This was not in the video, flooding at S Meadows, area of proposed uranium tail ponds!
Comment: Keep the uranium ban!
By Tom McLaughlin
SoVaNow.com / August 18, 2011
This August has seen a marketing flood touting the benefits of the Coles Hill uranium mine in Pittsylvania County from Virginia Uranium Inc., the company that wants to dig up ore, and the Virginia Energy Independence Alliance, a corporate-backed pro-mining group that has popped up as the uranium battle heats up. Both outfits are spending liberally on TV and print ads across Southside and central Virginia, with the Alliance airing a series of commercials that kicked off at in early August. The spots feature actors dressed up as jes’ folks, all pushing an identical message: “Uranium is mined safely around the world. If it can be done safely in Virginia, then I’m all for it!”
Why of course, it’s not like the Alliance — backed by corporate sponsors Areva, the French state-owned nuclear power company, and VUI itself, among others — would make up its mind on this key safety question without first awaiting the judgment of the scientific community, right? In the meantime, though, the moneybags behind the Alliance must’ve figured they’d spend thousands of dollars on TV commercials just so the folks back home would be entertained by happy people on the tube saying happy things about uranium mining, with no indication they glow in the dark. Nice touch.
These ads are just the start. Company chairman Walter Coles has said VUI will seek to lift Virginia’s mining moratorium in the 2012 session of the General Assembly — so much for waiting on the National Academy of Sciences study, due in December, before deciding on a course of action.
Coles further let slip that the company has enlisted legislative patrons to do its bidding, like that comes as some great surprise.
For years now the pro-uranium lobby has been spreading cash around Richmond: VUI this year alone has made political contributions of $32,500, bringing its four-year payout to $87,650. This number doesn’t begin to account for the on-the-side contributions made by the company’s 14 registered lobbyists representing some of Richmond’s biggest lobby shops.
Despite projecting the air of a Virginia gentleman, Walter Coles can’t seem to get many other actual Virginians to back his plans.
Consider the evidence — local governments downstream from Coles Hill have come out strongly in opposition to VUI’s plans; groups representing sportsmen, farmers, landowners and environmentalists who normally fight like dogs have found common ground at last; even most politicians in the region have stiffened their outward resolve that nothing will happen with mining until it can be shown to be absolutely safe (yeah, I know, caveat emptor).
No doubt most people are able to distinguish between true grassroots campaigns and their corporate equivalents, the well-funded, empty-to-the-core Astroturf variation.
Read more:
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?/opinion/article/rube_tube/
