Uranium not good for Southside, either

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Jeff Shapiro's opinion column "Politics promotes inaction on uranium" discusses the logjam developing on the uranium issue. He presents yet another scary proposition: more battling, more reports, more spending until the pro-uranium forces decide they will have enough votes to push through the vote to lift the ban on uranium. It will be an unofficial moratorium on the moratorium.

Shapiro focuses on Hampton Roads' economic case against the mine but neglects to mention the economic risks for Southside Virginia, as if it were a rural outpost. So it's not good for the Hampton Roads economy? How about the negative impact on Southside's economy?
As pointed out by the Virginia Coalition, a group of businessmen and job creators based in Halifax, Va., uranium mining is not that good overall for the economy of anyone in Virginia except for the already wealthy investors of Virginia Uranium Inc. Think of all the time and money the state has already spent investigating the issue. Wait until they start trying to regulate it. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

The kind of jobs promised for those who are unemployed in Southside will fluctuate with the price (and demand) of uranium. And, those in uranium mining have higher rates of cancer and other disease. Leaders like Ben Davenport in Danville and Chris Lumsden in South Boston have worked hard and successfully to attract a core of good, clean industries. A lot of refugees from the highly suburbanized northern and eastern part of the state are finding a hospitable climate for business — and everyday living — in still-rural southern Virginia. But companies thinking of relocating there already are being scared away by the specter of a uranium mine.

Lavinia Edmunds.
Halifax.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2012/sep/15/letters-to-the-editor-cont-ar-2206800/