Comment: Keep the Ban!
November 20, 2011
by erm43
On November 8, 2011, Virginia’s General Assembly elections resulted in Republican control of the State Senate and an expanded Republican majority in the House of Delegates. In the wake of these elections, focus has shifted to the upcoming 2012 General Assembly (GA) session, which will begin on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. Though the state budget will no doubt preoccupy coverage of the 60-day session’s rapid-fire proceedings, environmental concern will focus on the latest stage in the fight over uranium mining in Virginia.
Uranium Mining Proposals in Virginia
It started over 30 years ago, when significant uranium deposits were discovered in the Piedmont region of Virginia, east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Shortly, thereafter, leases were secured throughout the area, including at a site called “Cole’s Hill” in Pittsylvania County. At the time, regulations for uranium mining were nonexistent. According to Keep the Ban, a coalition of groups opposed to uranium mining in Virginia, the GA enacted a moratorium on mining in 1982 “while a state commission studied the potential impacts of uranium production. When global uranium prices began to fall, the mining proposal was dropped.”
Fast-forward to 2008 when Virginia Uranium, Inc. (VUI), in light of a dramatic spike in uranium prices, came to the GA to seek an overturn of the mining ban. In the United States, uranium mining has traditionally taken place in the dry western states, including current sites in six states. Over time, uranium mining has resulted in 15,000 abandoned mine sites in 14 western states that must be cleaned up pursuant to the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA). Through all this, uranium operations have never been undertaken in a wet climate like Virginia’s. In fact, the “Cole’s Hill” site, targeted by VUI for mining, raises concern precisely because of its location upstream from and potential to adversely affect Lake Gaston — Virginia Beach’s water supply source. Furthermore, other uranium deposits throughout Virginia lie upstream of
Read more:
http://gielr.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/to-mine-or-not-to-mine/
