By Rose Ellen O'Connor, on November 18th, 2011
The Virginia General Assembly is expected to vote next year on whether to lift a 30-year moratorium on uranium mining in the state.
The issue has prompted an expensive lobbying campaign by the company that wants to mine a huge deposit known as Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County and an intense fight by environmentalists who want to stop it. The battle has pitted neighbor against neighbor in the county, in south central Virginia, an area known as Southside.
Two Virginians, each offered money to allow uranium mining on their land, personify the debate that is raging through the state. One accepted. The other declined.
Connie Crider, a housewife, lives with her husband in Pittsylvania County, close to the uranium ore.
Bill Speiden, a legislative director for the Orange County Farm Bureau, ran a dairy farm on his land for forty years. He was approached in 1979 by the now defunct Marline Uranium Corp., the Canadian company that lobbied the General Assembly for uranium mining approval in the early to mid 1980s. Marline was primarily interested in Coles Hill but explored uranium deposits throughout the state.
Speiden says the company offered him and his wife a signing bonus and royalties on the uranium his land produced. He did not say yes.
Local opponents, who have been assisted by environmentalists around the state, say they fear radiation contamination, air and water pollution and an increase in cancer. They say Virginia’s rainy climate and susceptibility to storms, hurricanes and even tornadoes make it especially unsafe.
Numerous localities that get drinking water downstream from the proposed mine have also opposed it.
They said, ‘We’re a local company,’ and they’re not a local company. If they can’t even tell the truth about that, how are we supposed to believe them about anything else?” asks Karen Maute, who lives about 15 miles from the proposed mine and heads Piedmont Residents in Defense of the Environment
NEXT WEEK: Part Two: Uranium Mining – The Virginia Battleground – Environmental Concerns vs. Corporate Interests
Read more:
http://www.dcbureau.org/201111186500/natural-resources-news-service/uranium-mining-%e2%80%93-the-virginia-battleground-%e2%80%93-environmental-concerns-vs-corporate-interests.html#more-6500
