Uranium mining in Virginia?

A company that wants to mine radioactive uranium in rural Virginiasuccessfully lobbied a state commission for a study of thematter after the legislature refused over public health concerns.

Membersof the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission unanimously approved a motion [pdf] last month asking the Virginia Center forCoal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech to join with the NationalAcademy of Sciences "or other comparable scientific or academicinstitutions" to study the impact of uranium mining in the state. Themotion also calls for public hearings on the practice, which Virginiahas banned for the past 25 years.

The study was requested by Virginia Uranium, a privately heldcompany seeking to overturn the state ban so it can mine and milluranium for nuclear power plants on a 200-acre site near the farming community of Coles Hill in Virginia's Pittsylvania County. Thesite lies just north of the City of Danville, Va. and near theborder with North Carolina's Rockingham and Caswell counties.

Formed two years ago, Virginia Uranium belongs mostly -- 78% -- tothe Coles and Bowen families that own the farmland where the uraniumwas found three decades ago. Private investors hold another 12% of thecompany, while employees, managers and directors own 10%.

The Pittsylvania County site is believed to represent the largestundeveloped uranium deposit in the United States and the seventhlargest in the world. It holds an estimated 60,000 tons -- enoughuranium to power all the commercial nuclear power plants in the countryfor about two years.

The company estimates the ore's long-term value at about $10 billion.

COMPANY CONTRIBUTED TO COMMISSION MEMBERS WHO OK'D STUDY

DemocraticGov. Tim Kaine supports a uranium mining study, which also won theapproval of the state's Democratic-controlled Senate. But the Republican-ledHouse defeated the proposal after hearing the concerns of a GOPdelegate who represents constituents that get their drinking water fromthe targeted area.

As the Washington Post observes, Virginialawmakers' comfort with uranium mining seems to increase with theirdistance from it:

The issuedivided legislators along geographic lines rather than partisan ones.Many who represent areas where uranium has been found or whose drinkingwater could be affected voted against it, and many from other regions,including Northern Virginia, voted for it. The Coles Hill area suppliesdrinking water locally and to parts of Hampton Roads and North Carolina.

Virginia Uranium has vigorously lobbied state legislators to support thestudy. During the last legislative session, the company paid almost$100,000 to 15 lobbyists to try to get the uranium mining studyapproved, according to the Virginia Public AccessProject. When those efforts didn't work, the company pursuedthe study through the Coal and Energy Commission, whose members areappointed by the state House and Senate leadership and the governor.

Several members of the commission that approved the study alsoreceived campaign contributions from Virginia Uranium, VPAP data shows. TheCommission's vice chair, state Sen. John Watkins of Richmond, got$1,000 on June 11. Other commission members who took contributions fromthe company were state Senate President Pro Tem Charles Colgan ofManassas ($1,000 on June 30), Sen. Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach($2,000 on June 10), and Delegate Timothy Hugo of Fairfax County (two$500 installments on Jan. 4 and Jan. 8).

In all, Virginia Uranium contributed almost $30,000 to Virginia state legislators this year.

A LEGACY OF DISEASE AND DEATH

Companyofficials say they believe the Pittsylvania County uranium can be minedsafely. Other proponents of the plan have gone so far as to dismissworries about uranium mining as exaggerated. They include Max Schulz, asenior fellow with the free-market Manhattan Institute and a formerspeechwriter for U.S. Energy Secretaries Samuel Bodman and SpencerAbraham, who penned an opinion piece for the Wall StreetJournal in which he called uranium mining "relatively harmless":

Handled properly, the yellowcakethat is extracted is no more hazardous than regular household chemicals(and unlike coal, it won't smolder and combust).

James Kelly,who directed the nuclear engineering program at the University ofVirginia for many years, says that fears about uranium mining arewildly overblown. "It's an aesthetic nightmare, but otherwise safe interms of releasing any significant radioactivity or pollution," he toldme. "It would be ugly to look at, but from the perspective of anyhazard I wouldn't mind if they mined across the street from me."

But the record shows that uranium mining is not asenvironmentally benign as Schulz would have us believe. While it's truethat the yellowcake ore is not as radioactive as processeduranium, the way in which it's extracted from the earth and turnedinto a useable product has a record of creating serious health problems for miners as well as nearby communities, including:

* Chromosome abnormalities in residents of KarnesCounty, Texas, where uranium was mined commercially starting in the1950s;

* An increase in birth defects in babiesborn to mothers who lived near a uranium mine waste dump in New Mexico;

* Excess risk of cancer mortality in communities near uranium mills in Spain; and

* An increase in lung cancer risk for residents living near uranium mines in Germany.

Uraniummining also presents a serious threat to drinking water, as illustratedby the disaster that took place at Church Rock, N.M. in1979, just 14 weeks after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.

OnJuly 16 of that year, at a uranium mining and milling complex owned bythe Virginia-based United Nuclear Corporation, a state-of-the-art damholding uranium mining waste burst, sending more than 1,100 tons ofthe toxic discards known as "tailings" and 90 million gallons ofcontaminated liquid into the Rio Puerco River. Once an importantdrinking water source for nearby Navajo communities, the river remainsdangerously contaminated today.

Uranium mining's impact on drinking water is a concern for Virginiaas well -- especially given a climate far wetter than the desertSouthwest. In Virginia Beach, for example, officials recently announced their opposition to the mining plan overconcerns that a tropical storm or hurricane could breach the mine wasteimpoundments, polluting downstream waterways including Lake Gaston, thecity's drinking water source.

Environmental groups also oppose the uranium mining plans forVirginia. They include the Southern Environmental Law Center, PiedmontEnvironmental Council, Southside Concerned Citizens, the VirginiaConservation Network and the Sierra Club.

(Map showing location of proposed uranium mine from Virginia Uranium's website)