Posted: Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:00 am | Updated: 9:26 pm, Fri Nov 9, 2012.
The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors has, with its most recent uranium mining resolution, demonstrated leadership on this controversial issue.
Opponents of mining and milling the 119-million pounds of uranium ore underneath Coles Hill don’t have any reason to be happy with Board Chairman Tim Barber of the Tunstall District, Westover Supervisor Coy Harville, Dan River Supervisor James Snead and Chatham-Blairs Supervisor Brenda Bowman.
Those four approved a watered-down version of the type of resolution other local governments have passed. Instead of asking the state to keep its moratorium on uranium mining, they’re putting a lot of faith in the government.
While we congratulate them on taking a stand, we never thought the local elected officials in one of the most conservative counties in Virginia would say — in a resolution — that "state regulatory agencies … are the county’s best protection in regulating the proposed uranium mining … ."
Really? Pittsylvania County’s best protection against everything that could go wrong during uranium mining is a bunch of Richmond bureaucrats? What could go wrong when you’ve got the government watching your back?
Barber, Harville, Snead and Bowman rejected much tougher language proposed by Staunton River Supervisor Marshall Ecker, Banister Supervisor Jessie Barksdale and Callands-Gretna Supervisor Jerry Hagerman.
What kind of language? Conservative language, like this from Ecker: "… regulations cannot anticipate all possible hazards and outcomes if fallible human beings undertake uranium mining, milling, and tailings storage in the commonwealth, and cannot tell us whether uranium could or would be mined safely at Coles Hill or any other Virginia location."
That’s actually one of the opponents’ best arguments against uranium mining in Pittsylvania County — and throughout Virginia. Since the state government has no experience with it, the regulations would have to be a work in progress, as would the enforcement of those regulations.
Read more:
http://www.newsadvance.com/go_dan_river/opinion/editorials/article_1bfae88e-2ad7-11e2-b398-0019bb30f31a.html
