By - Posted on 09 August 2011
Carefully ignoring Fukushima, Los Alamos, Vermont, and Nebraska, a comforting new announcement informs us that "nuclear energy is safe."
A series of soothing television ads and videos tells us that mining uranium in Virginia would produce jobs and protect us from scary foreigners.
Virginia newspapers carried an article from the Associated Press this week that did not pretend to be anything but one-sided, reporting on the agenda of corporations that would profit from mining uranium while including no other views or any verified facts. The Washington Post did the very same thing. These articles are essentially press releases that have been tweaked. The online versions even include the videos.
We can expect even less actual news reporting than that (yes, less than nothing) to come through our televisions. But these ads hyping uranium mining as a job solution will be aired.
While wrecking the Grand Canyon to get at some more uranium will make more news, poisoning the water of Southern Virginia may kill more people.
The town of Halifax, Va., has banned it. Uranium Free Virginia suggests why:
"Uranium is highly toxic heavy metal that emits alpha radiation and is soluble in water. When consumed, it may cause kidney failure and birth defects. Mining of only 4 lb of high quality uranium ore produces at least one ton (more than 2200 lb) of radioactive waste, known as uranium mining tailings, which contain polonium, radium, radon, thorium, lead and many other toxic elements that are responsible for causing cancer and birth defects.Thousands of years of danger, to provide what the uranium mining companies claim might be 65 years of uranium use.
Read more:
http://warisacrime.org/content/uranium-safe-eat-spoon
