Renewed Push for Uranium Mining Threatens Virginia Waters

Roanoke River Added to America's Most Endangered Rivers List

Mining advocates are ramping up their campaign to end the ban on uranium mining in Virginia. They're paying for legislator visits to France and lobbying hard.

But the question on everyone's mind: Given Virginia's humid climate --with 42+ inches of rainfall per year and major flooding events in which more than 25 inches can fall within 24 hours-- is it possible to ensure that cancer-causing mining waste doesn't contaminate our drinking water supply?


Nowhere in America has uranium been mined or milled under high-rainfall conditions like those that exist in Virginia. Even at arid sites in the American West, where it is more feasible to contain toxic and radioactive water from mining and milling operations, the EPA has found that tailings from uranium ore have contaminated groundwater in nearly every case.

Our New Video Highlights the Risks to Human Health & the Environment



According to a 2007 EPA Report, "Water is perhaps the most significant means of dispersal of uranium and related [radioactive materials] in the environment from mines and mine wastes...Uranium is very soluble in acidic and alkaline waters and can be transported easily from a mine site." If Virginia were to allow uranium mining, it would be the first state to do so with a climate in which rainfall exceeds evaporation.

This is truly a statewide issue, with potentially devastating impacts to human health and the environment. To help get a sense of the scale, we put together maps of the uranium mining leases that existed in the early 1980s. If the ban on mining is lifted, these are the areas we'd expect to see proposals in the future:


Map of former uranium mining leases statewide, plus water intakes:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pecphotos/5728028308/in/photostream
Map of former uranium mining leases in the Piedmont: 

Pit mining in Pittsylvania County would threaten the Roanoke River and ultimately, Virginia Beach's drinking water.

In a big announcement today, the threat from a proposed uranium mine in southwest Virginia has earned the Roanoke River the dubious distinction of being named to American Rivers' annual list of America's Most Endangered Rivers.

The Roanoke flows from the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia to North Carolina's Outer Banks. It provides drinking water to more than one million people in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and other communities.

As Peter Raabe of American Rivers says "This uranium operation would generate millions of tons of toxic, cancer-causing waste... We're talking about a radioactive legacy that would last for generations."

Uranium mining was banned in Virginia in the early 1980s because of the enormous risk to our watersheds and to our health. That risk still exists today. Given our climate, flooding and stormwater discharge of radioactive material would be a probability, not a possibility.

Even so, proponents of a new mine in Pittsylvania County are pushing hard to lift the ban on uranium mining during the upcoming General Assembly Session in Richmond. If you'd like to learn more, PEC has extensive resources on uranium mining in Virginia available at www.pecva.org/uranium. You can also sign the Petition to Keep the Ban!

Read more:
http://www.pecva.org/anx/index.cfm/1,391,3947,44,html/Video-Highlights-Mining-Risks