Chatham, VA
Comment: How come it took so long to tell the people of our county about the request for the monies for the socioeconomic aspects of uranium mining and milling but it seems the uranium corporation knew about the request? Complain to the Uranium Subcommittee now and demand the public to be informed of future actions pertaining to uranium mining or milling!
By John Crane
Published: March 19, 2010
The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission has applied for $200,000 in grant money from the Virginia Tobacco Commission to help pay for the second part of a uranium mining study.
Virginia Delegate Lee Ware, chair of the commission’s uranium mining subcommittee, filed the application last month, said David Bovenizer IV, spokesman for Ware. The study’s second portion would focus on the socioeconomic aspects of uranium mining and milling.
Also, the subcommittee’s staff attorney is contacting schools and institutions in Virginia as possible candidates for conducting the study. The contacted entities include the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service and the economics department at George Mason University, Bovenizer said.
The Weldon Cooper Center’s mission is “to anticipate and forecast change and to serve as a resource to those who need to recognize and address that change,” according to the center’s Web site. The center provides “policy analysis, applied research, technical assistance, leadership development, survey research, consultation and training for state and local officials, community leaders, as well as members of the general public,” according to the Web site.
The socioeconomic study is still in the planning stage and the next uranium subcommittee meeting has not been set, Bovenizer said.
“All is very preliminary,” Bovenizer said via e-mail Friday. “Delegate Ware acted to meet the deadline and to ‘get the ball rolling.’”
Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining and milling since 1982. The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is conducting the first part of the study — focusing on the technical and safety aspects of uranium mining — to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in the commonwealth.
The Danville Regional Foundation aims to conduct its own separate socioeconomic study on the Coles Hill project. It would be site specific and focus on a 50-mile radius around the project’s location.
Jack Dunavant, head of Southside Concerned Citizens and a Halifax town councilman, called VUI’s plans an “asinine idea” and doubts the Coles Hill project will succeed.
“It’s a get-rich-quick scheme that will never happen and intelligent people wouldn’t even consider it,” said Dunavant, a civil engineer.
The study should include an analysis probing the questions of “jobs gained versus jobs lost”in the region resulting from uranium mining and milling, he said. Two schools in Chatham, Hargrave Military Academy and Chatham Hall, an all-girls boarding school, would close if uranium is mined and milled at Coles Hill, Dunavant said.
Read more:
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/group_seeks_tobacco_money_to_fund_second_part_of_uranium_mining_study/19150/
