SoVaNow.com / May 07, 2012
What To Expect” presentation by a Utah woman offered nothing of the sort regarding uranium mining and milling.
Sarah Fields, founder of Uranium Watch in Moab, Utah, spoke Thursday night at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville. She was sponsored by the Roanoke River Basin Association and Piedmont Residents in Defense of the Environment, groups working to keep the state’s 30-year ban on uranium mining.
As Virginia drafts uranium industry regulations at the governor’s behest, she said, citizens need to speak up and to demand transparency and public input.
Mining and milling would be dangerous both short-term and in perpetuity, Fields said, and regulation and oversight are likely to be insufficient. Policies and rules controlling the industry, she said, are subject to manipulation by companies wanting leniency.
State oversight could be even more problematic in Virginia, she said, with its lack of experience — and any state oversight, as opposed to federal, is more subject to the whims of politics.
Health and safety monitoring isn’t likely to be done with actual, real-world samples, but with computer modeling, she said.
Fields showed photos of an abandoned uranium mill near her, now the site of a $1 billion U.S. Department of Energy cleanup at taxpayer expense.
Vast piles of mine waste rock can mar scenery, she said, and the mill odor is awful.
In response to audience questions, Fields urged opponents to keep the pressure on legislators, to demonstrate and, if the legislature should lift the ban in early 2013, tie up the process in the courts and through zoning and permitting channels.
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?/news/article/be_assertive_demand_input_urges_speaker_at_uranium_forum/
Sarah Fields, founder of Uranium Watch in Moab, Utah, spoke Thursday night at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville. She was sponsored by the Roanoke River Basin Association and Piedmont Residents in Defense of the Environment, groups working to keep the state’s 30-year ban on uranium mining.
As Virginia drafts uranium industry regulations at the governor’s behest, she said, citizens need to speak up and to demand transparency and public input.
Mining and milling would be dangerous both short-term and in perpetuity, Fields said, and regulation and oversight are likely to be insufficient. Policies and rules controlling the industry, she said, are subject to manipulation by companies wanting leniency.
State oversight could be even more problematic in Virginia, she said, with its lack of experience — and any state oversight, as opposed to federal, is more subject to the whims of politics.
Health and safety monitoring isn’t likely to be done with actual, real-world samples, but with computer modeling, she said.
Fields showed photos of an abandoned uranium mill near her, now the site of a $1 billion U.S. Department of Energy cleanup at taxpayer expense.
Vast piles of mine waste rock can mar scenery, she said, and the mill odor is awful.
In response to audience questions, Fields urged opponents to keep the pressure on legislators, to demonstrate and, if the legislature should lift the ban in early 2013, tie up the process in the courts and through zoning and permitting channels.
