What is rush on uranium?
Posted: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:26 am
I can't understand why Chairman Tim Barber, as well as four other county supervisors, would feel that taking time to digest information produced by all the ongoing uranium impact studies, is "overkill."
Should we not err on the side of caution? Surrounding counties have already taken their stance - all with due reserve.
Virginia Uranium Inc. originally said there was no hurry; they would wait to see what the studies produced. But that's not what their moves in the legislature have revealed.
What is the rush here? Looks like many in Virginia would like to hear more, save VUI and five of our supervisors.
Linda Worsley
Chatham
http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_b18b1806-265f-11e1-8de8-0019bb2963f4.html
Who will pay long-term costs of uranium mining?
Posted: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:30 am
After reading the entire Chmura report, I can't see where all of the rejoicing about this uranium mine is appropriate.
Even in a perfect world where nothing ever goes wrong, this report details plenty of major problems that will accompany this endeavor.
From increased traffic accidents, to air pollution that will cover over a five-mile radius as well as real estate value losses for the 1,350 citizens that live in this radius, this will be the new reality.
Without apology, Virginia Uranium and those that would stand to profit from this venture, would reap benefits from the uncompensated losses of more citizens than would benefit from this mine.
Reading the entire report reveals not just the rosy glow of profit, but some apocalyptic predictions for many of the homes, businesses and citizens of Pittsylvania County.
Perhaps robbing these citizens of property value and quality of life with a little increased cancer risk as a bonus is a small price to pay for the increased prosperity of a couple hundred employees in the Chatham Labor Shed, (basically all of the counties surrounding Pittsylvania), but is this really fair?
Is this hypothetical profit based on peak uranium prices from a few years back realistic given the current price and current demand? Read the report - No!
One glaring omission is lack of mention of insurance costs. Many taxpayers in the area are self-employed farmers; they pay their own insurance out of pocket for home, health, auto and business.
From an actuarial standpoint, in the shadow of this mine with guaranteed increases in respiratory disease and increased traffic accidents and property devaluation, even in the best-case scenario, there is no way any insurance company would offer affordable policies to such a high-risk population.
Who is going to underwrite health policies for the VUI workers at the mine? Is this another bond issue for this company?
This venture is touted by Virginia Energy as securing a future energy source and prosperity independent from the American unfriendly world market.
Sorry, but Canadian-owned Virginia Energy is traded not in an American exchange, but exclusively in Canada.
Half of Virginia Uranium (also traded on the Canadian exchange),is owned by a multitude of international mining interests that have no interest in American well being whatsoever.
Some of these companies are repeat offenders still in courts trying to evade their culpability in creating toxic Superfund sites that U.S. citizens (that's you and me, brother) are paying to clean up.
Read page 109 of the Chmura report. After our friends at VUI get this mine going, they will most likely cash out on the whole project, leaving it in the hands of some of the most notorious, unrepentant polluters this country has ever seen. Take the money and run, laughing all the way.
Back here in the formerly bucolic Pittsylvania cowshed, with our homes devalued, unable to obtain health insurance as we gasp our last polluted breath, our livestock and crops worthless, unwanted by the market, our tax base of cherished private boarding schools closed, who will pay for this devastation?
Not the piddly few million bucks in tax revenue from this mine that wrought this, not the squeezed-dry folks that fell victim to this great idea.
The billions of dollars it will take to plaster over this poisoned hole will never make this area whole again, but it will come from generations of future taxpayers.
Read the report - all of it.
Kay Patrick
Gretna
http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_4cf5c548-2660-11e1-a8d9-0019bb2963f4.html
Ruff, Edmunds looking for delay in uranium vote
WRITTEN BY DOUG FORD
08:28 AM 12/14/11
State Senator Frank Ruff and Delegate James Edmunds told town council at its monthly meeting Monday night they were hopeful a vote on the current moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia would not occur in the upcoming General Assembly session. Council had invited the pair of legislators to its meeting to give an overview of the General Assembly session, due to begin in mid-January.
Ruff has stated his opposition to lifting the current moratorium on uranium mining, but he is optimistic the issue will not come to a vote in this session.
“I don’t think it (uranium) will be dealt with this year,” Ruff told council. The prevailing view is with these reports coming out, people will take the time and read them,” Ruff told council.
A National Academy of Science report is coming out any day, several hundred pages long with a recap of about 20 pages, according to Ruff.
There’s not going to be a very good concentration of legislators reading the report due to time constraints caused by the demands of the holiday season, Ruff noted.
“That’s not a very fair assessment. We need to sit down, let everyone go through it and see what the follow up questions are,” he said.
“I’m not sure it will satisfy anybody in this area, but that’s the best we can hope for this year.
“I think everyone needs to know what the ground rules are before we take such a drastic step.”
Edmunds, who also has expressed his opposition to lifting the moratorium, said, “It looks like we’re going to put this thing off for at least a year.”
“As much concern as there is about it, I don’t believe it can get a proper airing,” he said.
“It’s not as if nothing else is going on. I hope we can at least put this thing off for at least a year.
http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/4555-ruff-edmunds-looking-for-delay-in-uranium-vote
Schapiro: Executive asks, 'Is uranium a good business?'
Comment: This is interesting. If I was a betting person I'd say the ban is safe for another year.
By: Jeff E. Schapiro | jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
Published: December 14, 2011
Ben Davenport Jr.'s farm, where he and his family will spend Christmas, is 4 miles northeast of Coles Hill, site of a proposed uranium mine. The Davenport place, in Pittsylvania County, is hard by the Banister River, which mine opponents predict would be poisoned with radioactive waste. Davenport doesn't share that fear. He has other concerns.
"The question I have is the stigma," says Davenport. "We're being asked to endorse a risk."
Clement is among 16 lobbyists paid nearly $270,000 since 2009 by Virginia Uranium Inc., headed by Clement's brother-in-law, Walter Coles Sr.
Uncertainty is the bane of business, and listening to Davenport, the proposed mine is generating a mother lode. He worries that, with Canadian bankers backing the venture, more money would flow north of the border than through Southside. He worries about possible declines in enrollment at Hargrave Military Academy, of which Davenport is an alumnus and trustee. He worries property values will fall.
"Why would you come here, if you felt threatened?" said Davenport, whose fuel and waste-hauling companies employ more than 300 people along the Virginia-North Carolina border.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/dec/14/tdmet01-schapiro-executive-asks-is-uranium-a-good--ar-1542121/
Va. uranium mining report to be delivered
By STEVE SZKOTAK | AP –
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A legislative commission has scheduled a meeting for Monday to present a highly anticipated report on uranium mining that is expected to guide General Assembly debate on whether Virginia should end a 30-year ban on mining the radioactive ore.
The uranium sub-committee of the Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy on Tuesday scheduled the meeting with the chairman of the National Academy of Sciences panel that will present the report. It will not include a recommended course of action for legislators.
Paul A. Locke, the chairman of the study, is an environmental health scientist, an attorney and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. He will discuss the report with committee members and take questions.
The $1.4 million report was financed by Virginia Uranium Inc., which wants to mine a 119-million-pound deposit in Pittsylvania County. It is believed to be the richest known uranium deposit in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world.
Mining opponents fear uranium mining and milling — the separation of ore from rock — will threaten water supplies as far away as Virginia Beach, approximately 200 miles east of the deposit.
Keep the Ban, a coalition of communities, environmental groups and the Virginia NAACP, wants to keep the ban in place
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/va-uranium-mining-report-delivered-214809388.html
