Wednesday, September 21, 2011 4:07 PM EDT
If, as Virginia Uranium Inc. and its backers claim, uranium mining is safe, clean, and profitiable, then why does VUI feel the need to pay for newspaper spreads, TV ads, and a traveling propaganda wagon to promote their mining scheme?
Why does VUI feel the need to spend millions of dollars to wine and dine some state legislators in an effort to win their votes for uranium mining in our commonwealth?
If there were not so many unanswered and unanswerable questions surrounding this issue, they would not have to spend all that money to influence votes.
If uranium mining is clean, safe, and profitable as VUI claims, why haven't they put forth any sort of plan for their project?
Even they have admitted that they have no real plan for any phase of the proposed mining and milling.
Why have almost 50 communities and organizations passed resolutions against lifting the moratorium?
This includes several communities in North Carolina that are within the Lake Gaston watershed.
If it were so safe, those communities would not have felt the need to take that action to protect themselves from uranium mining.
If uranium mining is so clean and safe and profitable, why are the communities where it has been mined and milled in the past now suffering from poisoned water, polluted air, increases in cancer rates and birth defects?
Many of those communities are now classified as Superfund sites, the cleanup being paid for by our tax dollars.
Why are they not the thriving, growing communities VUI claims Southside will become if uranium mining is allowed?
Why do prominent scientists, including nuclear physicists, warn against the dangers of uranium mining and milling?
Uranium is only the beginning of the process that resulted in the meltdown at the nuclear power plant at Fukashima, Japan.
If it is so safe and clean, why are people dying every day from the effects of that accident?
Why are people dying from having worked in uranium mines and mills?
Uranium mining is the single most important issue facing our commonwealth.
The risks, both known and unknown, are far too pervasive and potentially devastating to disregard so callously as VUI has up to this point.
They have no real answers, nor will the National Academy of Sciences report provide any real answers to these questions.
They expect to be allowed to proceed with this massively impacting project without a plan, without answers to basic, unavoidable questions, and without regard for the long-term effects their scheme might have on the commonwealth.
Allowing them to do that would make us all participants in a huge, toxic experiment.
Is it really worth that risk?
Jesse Andrews
Halifax
Read more:
http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2011/09/22/chatham/opinion/opinion07.txt
