Comment: No to uranium mining and milling!
JANUARY 5, 2010 3:49PM
On December 3, 2009, the Richmond Times Dispatch published an article headlined "Uranium Study to Start this Winter," and on December 6, the Lynchburg News Advance published an editorial entitled, "Uranium Study Finally Gets a Green Light."
The local paper, the Chatham, Virginia Star- Tribune rated the Uranium Study as its number one news event of the year 2009, and set the record straight with the headline, "Uranium Study Near Approval."
The largest uranium deposit in the United States was discovered in Chatham, Virginia in the early 1980's by Maritine Uranium Corp. on the property Walter Cole.
To date, the uranium remains untouched due to a 1982 Virginia moratorium on uranium mining.
In 2007, Walter Cole formed Virginia Uranium Inc. with the intention of finding a way to lift the moratorium. This past year, he successfully lobbied the Virginia Assembly to ask for the study.
The study is an initual step which Virginia Uranium Inc. hopes will provide evidence that uranium mining is safe and poses no safty threat to the environment. A second proposed study will look at ways uranium mining could create new jobs which would improve the economy in the region. The study will also review global and national market trends regarding uranium.
The study will not lift the ban on uranium mining. This can only be done by the General Assembly.
The proposed eighteen-month study is to be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, which is part of the National Research Council. According to the Star-Tribune, the study which is expected to cost an estimated 1.2 million dollars will be funded by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at "Virginia Tech with Virginia Uranium Inc. picking up the tab." In other words, the people lobbying for the study and who own 100% of the uranium are also paying for the study.
Opponents of the project, call this a "tainted study," and have vowed to "fight to the death," and cry that they will not be used as "guinea pigs" or "let Richmond shove uranium down our throats."
Hopefully, the issue has not already been decided behind closed doors, and those who oppose uranium mining and want the truth about the safety of the project will be heard and eventually a decision that protects the environment will be made.
As Jesse Andrews, a local Halifax, Virginia man stated in the Star Tribune, "No study is capable of creating any real sense of security. None of you all live here. It has become your duty to protect us from ourselves. Will you do it?"
Read more:
http://open.salon.com/blog/uranium_billionaire/2010/01/05/can_we_get_an_impartial_study
