Comments: I spoke to the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs yesterday on the subject of uranium mining in Virginia. I'll attach the text of my talk and you can distribute it to your mailing list if you like.
Best wishes.
Rupe
Problems Associated With Uranium Mining in Virginia
Presentation to the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs
By Rupert Cutler
October 15, 2012
Good morning! I‘d like to thank Eileen Dickey for the invitation to make this presentation. I appreciate being asked to speak to you again. I’ve addressed you in the past on Explore Park and regional environmental issues.
The issue you’ve asked me to tackle today has me very concerned. I cannot think of a greater threat to the public health, environment and economy of Virginia than the very-much-alive proposal to mine and mill uranium in Southside Virginia, only 40 miles east of here, near Chatham in Pittsylvania County.
It’s “in our back yard.” It is not something you and I want in our back yards. It could affect the quality of the water we drink and the air we breathe, not to mention the safety of the food we eat such as milk and fish from nearby farms and lakes. It could reduce the value of real estate in southern Virginia and discourage businesses from locating here. It is a big deal. It is worth contacting your legislators about.
Let’s start by setting aside some of the “red herring” arguments made by the uranium mining proponents, such as “energy independence.”
Uranium is used as fuel for nuclear reactors that generate base load electrical power and propel submarines and aircraft carriers. There is no shortage of uranium. All we need is available from friendly nations such as Canada and Australia. Some is mined in the arid western part of our country, but none in high-water-table, hurricane-prone eastern states like Virginia where mines could be flooded and radioactive material could be scattered by wind. An important source of uranium is Russian nuclear weapons being dismantled under an important bilateral agreement.
If uranium were produced in Virginia, it would not necessarily be used in Virginia or the United States but enter the world market and be purchased by the highest bidder, which could be India or China.
Few if any additional nuclear power plants will be built in the U.S. because of political opposition based on the fear of accidents such as occurred recently in Japan, the great time and expense required to build them, and the low cost of a competitive source of energy, natural gas. High tech Germany has decided to ban nuclear power and move to solar and other much safer energy technologies. Environment-conscious British Columbia has decided to ban uranium mining permanently.
As far as a need for uranium for weapons for national defense is concerned, a sane national policy is to reduce our stockpile of nuclear weapons, not increase it.
Another argument used for uranium mining here is jobs. How many of you have traveled in West Virginia and seen the mountain top removal strip mines there? The poverty-stricken, single-industry communities dependent on those mines? The acid mine drainage-polluted streams and rivers?
We’re talking about a similar kind of operation here to mine uranium, plus a milling operation that would require a large number of waste lagoons in which radioactive waste would be stored for long periods of time—an ugly landscape for sure--in the place of the handsome and productive rolling green farmland there today. The miners and mill operators would live under constant threat of being poisoned by radon gas. Citizens of Virginia Beach and Norfolk could lose an important part of their drinking water supply for years if a hurricane, derecho or earthquake breached containment of radioactive material at the mine and mill.
Would you send your child off to school at Chatham Hall or Hargrave Military Academy if a uranium mine and mill was its next-door neighbor? Probably not. The same logic applies to real estate values there. The stigma attached to a location near a uranium mining operation likely would be enough to send current residents who can afford to leave fleeing the area and cause home and farm real estate prices to fall. There is the real prospect of contaminated water and air from this operation. Win some new jobs in the mine and mill, lose more from the closure of farming and educational businesses thriving there now.
The most obvious reason to oppose this foreign-owned Virginia Uranium, Inc proposal to mine uranium in the Chatham area is the threat of a radioactivity-contaminated water supply for Virginia Beach and Norfolk and five Navy bases there, should the waste storage system fail or a hurricane or flood hit the mining and milling operation and spread radioactive material into nearby watercourses.
I will never forget how reluctant a representative of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was to admit, at a public meeting in Chatham a couple of months ago, that the life expectancy of the synthetic liners used to keep radioactive waste in the storage lagoons from polluting ground water is 200 years. The life expectancy of the radioactive elements in the waste is thousands of years. That doesn’t compute for our great grandchildren.
Three months ago I had the pleasure of moderating an all-day public forum on uranium mining in Virginia at Virginia Western Community College sponsored by the Cabell Brand Center. As its organizer I tried to see that a diversity of perspectives would be represented among the speakers, so I invited elected officials, educators, a medical doctor, lawyers, biology and geology professors, an insurance risk expert, and a former environmental protection agency head speak to us. With one exception, the geology professor, the consensus of the speakers was, “Don’t do it—don’t mine uranium in Virginia. Urge the General Assembly to keep the ban on uranium mining in Virginia in place.”
I’ll hit the highlights to summarize who spoke and what they said.
Roanoke City Councilman Sherman Lea, a native of Danville and Pittsylvania County, said most residents of the Chatham area are afraid of what might happen to them as a result of uranium mining, and they oppose it strongly. An African-American, Mr. Lea is particularly sensitive to the issue of environmental justice and worries that, while well-to-do residents of the area could sell out and leave, the poor and handicapped residents would have to live in a degraded environment.
Mr. Lea thinks Roanoke City Council, that adopted a resolution asking the General Assembly to keep the ban on uranium mining in 2012, should ask for a permanent ban such as that adopted by the Canadian province of British Columbia. You could help him by asking your friends on Roanoke City Council to do that, soon.
Dr. Peter DeFur, an ecology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, made the Associated Press wire service news that morning by stating unequivocally that, as a member of the National Research Council panel that studied the issue in depth, he opposes uranium mining in Virginia because of the unacceptable risks to the water supply and the environment.
Have you met the dean of our new med school, Dr. Cynda Johnson? She lives downtown, is very approachable, and is a no-nonsense former family doc. As the founding dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, she and her colleagues at Carilion Clinic could be in a position to have to deal with people injured in any kind of emergency situation at the Chatham mine and mill. In her view, the safety regulations now in place to protect miners and the public from harmful radioactivity could be as weak as other government regulations intended to protect us such as those governing the painkiller Vioxx that was allowed to be used for years despite its dangers. Remember this 2004 news story?
“There is mounting evidence that the drug giant Merck was aware of the safety risks associated with use of its arthritis drug Vioxx years before it announced a recall on September 30. The company’s attempts to cover up these risks may have resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of patients around the world.”
Dean Johnson fears there could be the same kind of weak federal and state regulations in the case of Virginia uranium mining.
Some of you may know biologist Renee Godard. The energetic Professor Godard, Hollins University’s Director of Environmental Studies, wowed the Virginia Western audience with a virtual tour of uranium mines and mills world-wide. She could find none that were pollution-free and did find a community in France near such an operation that is in health and economic disarray because of the adverse consequences of digging up the uranium there.
In part because of the phenomenon of bioconcentration, meaning the concentration of toxic radioactivity increases as larger species eat smaller species up the food chain, Dr. Godard made it clear she opposes uranium mining in Virginia.
Roanoke attorney Broaddus Fitzpatrick, brother of Bev and Eric, is an authority on water issues associated with coal mining. He applied that expertise to the proposed uranium mining with stunning results. Broaddus, whose life experience includes a lot of time spent deep in West Virginia and Kentucky coal mines, explained that mining for uranium will take place far below the water table, that water flowing into the mine will have to be constantly removed, that water will have to be sprayed on the rock face being drilled out to keep the radioactive dust under control, and that all this contaminated water will have to be held and treated.
He showed photos of uranium mills in Canada that have numerous waste storage lagoons filled with ugly green toxic water open to birds and other wildlife. He showed the historic paths of hurricanes over eastern Virginia, painted the picture of an operating mine and mill with open piles of radioactive rock and open waste disposal sites being hit by a hurricane, and concluded that in no way would that be safe.
Freeda Cathcart of Roanoke is a former claims processor for major international reinsurance firms and for Shenandoah Life Insurance Company. She debunked the notion that Virginia Uranium Inc., owned by investors in Canada and Switzerland, could buy any kind of insurance or bond to cover the cost of restoring the environment after a radiation leak or other disaster.
Presenting an overview of environmentalists’ concerns was Cale Jaffe of Charlottesville, a senior attorney with the respected Southern Environmental Law Center. Jaffe’s account included the go-slow conclusions of a National Academy of Sciences committee report, “Uranium Mining in Virginia,” released in December of 2011. He quoted Paul Locke, Chair of the Committee, as stating, “Internationally accepted best practices … are available to mitigate some of the risks involved. However, there are still many unknowns.”
Jaffe also reported that a letter sent to their General Assembly colleagues on December 28, 2011, by Republicans Senator Frank Ruff of Clarksville, Delegate James Edmunds of Halifax, Delegate Danny Marshall of Danville, Delegate Donald Merricks of Chatham, and Delegate Thomas Wright of Victoria stated:
“ It is not difficult to conclude the Academy is sending clear warning signals that mining and processing uranium in a wet climate subject to flooding and extreme weather events in a densely populated area is a very, very bad idea.”
The penultimate speaker at the forum was Bob Burnley of Richmond who served as director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for five years. Burnley, speaking from his relevant and frustrating experience trying to clean up Chesapeake Bay and close leaking landfills, said the Virginia’s poor track record of support for environmental protection programs means Virginia is simply not prepared to regulate uranium mining and protect Virginia citizens and its environment from uranium mining’s adverse effects.
Roanoke’s State Senator John Edwards wrapped up the forum by clarifying where matters stand on this issue in Richmond. He summarized the steps being taken in the legislative and executive branches of state government to prepare for a decision, perhaps next year, on whether to lift the 30-year ban on uranium mining in the Commonwealth. He explained that this would include the adoption of statutory and regulatory language clearing the way for Virginia Uranium, Inc. to start the wheels turning toward mining a radioactive metal on the Roanoke River watershed.
He reported that on January 19, 2012, Governor McDonnell established a “Uranium Working Group” or UWG made up of staff from the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, and the Department of Health to provide scientific policy analysis “to help assess whether the moratorium on uranium mining in the Commonwealth should be lifted, and if so, how best to do so.” The UWG will provide its findings and final report to the Governor and the Uranium Mining Subcommittee of the Coal and Energy Commission.
The Coal and Energy Commission is a unit of the Virginia General Assembly staffed by the Division of Legislative Services. Its local members include Senator Ralph K. Smith and Delegates Greg Habeeb and Onzlee Ware. These gentlemen will play a leading role in the General Assembly’s consideration of this issue. If the General Assembly lifts the moratorium, they would have to adopt a process for the adoption of regulations to govern the permitting of uranium mining activity that would include public involvement.
Then John pulled together what we know about the issue: Foreign-backed interests are trying to lift the nearly 30-year ban so they can mine and process uranium, starting in Southern Virginia. Drinking water, human health, farmland, property values, wildlife and tourism across Virginia are at risk. If the ban were lifted, huge amounts of radioactive and toxic waste would be disposed near farmland and local waterways in Virginia, requiring management for centuries to come. Exposure to uranium waste has been linked to increases in leukemia, kidney disease and other severe health problems. Virginia’s wet weather makes uranium production a risky experiment.
Severe weather events like Hurricane Irene in 2011 could overwhelm uranium operations. A recent study predicts a spill at the Coles Hill site could contaminate drinking water for up to two years for Virginia Beach and Norfolk. The proposed uranium mine and processing mill would be located 40 miles from downtown Roanoke and 12 miles from Smith Mountain Lake, a drinking water supply for residents of Bedford and Franklin counties and a back-up drinking water supply for Roanoke.
Foreign-owned Virginia Uranium Inc., if allowed to mine and process uranium ore in Pittsylvania County, will make its multi-billion dollar profits and be gone in 35 years, leaving the public responsible for monitoring and containing the radioactive waste left behind.
The cities of Virginia Beach and Norfolk are understandably opposed to uranium mining on their water supply watershed. Southern Virginia civic leader Ben Davenport, Jr. fears the stigma of uranium mining could hurt the reputation of Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, where he serves on the board.
Government regulators and their consultants say “Trust us. We’ll use best practices and there will be no harm done.” But accidents happen, and they could in Virginia.
Governor McDonnell has acknowledged that “Mining is an inherently dangerous activity (and) uranium is an inherently dangerous mineral.”’ In his message to the General Assembly on January 19, 2012, the governor said:
“We must be certain that uranium mining can be conducted safety and responsibly. Public safety must be the primary factor in the ultimate determination as to whether to proceed with uranium mining…. I have been clear that we must base all decisions on this matter on public safety and science. We must prudently study the issue to ensure that such mining would not impair the health of our people, or the condition of our environment.”
Given what leading scientists and doctors say about it, are you prepared to support uranium mining in Virginia? I, for one, am not. I think we all should let our representatives in the General Assembly know we expect them to keep the ban on uranium mining in Virginia.
Thank you.
