Freeda Cathcart spent part of the late winter and early spring in Richmond, making her position known on several bills that made their way through the General Assembly session. The former Democrat candidate for the 17th House of Delegates district seat last November – she lost to Republican Chris Head – also won’t rule out running again in the future.
In the meantime she’ll be content to home school her boys, act as president of the Grandin Court Neighborhood Association and keep an eye on goings-on in the capitol. The state legislature has not taken any action on uranium mining but the existing ban is still in place. (Cathcart and some other environmentalists want it upheld.) But she is concerned about a “working group” Governor Bob McDonnell has set up to explore uranium drilling and mining legislation in the future – should the moratorium be lifted.
Cathcart said the way the Uranium Working Group was set up, it does not require the public to be involved, nor is it subject to the Freedom of Information Act. “Our tax dollars are paying for it,” said Cathcart, who also contends that the working group flies in the face of recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, which believes “the public should be involved at every step. [The working group] is very dismissive of the public.”
Cathcart doesn’t think there is adequate storage of uranium core samples taken several years ago at a Pittsylvania County site, wondering what would happen if a tornado tore those containers apart and unleashed uranium from the core samples into the air and waterways, just 50 miles from Roanoke. Cathcart said there is bipartisan support for continuing the ban on uranium mining. “There’s not the need to put at risk our environment. Radiation lasts for tens of thousands of years.”
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