The issue Virginia Beach spending another $165,000 to study the flow of contaminants from Kerr Reservoir to the city. Where we stand Preliminary results of a study on the flow from the proposed uranium mine to the reservoir are ominous.
The Virginian-Pilot
February 20, 2011
Not every nuclear accident looks like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. It can look like a simple mistake or an equipment failure. It might even look like a big rainstorm.
In Pittsylvania County, Virginia Uranium wants to begin mining ore from a huge deposit it controls. It would be the first such mine in Virginia, would require lifting a decades-old moratorium and would necessarily result in huge deposits of waste, much of which would be radioactive.
The mine is upstream from Kerr Reservoir, which provides most of the water to Lake Gaston. In turn, Gaston feeds a pipeline that replenishes a reservoir in Hampton Roads used by Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
A preliminary study paid for by Virginia Beach indicates that a significant storm - the remnants of a hurricane, for example - could wash enough dissolved radioactive particles downstream to contaminate Hampton Roads' drinking water for months.
The study says that after a while, the radiation would be gone and the water would be again safe for drinking. Which begs an important question: Who would want to?
Virginia Beach's initial study modeled the flow of contaminants from the mine to Kerr; it will spend another $165,000 to look at what happens between there and Virginia Beach. That's money well spent.
Especially since only Virginia Beach is bothering to do it.
Virginia Uranium has paid for a National Academy of Sciences study that will look at whether mining can be done safely in Virginia's rainy climate - and at the potential dangers.
But Virginia Beach was forced to come up with its own study to determine more precisely the impact the mine might have on the drinking water for three-quarters of a million people. The first findings are ominous.
But given the risks - to the environment, to the drinking water for nearly 800,000 people in Hampton Roads and to their health - not one atom of the stuff should be pulled from the ground until the safety of the region can be ensured, if it ever can.
Read more:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/region-needs-uranium-study
