Mining Uranium in Virginia (history)

Comment:  State of Virignia, do not lift the moratorium on uranium mining, it is not worth the so call "200-400 jobs (hard rock miners will come from out of state/Canada)" it may create, it will be a superfund site if the moratorium is lifted!  No to uranium mining and milling!

In the early 1980's, after the "oil shocks" of the 1970's stimulated investments in other forms of energy, there were ambitious plans to mine uranium ore in the Piedmont physiographic province of Virginia. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch1

Marline Corp. began searching for uranium deposits in the East in the late 1970s and in 1982 said it discovered 30 million pounds of uranium oxide in Pittsylvania County, potentially worth $1 billion or more.

The company obtained leases on 40,000 uranium-rich acres in the county and 16,000 acres in Fauquier, Madison, Culpeper and Orange counties.

Since then, the estimate of available ore has climbed to 110 million pounds, worth perhaps $10 billion - "the largest unmined uranium deposit in the nation."2

However, Virginia banned uranium mining in 1982, before projects planned in Orange and Pittsylvania counties went into operation.

Efforts to lift the moratorium were not pursued vigorously after 1982 because the price for uranium yellowcake (the powdered uranium oxide ore) remained too low to justify investment in new mining operations.

However, the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy approved a permit for exploring 194 acres in Pittsylvania County in November, 2007.3

The Coles Hill Deposit in Pittsylvania County is northeast of Chatham, in the Mill Creek watershed. The creek drains into Bannister River, and ultimately Albemarle-Pamlico Sound - after passing through Lake Gaston, the drinking water supply for Virginia Beach.

Mining could involve excavating a large open pit mine up to 850 feet deep,4 followed by crushing the ore and separating the uranium from waste rock.
Because most uranium mines are in arid locations, opponents to the proposed uranium mines in Virgiunia highlight the potential risks of radioactive mining and mill wastes escaping the site through runoff or groundwater seepage.

Uranium normally interacts with groundwater to form the uranyl ion, [UO2]2+ This ion is very stable and soluble. When dissolved, radioactive uranium can spread throughout an area, and it is difficult to remove the contamination.5

However, according to a geologist at Virginia Tech, the Coles Hill deposit is not demonstrating expected migration of uranium through groundwater. A. K. Sinha was quoted in a Virginia Tech news release as saying "[t]here is a water table about 11 meters (36 feet) down, and the uranium-rich bedrock about 20 meters (66 feet) down.

In 2008, the General Assembly rejected a proposed study that could have led to a revision in the 1982 ban on uranium mining in Virginia, after one influential state delegate noted that his districts gets some of its drinking water from downstream of the proposed mine.

Virginia Beach is also downstream, because it draws water from Gaston Reservoir.

Read more:
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/energy/mininguranium.html