Tornado on White Oak Mountain (did not touch land)
What happens if a tornado strikes a uranium mine?
Alta LeCompte
SoVaNow.com / May 02, 2011
Two high-profile potential threats to Kerr Reservoir — contamination from proposed uranium mining and water wars with urban areas eyeing the resource from a distance — lay dormant and unacknowledged throughout most of the second Clarksville Lake Interest Committee symposium on lake issues.
As the symposium Thursday drew to a close, representatives a watershed advocacy group brought the hot-button issues tothe fore, energizing an audience that had listened all day at the Clarksville Community Center to talks by state officials and university experts.
Commenting on the prospect of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County, Roanoke River Basin Association executive director Andrew Lester, said: “Everybody who lives south and east of the proposed site has everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
“You’re not talking about PCBs and mercury anymore,” said RRBA vice president Gene Addesso. “You’re talking about radioactive material. If a tornado comes through and rips everything up, it’s going to come right into the rivers.”
Andy Lester, the executive director of RRBA, noted that a tornado touched down in Pittsylvania last week. In addition, the proposed mine site sits on a seismic fault, vulnerable to earthquakes that could dislodge radioactive mine waste.
Rainfall in Virginia is different than in any place where uranium mining has been attempted in the past, with violent storms threatening to release the waste, he said.
He said the National Wildlife Federation last week passed a resolution opposing an end to Virginia’s moratorium on uranium mining, which could happen when the legislature convenes in January.
Other environmental groups are mobilizing, and local governments are going on record opposing mining.
He said Floyd, which is upstream of the mine, has passed a resolution opposing General Assembly action to permit the mining. Mecklenburg is considering such a resolution, he said.
He said a Virginia Beach official had told him recently, “The people in Mecklenburg are really going to catch it. Tell them we’ll do whatever we can to help them.”
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