Floyd County recently voted to support a ban in a growing environmental issue in Virginia.
By Laurence Hammack
A proposal to mine uranium in Pittsylvania County is beginning to worry other localities that might be sitting atop enough of the radioactive metal to be affected, should Virginia lift its ban on the practice.
Floyd County, where the board of supervisors recently went on record against uranium mining, is one of 41 localities and organizations to join the growing opposition to the Pittsylvania County venture.
"Mining proponents think this issue will be won behind closed doors in Richmond, but the people of Virginia are demanding it be debated in town halls and on front porches," said Mary Rafferty of the Sierra Club, one of the members of the Keep the Ban Coalition.
In releasing a list of 14 localities and 27 groups that have joined its ranks, the coalition said Thursday it is launching a statewide petition drive against the proposed mine.
When Virginia Uranium Inc. announced plans to tap a 119 million pound deposit beneath Coles Hill, concerns about possible water contamination first arose in the immediate area of Pittsylvania County and in localities downstream of the nearby Roanoke River, which provides their drinking water.
With the project shaping up as one of the state's biggest environmental issues, other localities are beginning to take notice.
"The possibility is there," Floyd County supervisors Chairman David Ingram said of uranium mining in his county. Years ago, the uranium industry secured leases on land in Floyd County for possible mining, according to the Keep the Ban Coalition, which approached the county several months ago as it sought statewide support. Those leases have since expired.
Still, "we decided to be proactive rather than reactive," Floyd County Supervisor Case Clinger said of the board's resolution in support of the ban.
So far, Floyd County is the only locality in the Roanoke and New River valleys to join the coalition.
Opponents of uranium mining say that leases similar to the ones obtained in Floyd County, before Virginia banned uranium mining in the 1980s, were also signed in a half-dozen other counties, including Henry and Patrick. Potential uranium deposits were also reportedly found in Franklin County.
"We know that the threat exists statewide," said Cale Jaffe, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The General Assembly will likely consider lifting the ban on uranium mining at its session next year, which would allow companies to extract a metal used as fuel in power-generating nuclear reactors.
"There are just too many questions and potential risks of radioactive and toxic materials contaminating our streams, rivers and drinking water," said Naomi Hodge-Muse, the leader of a Sierra Club-based opposition group in Martinsville.
Nonetheless, opponents say it makes no sense to lift a ban on uranium mining that the General Assembly enacted shortly after the Coles Hill deposit was discovered in the late 1970s.
Local governments that have passed "keep the ban" resolutions include Virginia Beach, which gets its drinking water from Lake Gaston, downstream of the Coles Hill site. The city recently released a study finding that a failure of containment structures at the mining site could contaminate the city's drinking water for as long as two years.
About 1.2 million people in Virginia and North Carolina get their drinking water from the Roanoke River system downstream of the proposed mining site.
The localities and organizations opposed to lifting the ban are listed on a website the coalition launched Thursday, http://www.keeptheban.org/
Read more:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/286356
