By Staff
Published: January 17, 2010
Updated: January 17, 2010
From staff reports
Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday night in Chatham will also consider passing a resolution banning uranium mining within Berry Hill Road industrial mega park and within a 20-mile radius of the park.
The uranium mining resolution calls for a ban on uranium mining within Berry Hill industrial mega park and within a 20-mile radius of it.
Karen Maute, an opponent of uranium mining and milling, asked the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors in November to pass a resolution prohibiting uranium mining within a 25-mile radius of the proposed Berry Hill Road industrial mega park site.
She also wants the Board of Supervisors, Danville City Council and the city-county Regional Industrial Facility Authority board to sign the resolution. The Board of Supervisors voted to table the idea during its meeting in December.
Pittsylvania County and Danville hope to attract a major manufacturer to the site. Pittsylvania County Administrator Dan Sleeper said last month that installation of roads, utilities, erosion control, grading and making the site into an industry-ready park will cost $222 million.
Maute proposed the resolution because the 3,700-acre mega park site includes historic Marline mineral leases. Marline Corp. had plans to mine and mill uranium in Pittsylvania County in the early 1980s. Maute’s resolution points to at least one former Marline parcel covering 504 acres. RIFA owns the leases.
Coy Harville, chairman of the RIFA board, said Jan. 11 that the board has no plans to pass a resolution banning uranium mining at the Berry Hill Road industrial mega park because no one has brought it before RIFA. Harville has said that RIFA has no plans to mine uranium at the park.
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/article/ambulance_billing_uranium_mining_on_chatham_board_agenda/17142/
