Comment: Keep the Uranium Ban, it is not safe and not worth our lives!
US National Academy of Sciences Report on Virginia Uranium Mining
Excerpt from the Executive Summary at page 8:
"If the Commonwealth of Virginia rescinds the existing moratorium on uranium mining, there are steep hurdles to be surmounted before mining and/or processing could be established within a
regulatory environment that is appropriately protective of the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment.
There is only limited experience with modern underground and open pit uranium mining and processing practices in the wider United States, and no such experience in Virginia.
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Setback for Uranium Mining in Virginia
By JOHN W. MILLER
Wall Street Journal, December 19 2011
http://tinyurl.com/75uwce4
The effort to lift the ban on mining uranium in Virginia received a setback Monday with the publication of a report by the National Research Council.
But Paul Locke, chair of the committee of 14 experts which has spent the last two years compiling the 302-page report, was less sanguine. "There are unknowns, because this has not been done a lot in the U.S.," he said. The problem, Mr. Locke said in a phone conference, is the long contamination periods of uranium.
The report says, "The decay products of uranium provide a constant source in uranium tailings for thousands of years, substantially outlasting the current U.S. regulations for oversight of processing facility tailings." If those leak, that can lead to "a risk of cancer from drinking water," the report says
However, one problem is "there's no real analogue" for mining uranium in Virginia, said David Feary, who directed the study.
Write to John W. Miller at john.miller@dowjones.com
