By Roy Hoagland
First of two parts
DANVILLE, Va. -- There’s a debate going on up here that North Carolinians, especially those living along Roanoke River, should pay attention to. Virginia is considering lifting a moratorium to allow uranium mining. One of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits lies north of this town in the heart of the Roanoke basin, and mining it could threaten the river.
Thomas Jefferson knew little about uranium when, as governor of Virginia, he granted property in Pittsylvania County to the Coles family. Some 230 years later the gift is at the heart of a public debate that pits national energy policy and local economic opportunities against regional environmental concerns.
So far, the debate has:
Prompted a study by the prestigious National Academy of Science that confirms the risks that extraction could present across the Commonwealth and down in North Carolina.
Driven the state’s governor to issue an unprecedented directive for the development of a “conceptual regulatory framework” for mining even while a statewide moratorium exists.
The debate has also led Rebecca Hanmer, a former senior official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to conclude that uranium mining presents an environmental risk to Virginia and its natural resources so great that “everything else past and present pales in comparison.”
And the river that will flow past these uranium mines continues on to coastal North Carolina.
Read all the report at:
http://www.nccoast.org/Article.aspx?k=f12aa611-60eb-4330-bf3e-1eb8d509f1fc
