Patched Uranium Mining Liners
Letter to the Editor of the Martinsville Bulletin: Katie Whitehead
Friday, February 18, 2011
Virginia Uranium Inc. spokesman Patrick Wales, when called for a comment in “Groups: ask tough questions on uranium” (Martinsville Bulletin, published Wednesday), said: “The design criteria set forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for long-term tailings (waste) disposal is 1,000 years.”
This is not the whole truth.
In fact, according to a representative of the U.S. Department of Energy in a presentation to Uranium Mining in Virginia study committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), federal design criteria require that tailings disposal cells “must be protective for 1,000 years, or at least 200 years.” (Source: Long-Term Surveillance and Maintenance of Uranium Mill Sites, Oct. 26, 2010, National Research Council Public Access Records Office. This document can be requested at: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/ManageRequest.aspx?key=49253.)
In other words, cells are required to be protective for 200 years, not necessarily 1,000. In any case, no uranium tailings cells have been tested for more than about 25 years (the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act became law in 1979); and even in this short time, there have been some problems.
Katherine Mull, executive director of the Dan River Basin Association, and Deborah Lovelace, president of League of Individuals for the Environment Inc., are right: People should be asking the hard questions about uranium mining and milling and the challenge of containing the tailings for as long as they are hazardous. And we need to ask people who will tell us the whole truth.
Four uranium study reports are under way.
Preliminary results from the Virginia Beach engineering study showed that a tailings cell failure could significantly affect water quality in Kerr Reservoir and Lake Gaston ; additional findings are expected this summer. The NAS report and two socioeconomic study reports are due in December 2011.
Virginia Uranium Inc. has assured investors that the company will have a bill in the Virginia Legislature to allow uranium mining in the commonwealth one month later, in January 2011.
Such haste only serves corporate interest; it does not serve the public interest. Citizens deserve time to read the reports, critique and discuss them, and make sense of the implications — before anyone votes on whether to allow uranium mining and milling in Virginia .
Ask the hard questions. Ask reliable sources. And ask legislators for time to understand this important issue.
Katie Whitehead
Chatham, VA
Groups: Ask tough questions on uranium
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
By PAUL COLLINS - Bulletin Staff Writer
The public needs to ask hard questions about a proposed uranium mining and milling operation in Pittsylvania County , officials with the Dan River Basin Association and League of Individuals for the Environment Inc. said Tuesday.
Katherine Mull, executive director of DRBA, and Deborah Lovelace, president of LIFE, addressed the monthly meeting of the Martinsville-Henry County Ministerial Association.
Mull encouraged the public to contact state legislators and local governing bodies to express their opinions and ask questions.
“We don’t want to be anti-mining. We want people to get as much information as they can,” she added.
“I’m not anti anything,” Lovelace said. “I’m pro keeping the ban, the moratorium (on uranium mining in Virginia ) until it can be proven it can be done safely.”
Virginia has had a moratorium since 1982.
“Every single uranium mine and mill in the U.S. has generated significant pollution to the air, land and groundwater. ... Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to attempt to clean up” the pollution, Mull said.
Most methods for on-site storage for hazardous uranium mining and milling have been developed for arid climates in isolated areas, but Virginia has a wetter climate and is more populous, she said. According to experts, no similar project exists in the U.S. , perhaps anywhere, she added.
DRBA is concerned about all phases of uranium operations: mining, milling and long-term storage of radioactive wastes and heavy metals and the impacts on surface and ground water, air and soil — but is most concerned about the long-term storage, Mull said.
It also is concerned about impacts on water quality; water quantity; drinking water supplies; flow and migration of water; and concentrations of pollutants during drought conditions, she added.
Many of concerns depend on the site, climate, ore grade, chemistry and metallurgy of ore and plant process design, Mull said. None of the studies under way about uranium mining in Virginia will answer these questions in any great detail, and none of the studies is designed to be site specific when it comes to looking at the geology and hydrology of an area to be mined, she added.
When DRBA officials met early on with Virginia Uranium officials and asked detailed questions about the mining proposal, “the refrain we got was, ‘We don’t know,’” Mull said, adding that Virginia Uranium needs a detailed mining plan.
Among other things, DRBA is concerned about the costs of monitoring, oversight and redemption and feels Virginia ’s taxpayers need to be protected from bearing the costs of cleanup if a worst-case scenario occurs, she said.
“There shouldn’t be a rush” to complete the studies under way, so the General Assembly can consider lifting the ban in 2012, Mull said.
Lovelace said LIFE is a grassroots organization based in Gretna that is concerned about various environmental issues. It feels now that uranium “mining is the biggest threat to the environment,” she said.
She asked how many jobs might the region lose if some existing companies leave if uranium mining is allowed. Mull also asked whether having uranium mining might make the area less attractive to potential businesses.
After the meeting, Bishop J.C. Richardson Jr., pastor of Mt. Sinai Apostle Church, said, “We’ve got to make sure a higher percentage of the population are aware” of the potential effects of mining before “jumping on jobs, jobs, jobs” (that would be created).
The Rev. David Adkins, pastor of Starling Avenue Baptist Church , added that water systems are “our most precious resource. There are other ways of getting energy, but only one way of getting water.” He said allowing uranium mining might be like opening Pandora’s box: Once it’s opened, you can’t get it back inside.
Not exactly the truth: Patrick Wales, project manager for Virginia Uranium Inc., said in a phone interview, “The design criteria set forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for long-term tailings (waste) disposal is 1,000 years.” He said he doesn’t know of any other engineered facility required to have a designed life span that long.
Read more:
http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=27353
