Comment: I usually do not post comments from the local/Canadian uranium company but look at the following comment: "The granite structure could keep contaminants from migrating, just as it has contained the uranium for millennia, he added. (Okay, Mr. Coles, after you blow up the Granite will it move, I think so.......)???? Keep the Ban!
By: Tara Bozick
Published: September 27, 2011
An environmental group is calling for more water studies of a proposed uranium site before legislators debate whether to lift the state moratorium on uranium mining.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League released a report Monday that documented flooding at the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County, where Virginia Uranium Inc. would like to mine a 119-million-pound uranium deposit. Such flooding increases the risk of radioactive contamination, whether it’s a catastrophic event or long-term “chronic” release of contaminants into the water, said defense league community organizer Ann Rogers.
Rogers would like legislators to postpone voting on lifting the ban for another year or until a comprehensive water study can be completed. The General Assembly is expected to take up the issue as early as January 2012.
“They’re asking the state to lift the moratorium without offering a real analysis of what we’re getting,” Rogers said.
The report shows maps of three Federal Emergency Management Agency flood zones at the Coles Hill site connected to Mill Creek, Whitethorn Creek and the Banister River. It highlights historic floods and shows photos of roads flooded in the Coles Hill area in November 2009.
Virginia Beach had already commissioned a study to see how, in a worst-case scenario, contaminants could flow downstream to its water supply. Most of the concern surrounds how well tailings, a radioactive waste byproduct of uranium milling, would be contained.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League questioned how long a tailings impoundment could really last, given radioactivity lasts thousands of years, Rogers said. She worries about the long-term leaking of contamination into the water system and how the risk — or perception of that — could affect local agriculture.
Coles said the proposed uranium site would be designed to withstand heavy rainfall and floods. The company would like to place the tailings back into the mine underground, and tailings impoundments would be below the surface.
The granite structure could keep contaminants from migrating, just as it has contained the uranium for millennia, he added. (Okay, Mr. Coles, after you blow up the Granite will it move, I think so.......)
Additionally, the company would put bonds in place that would pay for monitoring the site in the future (that will be a million years, a lot of monies, yeah sure).
Rogers said she understands the need for jobs that the uranium industry could provide, but Rogers doesn’t want to sacrifice the safety of water long term.
“Ordinary people who depend on watersheds, they’ll be the ones to pay the price,” she said.
To view the report, visit www.bredl.org
but is the link to the study: http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/BREDL_Report-Historic_and_potential_flooding_in_ColesHillVirginia.pdf
Read more:
http://www2.wsls.com/news/2011/sep/27/pittsylvania-uranium-site-prone-flooding-according-ar-1341487/
