings be stored safely for more than a thousand years?
- What does "safely" mean?
- What level of risk is safe?
- Given that human beings routinely fail to comply with regulations developed to ensure our safety, can anyone claim that mining regulations will protect us?
- No matter how real the harmful effects of uranium and other radioactive elements and heavy metals to human health and the environment, they are often subtle and long-term, and data may be inadequate or not available. Is it even possible to determine the health effects attributable to decades of mining and centuries of tailings storage?
As VUI continues "educating" the public and lobbying the legislature, we should remain skeptical. The burden is on the company to provide verifiable evidence that uranium mining, milling and tailings storage can be done safely in Virginia without harm to our health, environment, economy and way of life.
BY KATIE WHITEHEAD (Katie Whitehead, of Chatham, was the information officer for the Uranium Administrative Group, established by the 1983 Virginia General Assembly to study the risks and benefits of uranium development in Virginia when it was first proposed.)
(c) 2008 Virginian - Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Virginian – Pilot
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URANIUM ISN'T A GOLD MINE
Roanoke Times - February 27, 2008
Virginia Uranium Inc. has requested the General Assembly to commission a study to determine the safety of mining a possible $10 billion uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County.
According to articles appearing in various Virginia newspapers, the executives of Virginia Uranium went to Canada to study safe uranium mining techniques. Canada produces one-third of the output of uranium mined worldwide.
In the discussion of "safe uranium mining" there is an official Canadian source that can be consulted. This is the Canadian Handbook of Health Impact Assessment-Volume 4, published by Health Canada, the government agency that oversees health care for Canadian citizens. Chapter 5, Section 4, covers the impacts of uranium mining as biophysical and socioeconomic.
The biophysical impacts "include the impact of radionuclides and heavy metals on the food chain by their release into the atmosphere, water or ground; and consequential effects on fish, wildlife, vegetation and country foods and, ultimately, on humans." (And $5 million is being spent on a center to promote agriculture in Pittsylvania County.)
"Surface water and ground water provide a primary pathway by which radioactivity and toxic heavy metal contaminants, such as lead, arsenic, nickel and cadmium, can be leached under certain conditions, particularly from tailings. There is a serious possibility that the food chain can be contaminated unless appropriate mitigation is instituted. Fish, wildlife, vegetation, country foods and drinking water are all at risk should spills or leakage occur. The need to manage the water from waste management areas is important, particularly if there are drinking water sources in the vicinity."
The section on mining states: "Whether or not mining is conducted in open pits or underground, there are environmental health hazards and impacts to workers and the general public that need to be considered. These include radiation hazards from radon gas, radium, thorium and non-radioactive contamination from dust and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and nickel."
In the same section discussing milling, this statement on impact sources is given: "External gamma radiation, tailings slurry and wastewater are the main areas of health concern at this stage."
Also stated was this fact: "Significant excesses of lung cancers have been noted for uranium miners, and the risk of lung cancer mortality has been shown to be highly related to cumulative radon daughter exposures."
The socioeconomic impacts "include effects on public health and on the social fabric, Aboriginal/other cultures, and lifestyles; reduced business opportunities; boom-and-bust cycles and unemployment; and general stress factors associated with the dangers, perceived or real, from radioactivity."
Chairman Coy Harville of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Jan. 28 to the great economic blessing mining would be for Pittsylvania County, but it appears Virginia Uranium's version, which he was touting, does not accord with Canadian reality.
The section on socioeconomic impacts ends with a paragraph that discusses a subject not yet mentioned in relation to mining in Pittsylvania County: "Concerns exist about the availability of financial resources to pay for decommissioning, radiation monitoring and follow-up after the mining and milling projects have been completed, and it is felt that up-front financial guarantees are needed."
That is "safe" uranium mining? if you want to see the handbook look it up at tinyurl.com/22sdo2
BY HILDRED SHELTON (Shelton is a farmer and lifelong resident of Pittsylvania County.)
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