Comments: We're beginning to see statements like this in the press.
"Stanley said his constituent surveys indicate that residents who live near the Coles Hill site are evenly divided on the issue...what survey? " And, "Just as many locals, if not more, oppose efforts to lift the long-standing moratorium on mining."
Where's the proof? I've attended many public meetings. When the public has been allowed to speak, those wishing to Keep The Ban have always far outnumbered those wishing to lift it. A majority of those wishing to lift it either worked for VUI or the industry.
ALERT!!! Keep The Ban Rally TONIGHT! January 11 at 6 PM at the Community Center on South Main Street in Chatham, VA. The event is open to the public, is sponsored by the VA State Conference NAACP Keep The Ban Coalition. Speakers include NAACP and community leaders along with local and regional pastors who support keeping Virginia's 30 year moratorium.
BRILLIANT...which trumps AWESOME!
Sen. Dick Saslaw isn’t concerned about the consequences of uranium mining in VA
- Dick Saslaw
- January 11, 2013
- By: Daniel Carawan
As a sign that there are idiots on both sides of the political aisle in Virginia, Virginia Sen. Dick Saslaw commented that he can’t legislate for what might happen 100 years down the road in response to the issue over whether or not Virginia’s moratorium on uranium mining should be lifted.[1]
Saslaw stated, “What about 10,000 years from now? I’m not going to be here. I can’t ban something because of something that might happen 500 or 1,000 years from now.”[2] Under this form of logic, maybe Virginia’s legislators should also use Virginia’s landfills as a storage area for America’s nuclear waste. After all, why should we be concerned about consequences that won’t bear themselves out in our lifetimes?Americans and Virginians in particular have a right to be idiots, but not when they’re legislating for thousands of constituents in the present and ultimately, millions more in the future.
If Virginia’s legislators aren’t willing to look at the long-term consequences of their actions as lawmakers, then the entire structure of our government will crumble under the weight of its own callousness and parochialism. That is, if lawmakers were to merely legislate exclusively for the present, the not too distant future would quickly become a place where few individuals would want to live.
We all value the short term more than the long term, on the whole. After all, how do we know if we’ll still be living tomorrow or a year from now? But if each generation does not respect and safeguard the well-being of the next, individual citizens and politicians would quickly undermine economic, moral, communal, and environmental integrity through short-term and short-minded decisions.
Dick Saslaw obviously feels that today is all that matters and tomorrow is but a dream for others to unfold. Virginians both now and in the future will not soon forget the remarks made by Sen. Saslaw, the man who knew too little and cared even less.
It's like giving a 14 year old the keys to your car and telling him not to drive. Like that's going to happen. Nice try RTD. To answer your inane question...Yep, lifting the ban will result in mining.
Does lifting of uranium-mining ban mean mining will follow?
Posted: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:00 am | Updated: 6:22 am, Fri Jan 11, 2013. Does lifting of uranium-mining ban mean mining will follow?BY REX SPRINGSTON Richmond Times-DispatchRichmond Times-Dispatch
A General Assembly decision to lift Virginia’s uranium-mining ban wouldn’t provide the go-ahead for digging the radioactive metal, pro-uranium lawmakers say.
Opponents, however, say mining would surely follow if the 31-year ban were scrapped.
“This bill does not authorize the mining of uranium,” said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, the Senate Democratic leader. The bill would simply set up “a very stringent regulatory process for how it will be done if and when they go ahead.”
Saslaw spoke Thursday during a news conference that mining supporters held at the Capitol.
Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to mine what it says is a roughly $7 billion, 119 million-pound deposit in Pittsylvania County about 145 miles southwest of Richmond.
Even if the mining ban were lifted, the company would need approval from state, federal and county authorities, lawmakers said at the news conference.
However, the General Assembly’s vote will be the most important one in that lengthy process, said Nathan Lott, executive director of the Virginia Conservation Network, a coalition of environmental groups.
And if the legislature lifts the ban, mining will likely follow, Lott said. “You don’t create an expansive regulatory regime unless you have the intent to mine.”
Other speakers at the news conference included Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, and Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas. They plan to submit the bills to lift the ban and create the mining rules.
The legislation would allow mining only at the Virginia Uranium site. That provision could limit opposition.
In addition to a mine, Virginia Uranium would build a mill to separate the uranium from rock. That would leave behind radioactive waste that could last thousands of years.
Watkins said his legislation would, among other things, require the waste to be stored underground to minimize the risk of pollution.
Opponents fear a big storm or earthquake could release radioactive waste, tainting drinking water supplies as far away as populous South Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia.
“My bill is a sincere attempt to address (opponents’) concerns,” Watkins said.
Virginia Uranium contributed $216,650 to campaigns from 2008 through 2012, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics. Miller got $5,750 and Watkins $2,000. Both said the money had no effect on them.
“You tell me when I have been influenced by money,” Watkins said. “I don’t play that way.”
Miller said he supports the proposed mine out of his concern for property rights, energy independence and jobs.
Miller said he told Virginia Uranium, “If I found it couldn’t be done safely, they wouldn’t have my support.”
Both sides in the uranium fight have hired lobbyists, and both sides are supplementing their ranks with staffers from advocacy groups that also lobby the General Assembly.
About 70 mining supporters, mostly from Southside Virginia, joined the legislators at the news conference Thursday.
rspringston@timesdispatch.com
http://www.roanoke.com/
RICHMOND -- Lawmakers in both houses of the General Assembly outlined plans to lift Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining Thursday, and advocates of a proposed mining and milling operation in Pittsylvania County came to the Capitol to show support for the legislation.
Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, and Del. Jackson Miller, R-Manassas, said they will introduce bills to establish regulatory and licensing requirements that would apply to Virginia Uranium Inc., which hopes to mine a 119 million-pound uranium deposit at Coles Hill near Chatham. The uranium legislation likely will be one of the most contentious issues the General Assembly takes up during this year's session.
"I believe the economic studies are correct and this project would be a positive and transformational move in the right direction for prosperity and growth," said Lillian Gillespie, the former mayor of the town of Hurt.
Opponents of uranium mining held their own news conference in Richmond earlier this week, voicing concerns about the environmental and health risks associated with mining waste, or tailings, that would be stored on the site. Some opponents contend that a uranium mining operation would create a stigma in a region already struggling with high unemployment.
Watkins said his legislation would address many of those concerns.
"Nobody is interested in sacrificing the environment or public health for this," Watkins said.
Watkins and Miller are members of the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, which has commissioned studies and conducted extensive hearings on uranium mining over the past four years. The panel on Monday voted 11-2 to move ahead with developing a regulatory structure and licensing requirements for uranium mining.
Watkins' bill, still being drafted, will effectively limit uranium mining in Virginia to the Coles Hill project. The legislation would require the State Corporation Commission to issue a license before the company applies for permits from other state agencies. It also would require Virginia Uranium to store tailings in below-grade containment facilities, which the company already plans to do.
Because the bills call for SCC oversight, they likely will go to the commerce and labor committees in the House and Senate. Bills dealing with mining typically get referred to the House and Senate panels on agriculture and natural resources.
Miller touted the Coles Hill project's economic and energy potential. He said some Southside Virginia residents and some of his own constituents have wrongly accused him of trying to "force something down the throat of someone at the opposite end of the state."
Even if the General Assembly lifts the moratorium and the state establishes regulations, Miller said, uranium mining at Coles Hill "will not be done without a special-use permit by the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors."
That would occur no earlier than 2017, according to a timeline that Virginia Uranium outlined for the Coal and Energy Commission earlier this week.
Two state legislators who represent the Coles Hill site - Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, and Del. Don Merricks, R-Chatham - oppose lifting the ban. Stanley said it appears legislators from other parts of the state want to impose their will on the region.
"It kind of reminds me of what my father used to say: 'When I want your opinion, I'll tell you what it is,'" Stanley said Thursday.
Stanley said his constituent surveys indicate that residents who live near the Coles Hill site are evenly divided on the issue. Stanley said he has not been convinced that uranium tailings can be contained "without risk to the life and property of our citizens."
Beyond Southside Virginia, the uranium debate doesn't break along partisan or geographic lines. Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax County, voiced support for lifting the ban at Thursday's news conference. Earlier this week, Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, declared her opposition.
"They need jobs down there," said Saslaw, a member of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. "This economic prosperity that we have in Northern Virginia has got to be spread elsewhere, and while this will not solve all of the problems in Southside Virginia from an economic standpoint, it's certainly a start."
Stanley said uranium mining "is not the magic bullet that is going to save Southside."
"We don't have a lot of unemployed geologists down there," he said.
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/
By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 11, 2013
RICHMOND
Legislation to start the ball rolling on uranium mining at a Southside Virginia site rich with the radioactive mineral will be submitted in both chambers of the General Assembly.
The measures will be narrowly crafted to limit activity to the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County packed with a 119 million-pound deposit of the resource
Uranium looms as a dominant theme of the 2013 session; the issue divides legislators not along party lines but on issues related to the environment, quality of life and economic development.
Although South Hampton Roads is more than 200 miles from the proposed mining site, the issue is of particular concern among local leaders who fear that a major weather event could precipitate the accidental release of radioactive mining waste into waterways that feed the region's drinking water supplies.
Sponsoring the as yet unfiled bills are two legislators - Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan County, and Del. Jackson Miller, R-Manassas - who don't live near the proposed mining area but serve on the state Coal and Energy Commission, which this week voted in favor of the conceptual proposal they'll each submit.
Watkins and Miller are confident that many in the Pittsylvania community are excited about the prospect of mining, and particularly the jobs and economic jolt they believe it will deliver to a region with some of the higher unemployment rates in Virginia.
To demonstrate that, pro-mining forces pointed to dozens of locals who traveled to Richmond on Thursday to stand beside Watkins, Miller and Senate Democratic Leader Richard Saslaw of Fairfax County as they stumped for the plan.
Virginia Uranium Inc., the company that controls the Pittsylvania tract loaded with ore, has given $10,000 to Saslaw, $5,500 to Miller and $1,000 to Watkins since 2011, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics.
Among the pro-uranium locals present was Lillian Gillespie, the former mayor of the small town of Hurt, who dismissed the notion advanced by mining foes that the industry will harm the area's image.
"I think that the stigma our community currently suffers from is far worse: that is the twin stigmas of poverty and unemployment," she said.
Just as many locals, if not more, oppose efforts to lift the long-standing moratorium on mining.
"The risks far outweigh the reward that Pittsylvania County will receive, or that the state of Virginia will receive," said Del. Danny Marshall, a Danville Republican, who cited concerns about waste from milling, the process of separating uranium ore from rock, known as tailings, that would retain their radioactivity long after a mine would be decommissioned.
Watkins said his bill will specify that mining operators are liable in the event of a calamity, call on the state Board of Health to create rules to protect public health, direct the state mining agency to develop strict regulations, and create firm rules on underground storage of tailings.
Julian Walker, 804-697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
http://myfox8.com/2013/01/10/
EDEN, NC — Virginia’s General Assembly is considering lifting a moratorium on mining uranium that has been in place since 1982, and doing so could have a dramatic effect on North Carolina’s recreational waterways.
The potential mine is on a farm near Gretna and Chatham in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The company attempting to mine the ore that contains the uranium, Virginia Uranium, Inc., estimates the lode to be 119 million pounds.
VUI estimates that could bring in more than 324 jobs for Pittsylvania County and millions of dollars for the local economy.
However, many of the locals don’t support it, and an hour and a half southwest of Chatham in Eden, NC, the Dan River Basin Association definitely does not support it.
Tiffany Hawood is the executive director, and she agrees mining uranium will bring jobs to the area.
“If you’re talking about jobs for cleaning up environmental risks, then yeah, maybe,” Hawood said.
Hawood believes the mining puts the Dan and Smith Rivers, which run through Rockingham County and are popular for tubing and canoeing, at risk.
“I can’t think of one good reason to do this,” Hawood said.
North Carolina would experience the fallout of a mining disaster but has no authority to stop Virginia from getting rid of the ban.
Hawood suggested the General Assembly write and pass a strongly-worded resolution against uranium mining to try and influence Virginia’s lawmakers in Richmond.
Virginia Senator John Watkins is taking the lead on the end of the mining ban. He believes it will further economic development in the state and make Virginia more energy independent.
Opponents, however, say mining would surely follow if the 31-year ban were scrapped.
“This bill does not authorize the mining of uranium,” said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, the Senate Democratic leader. The bill would simply set up “a very stringent regulatory process for how it will be done if and when they go ahead.”
Saslaw spoke Thursday during a news conference that mining supporters held at the Capitol.
Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to mine what it says is a roughly $7 billion, 119 million-pound deposit in Pittsylvania County about 145 miles southwest of Richmond.
Even if the mining ban were lifted, the company would need approval from state, federal and county authorities, lawmakers said at the news conference.
However, the General Assembly’s vote will be the most important one in that lengthy process, said Nathan Lott, executive director of the Virginia Conservation Network, a coalition of environmental groups.
And if the legislature lifts the ban, mining will likely follow, Lott said. “You don’t create an expansive regulatory regime unless you have the intent to mine.”
Other speakers at the news conference included Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, and Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas. They plan to submit the bills to lift the ban and create the mining rules.
The legislation would allow mining only at the Virginia Uranium site. That provision could limit opposition.
In addition to a mine, Virginia Uranium would build a mill to separate the uranium from rock. That would leave behind radioactive waste that could last thousands of years.
Watkins said his legislation would, among other things, require the waste to be stored underground to minimize the risk of pollution.
Opponents fear a big storm or earthquake could release radioactive waste, tainting drinking water supplies as far away as populous South Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia.
“My bill is a sincere attempt to address (opponents’) concerns,” Watkins said.
Virginia Uranium contributed $216,650 to campaigns from 2008 through 2012, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics. Miller got $5,750 and Watkins $2,000. Both said the money had no effect on them.
“You tell me when I have been influenced by money,” Watkins said. “I don’t play that way.”
Miller said he supports the proposed mine out of his concern for property rights, energy independence and jobs.
Miller said he told Virginia Uranium, “If I found it couldn’t be done safely, they wouldn’t have my support.”
Both sides in the uranium fight have hired lobbyists, and both sides are supplementing their ranks with staffers from advocacy groups that also lobby the General Assembly.
About 70 mining supporters, mostly from Southside Virginia, joined the legislators at the news conference Thursday.
rspringston@timesdispatch.com
http://www.roanoke.com/
Legislators make case for uranium mining
A state senator and a delegate plan to introduce bills that would apply to Virginia Uranium Inc.
By Michael SlussRICHMOND -- Lawmakers in both houses of the General Assembly outlined plans to lift Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining Thursday, and advocates of a proposed mining and milling operation in Pittsylvania County came to the Capitol to show support for the legislation.
Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, and Del. Jackson Miller, R-Manassas, said they will introduce bills to establish regulatory and licensing requirements that would apply to Virginia Uranium Inc., which hopes to mine a 119 million-pound uranium deposit at Coles Hill near Chatham. The uranium legislation likely will be one of the most contentious issues the General Assembly takes up during this year's session.
"I believe the economic studies are correct and this project would be a positive and transformational move in the right direction for prosperity and growth," said Lillian Gillespie, the former mayor of the town of Hurt.
Opponents of uranium mining held their own news conference in Richmond earlier this week, voicing concerns about the environmental and health risks associated with mining waste, or tailings, that would be stored on the site. Some opponents contend that a uranium mining operation would create a stigma in a region already struggling with high unemployment.
Watkins said his legislation would address many of those concerns.
"Nobody is interested in sacrificing the environment or public health for this," Watkins said.
Watkins and Miller are members of the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, which has commissioned studies and conducted extensive hearings on uranium mining over the past four years. The panel on Monday voted 11-2 to move ahead with developing a regulatory structure and licensing requirements for uranium mining.
Watkins' bill, still being drafted, will effectively limit uranium mining in Virginia to the Coles Hill project. The legislation would require the State Corporation Commission to issue a license before the company applies for permits from other state agencies. It also would require Virginia Uranium to store tailings in below-grade containment facilities, which the company already plans to do.
Because the bills call for SCC oversight, they likely will go to the commerce and labor committees in the House and Senate. Bills dealing with mining typically get referred to the House and Senate panels on agriculture and natural resources.
Miller touted the Coles Hill project's economic and energy potential. He said some Southside Virginia residents and some of his own constituents have wrongly accused him of trying to "force something down the throat of someone at the opposite end of the state."
Even if the General Assembly lifts the moratorium and the state establishes regulations, Miller said, uranium mining at Coles Hill "will not be done without a special-use permit by the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors."
That would occur no earlier than 2017, according to a timeline that Virginia Uranium outlined for the Coal and Energy Commission earlier this week.
Two state legislators who represent the Coles Hill site - Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, and Del. Don Merricks, R-Chatham - oppose lifting the ban. Stanley said it appears legislators from other parts of the state want to impose their will on the region.
"It kind of reminds me of what my father used to say: 'When I want your opinion, I'll tell you what it is,'" Stanley said Thursday.
Stanley said his constituent surveys indicate that residents who live near the Coles Hill site are evenly divided on the issue. Stanley said he has not been convinced that uranium tailings can be contained "without risk to the life and property of our citizens."
Beyond Southside Virginia, the uranium debate doesn't break along partisan or geographic lines. Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax County, voiced support for lifting the ban at Thursday's news conference. Earlier this week, Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, declared her opposition.
"They need jobs down there," said Saslaw, a member of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. "This economic prosperity that we have in Northern Virginia has got to be spread elsewhere, and while this will not solve all of the problems in Southside Virginia from an economic standpoint, it's certainly a start."
Stanley said uranium mining "is not the magic bullet that is going to save Southside."
"We don't have a lot of unemployed geologists down there," he said.
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/
By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 11, 2013
RICHMOND
Legislation to start the ball rolling on uranium mining at a Southside Virginia site rich with the radioactive mineral will be submitted in both chambers of the General Assembly.
The measures will be narrowly crafted to limit activity to the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County packed with a 119 million-pound deposit of the resource
Uranium looms as a dominant theme of the 2013 session; the issue divides legislators not along party lines but on issues related to the environment, quality of life and economic development.
Although South Hampton Roads is more than 200 miles from the proposed mining site, the issue is of particular concern among local leaders who fear that a major weather event could precipitate the accidental release of radioactive mining waste into waterways that feed the region's drinking water supplies.
Sponsoring the as yet unfiled bills are two legislators - Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan County, and Del. Jackson Miller, R-Manassas - who don't live near the proposed mining area but serve on the state Coal and Energy Commission, which this week voted in favor of the conceptual proposal they'll each submit.
Watkins and Miller are confident that many in the Pittsylvania community are excited about the prospect of mining, and particularly the jobs and economic jolt they believe it will deliver to a region with some of the higher unemployment rates in Virginia.
To demonstrate that, pro-mining forces pointed to dozens of locals who traveled to Richmond on Thursday to stand beside Watkins, Miller and Senate Democratic Leader Richard Saslaw of Fairfax County as they stumped for the plan.
Virginia Uranium Inc., the company that controls the Pittsylvania tract loaded with ore, has given $10,000 to Saslaw, $5,500 to Miller and $1,000 to Watkins since 2011, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics.
Among the pro-uranium locals present was Lillian Gillespie, the former mayor of the small town of Hurt, who dismissed the notion advanced by mining foes that the industry will harm the area's image.
"I think that the stigma our community currently suffers from is far worse: that is the twin stigmas of poverty and unemployment," she said.
Just as many locals, if not more, oppose efforts to lift the long-standing moratorium on mining.
"The risks far outweigh the reward that Pittsylvania County will receive, or that the state of Virginia will receive," said Del. Danny Marshall, a Danville Republican, who cited concerns about waste from milling, the process of separating uranium ore from rock, known as tailings, that would retain their radioactivity long after a mine would be decommissioned.
Watkins said his bill will specify that mining operators are liable in the event of a calamity, call on the state Board of Health to create rules to protect public health, direct the state mining agency to develop strict regulations, and create firm rules on underground storage of tailings.
Julian Walker, 804-697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
http://myfox8.com/2013/01/10/
EDEN, NC — Virginia’s General Assembly is considering lifting a moratorium on mining uranium that has been in place since 1982, and doing so could have a dramatic effect on North Carolina’s recreational waterways.
The potential mine is on a farm near Gretna and Chatham in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The company attempting to mine the ore that contains the uranium, Virginia Uranium, Inc., estimates the lode to be 119 million pounds.
VUI estimates that could bring in more than 324 jobs for Pittsylvania County and millions of dollars for the local economy.
However, many of the locals don’t support it, and an hour and a half southwest of Chatham in Eden, NC, the Dan River Basin Association definitely does not support it.
Tiffany Hawood is the executive director, and she agrees mining uranium will bring jobs to the area.
“If you’re talking about jobs for cleaning up environmental risks, then yeah, maybe,” Hawood said.
Hawood believes the mining puts the Dan and Smith Rivers, which run through Rockingham County and are popular for tubing and canoeing, at risk.
“I can’t think of one good reason to do this,” Hawood said.
North Carolina would experience the fallout of a mining disaster but has no authority to stop Virginia from getting rid of the ban.
Hawood suggested the General Assembly write and pass a strongly-worded resolution against uranium mining to try and influence Virginia’s lawmakers in Richmond.
Virginia Senator John Watkins is taking the lead on the end of the mining ban. He believes it will further economic development in the state and make Virginia more energy independent.
