Comment: Great Letter!
By Published by The Editorial Board
Published: November 30, 2009
Updated: December 1, 2009
To the editor:
I’m trying to figure out what an environmentally-friendly uranium mine tailings management operation and the environment have in common. Let me guess … how about nothing!
The National Academy of Sciences is considering whether to conduct a study to determine if uranium mining and milling can be done safely, but the scope of this study is still being worked on. I hope this recent little “rainfall” will be considered in their study, along with the damage from hurricanes we’ve had in the past.
I would also like to know where the facilities designed for severe weather are, let alone their distance to populated areas. I’m still trying to find one safe mining operation that hasn’t caused damage in that area. Also, consider how deep the pits will have to be to hold thousands of tons of ore and be covered with water to keep down the dust.
Here we go again — as far as regulations go — comparing farmers’ primitive ponds to a uranium mining operation. The government has more important things to do than be concerned about your fish pond. VUI has stated the amount of rainfall would not increase the amount of radiation already in rock. Well, I’ll be — I guess we’ll all be safe.
But if you take an egg and crack it open, it don’t look like it once did. Do you feel lucky? There also a few years from having a specific finalized design for this mining operation. Nothing like telling people it will be fine and not to worry, not knowing how they’re going to start. I myself don’t care to be a guinea pig in this science project. As the old saying goes, you can put sugar on a pile of manure and it might look sweet, but it’s still a pile of manure.
TIMOTHY F. STUART
Chatham, VA
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/danville_letters/article/uranium_mining_bad_for_environment/15976/
Showing posts with label tailing ponds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tailing ponds. Show all posts
Friday, December 4, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Court Victory Forces Canada to Report Pollution Data for Mines
Apr 24 2009
TORONTO – Great Lakes United, MiningWatch Canada and Ecojustice are hailing a landmark decision from the Federal Court of Canada released late yesterday that will force the federal government to stop withholding data on one of Canada’s largest sources of pollution – millions of tonnes of toxic mine tailings and waste rock from mining operations throughout the country.
The Federal Court sided with the groups and issued an Order demanding that the federal government immediately begin publicly reporting mining pollution data from 2006 onward to the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI). The strongly worded decision describes the government’s pace as “glacial” and chastises the government for turning a “blind eye” to the issue and dragging its feet for “more than 16 years”.
“This is a huge decision for environmental justice in Canada,” said Ecojustice lawyer Justin Duncan. Fellow lawyer Marlene Cashin added, “The court has unequivocally upheld the right of Canadians to know when the health of their communities and the environment is under threat from one of the country’s largest sources of toxic pollution.”
The lawsuit was filed in Federal Court in 2007 on behalf of MiningWatch Canada and Great Lakes United by Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund). The lawsuit alleged that the Minister of Environment broke the law when he failed to collect and report this pollution information from mines in Canada under the NPRI.
“This is a victory that should be celebrated from Smithers to Voisey’s Bay,” said MiningWatch Canada spokesman Jamie Kneen. “The public has a right to know what kind of toxic liabilities are being created every day. It’s always been bizarre to us that the mining industry should not face the same reporting requirements as every other industrial sector, and we’re pleased that the Court agreed with us.”
In stark contrast, since 1998, the U.S. government has required mining companies to report all pollutants under the American equivalent of the NPRI, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). In 2005, the 72 mines reporting to the TRI released more than 500 million kilograms of mine tailings and waste rock – accounting for 27% of all U.S. pollutants reported. With yesterday’s court decision, pollution data from Canada’s 80 metal mining facilities will now similarly have to be reported under the NPRI.
“With this decision, the blindfold comes off and citizens can truly hold these companies to account for their pollution and the environmental and health dangers they pose.”
For further information please visit www.ecojustice.ca or contact:
Justin Duncan, Ecojustice (416) 573-4258 (cell)
Marlene Cashin, Ecojustice (416) 368-7533 ext. 31
John Jackson, Great Lakes United (519) 744-7503
Jamie Kneen, MiningWatch Canada (613) 761-2273 (cell)
Read more at:
http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/court-victory-forces-canada-report-pollution-data-mines
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Hot Town
Comment: This is scary uranium mining history, remember history likes to repent itself when it comes to uranium mining and milling! People knew uranium mill tailings were radioactive but corporations used them in building schools and business with little regards to people health! The article states facts that uranium is the cause of birth defects from the uranium tailings! The local uranium group have said they will not mine uranium if it is not safe, well let us take a trip to Grand Junction, and find the sick children!
Monday, Dec. 20, 1971
Except on the coldest days of the Colorado winter, the doors of the Pomona Elementary School annex, on the outskirts of Grand Junction, are opened during recess. The reason is that the building is radioactive. Unless the rooms are aired, radioactive gases and particles seeping through the floors cause the radiation in the school rooms to rise dangerously above safe levels. In fact, during the summer months when the school is closed up, radiation rises to a level 18 times higher than the guideline established by the U.S. Surgeon General.
Pomona Elementary's problem is shared in less acute form by buildings in at least a dozen other Colorado communities and by Grand Junction itself, an important uranium-producing town until the ore petered out in the mid-1960s.
The villain is uranium "tailings" —the gray, sandy debris that piled up in small mountains beside the mills as refuse from the mining operations. The tailings were known to contain some residual radiation, but below levels the AEC then considered to be a health or safety hazard. As the town boomed along with its uranium mines, Grand Junction contractors seized on the tailings as a convenient and cheap source of landfill and concrete mix.
Over the years, thousands of tons of tailings went into the construction of schools, homes, commercial buildings, sidewalks, an airfield and a shopping mall.
Cleft Palates.
By 1961, says the AEC, "form letters" were mailed to health officials warning that while the agency did not have regulatory jurisdiction over the tailings, their radium content could be hazardous; health officials, however, claim they never received the letters. In 1966 the Colorado state health department attached test film badges to several buildings in downtown Grand Junction; the badges promptly turned black from radioactivity. This led the state to pass legislation requiring contractors to get permits before using tailings in any project.
In 1970 a pediatrician in Grand Junction, Dr. Robert Ross, noticed an increase in the number of cleft palates and other birth defects in the area, and communicated his concern to Dr. C. Henry Kempe, chairman of the pediatrics department at the University of Colorado's Medical Center. Their joint studies, reported last October, indicated that the incidence of cleft lip and palate was almost twice as high in the Grand Junction area as for the rest of Colorado, the birth rate significantly lower, the death rate from congenital anomalies 50% higher.
But the town was slow to take alarm. Paul Hathaway, regional editor of Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel, explains: "Uranium turned this from a sleepy little cow town to a booming city. They accept it as part of their existence.
That's why you don't see a lot of immediate concern about the tailings." As Frank Folk, who is principal of a local school, puts it: "I'd just as soon be here in the clear air with the tailings as in some of those cities with their smog."
Radon Daughters.
Maybe so, but scientists are now seriously concerned about the long-term effects of such low-level radiation on individuals living and working in buildings in which tailings were used. Of about 5,000 such structures in the Grand Junction area between 1,500 and 2,000 have been found to contain radon gas. This gas is so penetrating that it can seep through foundations and into basements and other closed spaces. Even more ominous is the fact that radon gas breaks down into "radon daughters," highly radioactive substances that physicians believe cause genetic defects and cancer.
TIME Correspondent Ted Hall, who recently visited the town, reports that the mood there now is one of apprehension, confusion over how much radiation is actually dangerous, and anger.
"I'm not trying to become the Ralph Nader of radiation," explains Willis Stubbs, an insurance salesman whose four children attend Pomona Elementary, "but people need to be told to get the hell out from the tailings, or that it's all right." Both he and his wife have come to doubt the Surgeon General's guideline. Says Mrs. Stubbs: "They say chances of damage to the children is one in a million. Well, suppose your child is that one in a million? We happen to be parents and we are concerned about it." So are some local businessmen.
A bank has decided not to offer mortgages to home buyers until radiation readings have been made.
What to Do?
Remedies are not easy. Of course, entire structures can be torn down, but not many people want to do that. Alternatively, hot structures can be jacked up and the fill replaced with dirt. But all this is expensive, and neither the state nor the AEC has been eager to pick up the tab. The whole problem is confused by the continuing debate about how much radiation is dangerous—an incredibly difficult decision since effects may not show up for several generations.
Last week, AEC Chairman James Schlesinger visited Denver, where he discussed Grand Junction's troubles with Governor John Love and admitted that Grand Junction contractors, the state, and the AEC share a "moral responsibility" for the tailings.
He stressed that the radiation poses no "immediate" danger to residents. On the other hand, he said that radiation levels "are higher than we would prefer, so some remedial action is intended." When, he could not say—except to state that "there is presently no plan to provide funds from the Federal Government" for removing the tailings, which could cost as much as $20 million.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,878989,00.html
Monday, Dec. 20, 1971
Except on the coldest days of the Colorado winter, the doors of the Pomona Elementary School annex, on the outskirts of Grand Junction, are opened during recess. The reason is that the building is radioactive. Unless the rooms are aired, radioactive gases and particles seeping through the floors cause the radiation in the school rooms to rise dangerously above safe levels. In fact, during the summer months when the school is closed up, radiation rises to a level 18 times higher than the guideline established by the U.S. Surgeon General.
Pomona Elementary's problem is shared in less acute form by buildings in at least a dozen other Colorado communities and by Grand Junction itself, an important uranium-producing town until the ore petered out in the mid-1960s.
The villain is uranium "tailings" —the gray, sandy debris that piled up in small mountains beside the mills as refuse from the mining operations. The tailings were known to contain some residual radiation, but below levels the AEC then considered to be a health or safety hazard. As the town boomed along with its uranium mines, Grand Junction contractors seized on the tailings as a convenient and cheap source of landfill and concrete mix.
Over the years, thousands of tons of tailings went into the construction of schools, homes, commercial buildings, sidewalks, an airfield and a shopping mall.
Cleft Palates.
By 1961, says the AEC, "form letters" were mailed to health officials warning that while the agency did not have regulatory jurisdiction over the tailings, their radium content could be hazardous; health officials, however, claim they never received the letters. In 1966 the Colorado state health department attached test film badges to several buildings in downtown Grand Junction; the badges promptly turned black from radioactivity. This led the state to pass legislation requiring contractors to get permits before using tailings in any project.
In 1970 a pediatrician in Grand Junction, Dr. Robert Ross, noticed an increase in the number of cleft palates and other birth defects in the area, and communicated his concern to Dr. C. Henry Kempe, chairman of the pediatrics department at the University of Colorado's Medical Center. Their joint studies, reported last October, indicated that the incidence of cleft lip and palate was almost twice as high in the Grand Junction area as for the rest of Colorado, the birth rate significantly lower, the death rate from congenital anomalies 50% higher.
But the town was slow to take alarm. Paul Hathaway, regional editor of Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel, explains: "Uranium turned this from a sleepy little cow town to a booming city. They accept it as part of their existence.
That's why you don't see a lot of immediate concern about the tailings." As Frank Folk, who is principal of a local school, puts it: "I'd just as soon be here in the clear air with the tailings as in some of those cities with their smog."
Radon Daughters.
Maybe so, but scientists are now seriously concerned about the long-term effects of such low-level radiation on individuals living and working in buildings in which tailings were used. Of about 5,000 such structures in the Grand Junction area between 1,500 and 2,000 have been found to contain radon gas. This gas is so penetrating that it can seep through foundations and into basements and other closed spaces. Even more ominous is the fact that radon gas breaks down into "radon daughters," highly radioactive substances that physicians believe cause genetic defects and cancer.
TIME Correspondent Ted Hall, who recently visited the town, reports that the mood there now is one of apprehension, confusion over how much radiation is actually dangerous, and anger.
"I'm not trying to become the Ralph Nader of radiation," explains Willis Stubbs, an insurance salesman whose four children attend Pomona Elementary, "but people need to be told to get the hell out from the tailings, or that it's all right." Both he and his wife have come to doubt the Surgeon General's guideline. Says Mrs. Stubbs: "They say chances of damage to the children is one in a million. Well, suppose your child is that one in a million? We happen to be parents and we are concerned about it." So are some local businessmen.
A bank has decided not to offer mortgages to home buyers until radiation readings have been made.
What to Do?
Remedies are not easy. Of course, entire structures can be torn down, but not many people want to do that. Alternatively, hot structures can be jacked up and the fill replaced with dirt. But all this is expensive, and neither the state nor the AEC has been eager to pick up the tab. The whole problem is confused by the continuing debate about how much radiation is dangerous—an incredibly difficult decision since effects may not show up for several generations.
Last week, AEC Chairman James Schlesinger visited Denver, where he discussed Grand Junction's troubles with Governor John Love and admitted that Grand Junction contractors, the state, and the AEC share a "moral responsibility" for the tailings.
He stressed that the radiation poses no "immediate" danger to residents. On the other hand, he said that radiation levels "are higher than we would prefer, so some remedial action is intended." When, he could not say—except to state that "there is presently no plan to provide funds from the Federal Government" for removing the tailings, which could cost as much as $20 million.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,878989,00.html
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