Comment: Dan River’s Snead said the resolution was a good compromise. “It’s got meat,” he said. “I think it will make the General Assembly think.”: WE DON'T WANT A COMPROMISE. WE WANT A BAN!
By TIM DAVISStar-Tribune Editor | Posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:54 am
A clearly divided Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 Monday to approve a resolution that warns of “significant risks” but stops short of specifically asking the state to keep the ban on uranium mining.
Tunstall District Supervisor Tim Barber, Westover District Supervisor Coy Harville, Chatham-Blairs District Supervisor Brenda Bowman, and Dan River District Supervisor James Snead voted for the resolution.
“It may not be perfect, but I think this protects Pittsylvania County,” Barber, the board’s chairman, said.
The three-page resolution cites last year’s National Academy of Sciences study and states it is “absolutely clear … it cannot be demonstrated to a reasonable degree of certainty that there would be no significant release of radioactive sediments downstream of the Coles Hill site under any circumstances.”
“To me, that’s clearly stating don’t lift the moratorium,” Barber said. “In my mind it says hold the moratorium.”
Other board members disagreed. Staunton River District Supervisor Marshall Ecker, Banister District Supervisor Jessie Barksdale, and Callands-Gretna District Supervisor Jerry Hagerman voted against the resolution.
They supported a substitute motion by Ecker to insert language urging the state to maintain the 30-year ban.
“Keep the moratorium; that’s what we’re asking for,” Ecker said.
Barksdale agreed and said the board needed to take a stronger stand.
“This proposed project is literally in our backyard. We’ve got hundreds of citizens near and far watching us,” he said.
“I stand firm in my decision to oppose lifting the ban on uranium mining. I’m supporting a resolution that says keep the moratorium today, tomorrow and in the future,” Barksdale said.
Ecker said the earlier resolution, which did not ask lawmakers to keep the ban, was a mistake.
“In hindsight, this was not a very good resolution because it didn’t say what the citizens wanted,” he said.
Ecker, Barksdale, and Hagerman voted in October for a resolution asking state lawmakers to keep the ban on uranium mining.
When that motion failed on a 3-3 vote, the three supervisors held a news conference in front of the county courthouse and announced they were sending letters and individual resolutions to the governor and legislators asking for the ban to remain in place.
The latest resolution reaffirms the importance of protecting the county’s residents, air, water, agriculture, and property values.
It calls for a fund, administered by a third party, to compensate residents “adversely affected” by uranium mining and milling within a five-mile radius of the Coles Hill uranium deposit.
Discovered in the late 1970s, Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham,uranium deposits.
http://www.wpcva.com/news/article_6ace6a98-28f3-11e2-9315-0019bb2963f4.html
