Comments: I find it strange the Gov and UWG are worried about the following:
"McDonnell noted Friday that one aspect of the Uranium Working Group’s mission remains unfulfilled: the submission of a socio-economic study on the benefits and risks of mining in Southside Virginia. McDonnell said the UWG’s work has been slowed by the difficulty in finding a firm that is capable of making such an assessment and hasn’t been retained by one side or the other in the uranium debate!" The UWG hired Wright Environmental Services LLC and the company was 100 percent miners or mine related jobs.....so why are they worried about hiring a balance companies at this point..... I mean really, the Gov and the UWG are pushing mining....they are part of Dept of Mines.....Keep the Ban!
Consensus lacking on uranium framework / Fraim urges legislators to maintain uranium ban / Uranium Working Group delivers study
Consensus lacking on uranium framework
By By TOM McLAUGHLIN
SovaNow.com
SoVaNow.com / December 03, 2012
A new report by the Uranium Working Group that lays out a complex regulatory framework for the Coles Hill project in Pittsylvania County is drawing praise and fire in equal measure from the sides locked in a heated debate over uranium mining in Virginia.The UWG, which consists of staff from the three Virginia agencies that would have regulatory authority over mining, issued its report Friday after examining the issue for almost a year. The 125-page study draws on expert opinion and public comments to suggest how Virginia should sanction uranium mining should the state’s 30-year ban on the industry be lifted. The General Assembly is expected to take up that question in the 2013 session starting in January.
The report, delivered to Governor Bob McDonnell on Friday, suggests that Virginia should assume maximum oversight of both uranium mining and milling — the latter refers to the process whereby mined ore is refined into yellowcake for use in nuclear reactors — while giving state agencies broad new legal and regulatory powers. Although mining is typically regulated by states, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has primary oversight of the milling of uranium ore.
The report also calls for boosting department budgets by more than $4 million, with funding for new staff and monitoring to come from fees imposed on Virginia Uranium, Inc., the company that wants to dig up the 119-million pound Coles Hill ore deposit in Pittsylvania.
VUI’s opponents, however, cautioned that the Uranium Working Group study offers only a hypothetical approach to industry regulation and is silent on the broader question of whether uranium mining makes sense for Virginia.
Opponents also questioned the premise of the report, noting that other studies of the Coles Hill project, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, raise serious doubts as to whether uranium mining can be conducted safely under any circumstances in Virginia’s wet-weather climate.
“You can’t regulate Mother Nature and you can’t compensate for damage that is everlasting,” said Gene Addesso, acting president of the bi-state Roanoke River Basin Association, one of a number of organizations in Virginia and North Carolina fighting the proposed mine. “There is no kind of regulation that is going to make this thing safe. You can write all the regulations you want. They will be broken, they will be subject to natural disasters.”
Mining opponents scored a victory this week with a decision by the Virginia Farm Bureau to endorse keeping Virginia’s moratorium in place. But as the UWG report makes plain, the ultimate judgment will rest with lawmakers, who along with lifting the moratorium would have to establish a complicated set of rules with the introduction of uranium mining in Virginia.
Gov. McDonnell, in a statement, said he would carefully review the report’s findings in coming weeks and meet with stakeholders on both sides before deciding whether to take a position on lifting the ban.
McDonnell said the National Academy of Sciences study on uranium mining provided “much useful information” but “very little specific to the issues in Virginia, and left many questions [about Coles Hill] unanswered.” He commended the Uranium Working Group, which relied on a consulting group criticized by mining opponents for its ties to the industry, for its “high level of professionalism, openness and evenhandedness.”
Tucked into the dense, carefully worded report are dozens of key policy questions that would follow with an end to the moratorium:
The Uranium Working Group document includes numerous passages that outline how different agencies might coordinate their activities, ranging from environmental monitoring to workplace inspections to data collecting on the health effects of mining.
Addesso, of the Roanoke River Basin Association, said nevertheless, he was “quite disappointed” by what he said was the report’s “not very informative” discussion of the potential environmental and health impacts of mining.
“It seemed like they focused more on worker safety than the safety of the environment of the area,” he said.
The Roanoke River Basin Association is drafting a letter to Governor McDonnell spelling out its objections to the report, he said.
McDonnell noted Friday that one aspect of the Uranium Working Group’s mission remains unfulfilled: the submission of a socio-economic study on the benefits and risks of mining in Southside Virginia. McDonnell said the UWG’s work has been slowed by the difficulty in finding a firm that is capable of making such an assessment and hasn’t been retained by one side or the other in the uranium debate. He said he hoped to have the socioeconomic study in hand by mid-January.
Fraim urges legislators to maintain uranium ban
04 December 2012 | 2:56 PMIn a direct appeal to General Assembly members, Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim is asking policy makers not to undo a state ban on uranium mining out of fear waste from that process could contaminate local drinking water and cause public panic.
"For the citizens of Hampton Roads the fear of radioactive contamination is so great that, even if the city could filter radioactive elements that entered its drinking water supply, public opinion wouid demand the city close a contaminated drinking water source," Fraim's Nov. 29 letter reads.
"The 1.1 million South Hampton Roads users of our water supply would not accept contamination of their water supply," he writes. "Let me state unequivocally that the water supply of southeastem Virginia is too critical to accept even a measured risk of contamination that would result from lifting the ban on uranium mining in Virginia."
The question of whether "Norfolk could remove radioactive contaminants from the water supply in the event of a catastrophic failure" of mining waste storage facilites in Pittsylvania County is secondary to the fallout if that occurred, he adds.
Officials with Virginian Uranium Inc., the company seeking state clearance to mine a rich uranium ore deposit it controls, have pledged to store mining waste, known as tailings, in below-grade facilities to eliminate concerns about their accidental release.
That storage method was highlighted as the ideal in last year's study released in December by the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, which didn't make a recommendation about lifting the ban.
Another significant study, this one orchestrated by state officials, released last week has been heralded by mining advocates who see in its results the path to a regulatory framework for mining to be done safely.
-- Julian Walker
Fraim's Letter
The reason for all the above:
Uranium Working Group delivers study to Gov. McDonnell
SoVaNow.com / November 30, 2012
The Uranium Working Group, an interagency task force made up of environmental, mining and health department staff, has delivered to Governor Bob McDonnell its final report on a possible regulatory framework for uranium mining in Virginia.The McDonnell administration in an e-mail Friday morning acknowledged the receipt of the report and said the Governor would be reviewing the findings in the weeks ahead, prior to the 2013 General Assembly session in January. That’s when the legislature is expected to take up the question of whether to end Virginia’s 30-year moratorium on uranium mining.
The Working Group has been studying the Coles Hill mining project that Virginia Uranium Inc. is seeking in Pittsylvania County. The UWG’s report comes a year after the National Academy of Sciences weighed in on the topic, finding that Virginia faced “steep hurdles” in creating a regulatory framework that would protect the health and environment of the region around the mine and the safety of drinking water supplies for much of Southside, portions of North Carolina and Hampton Roads.
The UWG report does not include a socioeconomic report, which McDonnell said would be done later, hopefully by mid-January. He said the study of the social and economic impacts of uranium mining had been delayed by the difficulty in finding a consulting group that can independently examine the question. Most firms that specialize in the work have been employed by either the mining industry or opponents of the project, said the governor.
The text of his statement is as follows:
“Almost a year ago, the National Academy of Sciences issued a long awaited report on uranium mining. While the NAS report provided much useful information, it offered very little specific to the issues in Virginia, and left many questions unanswered. For that reason, members of the General Assembly asked me to task the appropriate Executive Branch agencies with providing substantial, additional information and to determine what a comprehensive regulatory program for safe uranium mining might look like, should the current moratorium be lifted by the General Assembly in the years ahead.
In response, I promptly directed establishment of a Uranium Working Group from the subject matter experts in the departments of Mines Minerals and Energy, Health, and Environmental Quality. This Working Group was tasked with providing a detailed scientific policy analysis that would inform the General Assembly what a regulatory framework for uranium mining might look like if they decide to lift the moratorium. We identified 18 specific questions for the Working Group to address and authorized it to hire appropriate technical experts as needed to assist in their work.
For the past 10 months, the geologists, hydrologists, biologists, health scientists, attorneys, and other regulatory experts at DMME, VDH and DEQ – together with experts from around the country pursuant to two contracts for expert assistance entered into by the Working Group retained after a competitive bidding process – have examined the issues put before them. They have reviewed previous reports and scientific literature, visited the Coles Hill site, met with federal and state regulators and regulators from other states and countries, and met together numerous times to discuss their findings and determine what more they needed to know. In addition, as they completed their review of specific topics, the Working Group held six public meetings, in different parts of the Commonwealth, to share the information they had, respond to public questions, and hear public comment. Significant input was also received and reviewed through the Working Group’s web site (http://www.uwg.vi.virginia.gov), which now offers a tremendous volume of related materials, including reports from the experts hired to assist in their analysis, a bibliography of other materials reviewed, and the comments, questions and responses received from the public during their work.
As requested by the General Assembly and our office, the Working Group developed a conceptual regulatory framework that identifies the statutory and regulatory measures that would be necessary if a legislative decision is made to lift the moratorium. One element of their work – the examination of potential socioeconomic impacts – has been delayed by the difficulty in finding a suitable, objective expert to undertake the necessary survey work that has not already been employed to do work by stakeholders on one side of the issue or the other. As a consequence, and because the Group was unwilling to limit the original scope of this portion of their work, an addendum to the Group’s final report will be provided when the contractor’s work is complete, hopefully in mid-January.
The Working Group was not asked for, and has not provided, an ultimate policy recommendation on whether or not the moratorium on uranium mining in the Commonwealth should be lifted. If the General Assembly decides to lift the moratorium, it will be necessary to amend and adopt statutes and authorize the subsequent development of actual regulations pursuant to the Virginia Administrative Process Act. Only after regulations are developed, proposed, adopted and approved after a lengthy public process could an application for a permit to mine uranium in Virginia be developed and submitted for consideration.
Today the Working Group has delivered its final report to our office pursuant to its deadline of December 1, 2012. At the same time, we are delivering the report to the members of the General Assembly and made available to the public. It will also be posted to the Working Group’s web site. I look forward to reviewing the full report, meeting with our agency experts to discuss their work, and hearing the views of the experts on the Coal and Energy Commission’s Uranium Subcommittee in the coming weeks. I understand that this issue is critically important to many Virginians, and that it raises appropriate concern among many in the vicinity of Coles Hill and beyond. I believe it is crucially important that all voices be heard in the decision-making process ahead. For that reason, in addition to meeting with my staff in the coming weeks, I will meet with stakeholders on both sides of the issue, and will review the public input received to date, before deciding whether or not I will make any recommendation on uranium mining in the Commonwealth. I have formed no prior opinion on whether mining should be permitted, as I have awaited, like most should, the publication of this report. As I have previously noted, the overriding consideration is whether uranium mining and milling can be conducted with a high degree of public safety, and whether suitable assurances can be given that the air, water, health, and well-being of the citizens will be protected.
Finally, I want to commend the great efforts of the Working Group. The agency staff who participated in this important work did so with a high level of professionalism, openness and evenhandedness. They have completed their task with great diligence and thoroughness and met their deadline. As I begin to evaluate the report, I thank them for their tremendous work and I am confident it will help me, the General Assembly, and the public reach an appropriate decision on this matter.”
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?/news/article/uranium_working_group_delivers_study_to_gov._mcdonnell/
To read all the letter click here:
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/12/fraim-urges-legislators-maintain-uranium-ban
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fconsensus_lacking_on_uranium_framework%2F
