Nuclear Standoff: What happens when you discover uranium in your backyard

Comment:  Great article!  No to uranium mining and milling!

Andrew Rice
March 3, 2010 | 3:25 pm

As is often the case with tales of discovery, the details of how buried treasure came to be found beneath the rolling countryside of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, have grown a little gauzy over the last 30 years.

I was visiting Coles because, after decades out of the spotlight, uranium mining in general--and his family’s deposit in particular--is once again in the news.

One evening last year, in a hearing room behind a columned Greek Revival courthouse, the board of supervisors of Pittsylvania County gaveled its regular meeting to order. The business that night was the usual stuff of local government.

It was only when the board opened up the meeting for public comments that the night’s discussion turned to matters of life and death. First to the microphone was a Mr. Phillip Lovelace, who warned of contamination in local wells. “I tell you,” he implored the supervisors, “uranium mining is not what we need in this county.”

“We want our water protected, we want our air protected, we want our land protected,” said another speaker, who identified herself as Deborah “Treehugger” Dix. “Nowhere in the United States or China or Australia has uranium mining been done safely.”

Read more:
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/nuclear-standoff