Support for uranium no surprise

Comment:  Great Letter and Thanks!  No to uranium mining and milling!

By Published by The Editorial Board
Published: December 29, 2009
Updated: December 30, 2009

To the editor:

I am shocked! Shocked!

To read in the Danville Register & Bee that Fred Ingram supports uranium mining in Southside Virginia!

Imagine, a man for whom the nuclear power industry provided food for his table and clothing for his family for 20 years, now makes a dramatic statement in favor of a major aspect of that very industry!

Gee, what other startling revelations await me in the pages of my morning newspaper? How about the fact that the coming winter will be cold, or maybe, that night brings on darkness? Could there ever be a more dog-bites-man story than that which involves Fred Ingram and his support of uranium mining?

Interesting, too, are these unctuous caveats of caution on the part of uranium mine supporters (Ingram and others): Only if its safe. What does that mean? Such pretentious bloviations feign care and concern for the speakers fellow citizens of Southside, when at the same time, hiding with total contempt the facts of the situation.

It is as if Gen. William T. Sherman himself had stated that he was all for marching through Georgia, but only if it had no negative effects on the civilian population.

Uranium mining is by definition damaging to the environment and ruinous on local land values and local economies. There is not one example in the United States of it doing otherwise. Not one.

What can be the meaning, then, of these bizarre pronouncements? Is it to display the speaker’s total ignorance of what uranium mining is and what it causes? Is it to show total disdain for one’s fellow citizens, whose future lies in their elected hands? Is it in anticipation of financial gain?

That’s really the story the Register & Bee’s reporters should go after, because that’s the real mystery.

Oh, and it was also telling that, after we are assured mining will proceed only if its safe, we are told that there’s lots of money in them thar Sheva hills.

Sherman’s March was a lucrative enterprise, too, only not to the people of Georgia and the Carolinas who experienced it. It was a great windfall to Detroit, Cleveland, New York and Chicago. It even catapulted Gen. Sherman to national fame and, though he later refused it, political prominence. Therein, perhaps, lies a moral tale for us all.

RICHARD DIXON
Chatham, VA

http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/danville_letters/article/support_for_uranium_no_surprise/16682/