Comment: Well, Well, Mr. Ingram, you finally showed your true colors! Nuclear jobs are not the same as an open pit uranium mine or a nasty uranium mill! You are not listening to your people at every supervisors meeting when they bring facts about uranium mining problems in Canada and Australia where for a fact, uranium mining is not safe or green! Doctors are leaving the two countries because they state the fact that uranium mining is dangerous to our health! What the heck is wrong with you! We will never stop talking about the problems of uranium mining! How can two scientists perform a study, let's say uranium mining, one says it is safe and the other doctor says it is not safe? One scientist is paid by the nuclear and uranium group and the other doctor tells the truth! No to Uranium mining and milling!
By John Crane
Published: December 17, 2009
A Pittsylvania County supervisor has become the first on the board to take a firm public stand individually on the issue of uranium mining.
If a state study determines that uranium can be mined and milled safely at Coles Hill, then “let’s move on with it (mining),” Callands-Gretna Supervisor Fred Ingram said Thursday.
“I think it’s only fair to everybody in Pittsylvania County that we put this to rest,” Ingram said.
Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1982. A study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in the commonwealth has received tentative approval from the National Research Council.
The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution in February requesting that a study finds no harm to the county, “its businesses, institutions, environment, and citizens by uranium, as opposed to a cost/benefit approach to this issue or simply accepting minimal damages.”
A proposal by a Pittsylvania County resident to prohibit uranium mining at the Berry Hill Road industrial megapark site hit a dead end during the board’s adjourned meeting Tuesday night. Supervisors voted to table the idea by a 4-3 vote. Karen Maute, a uranium mining opponent, asked the board last month to ban uranium mining within a 25-mile radius of the proposed industrial megapark site. Maute also wants Danville City Council and the Danville Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facilities Authority to sign the resolution.
Maute proposed the resolution because the 3,700-acre megapark site includes historic Marline mineral leases. Marline Corp. had plans to mine and mill uranium in Pittsylvania County in the early 1980s.
Ingram, however, voted against tabling the proposal. Ingram opposes mining uranium at Berry Hill and perceives no inconsistency in his vote.
“I really don’t see what that had to do with Coles Hill,” said Ingram, who worked in the nuclear industry for 20 years at Babcock & Wilcox in Lynchburg.
Maute said Ingram’s view merely represents what the board has said all along about the issue.
If the study finds mining can be done safely, it would be an “anomaly,” she said. Maute’s research has not shown that it has been done safely anywhere in the world, she said.
However, Ingram said if the study finds that mining cannot be done safely, he would oppose VUI’s plans. Ingram said he’s more concerned about the socioeconomic aspects — including impacts on real-estate values - of uranium mining than the technical issues.
Read more at:
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/supervisor_takes_stand_on_uranium_mining/16427/
