|
|
CHARLOTTESVILLE
--For 30 years, Virginia has maintained a statutory ban on uranium mining. Now, one company, Virginia Uranium Inc., is seeking to repeal it. The company proposes to ship uranium "yellowcake" out of state. What would be left behind in Virginia is waste--millions of tons of it to manage in perpetuity."Virginia is for lovers of radioactive waste disposal" is not a winning tourism slogan. Many Virginians, including those outside of the environmental community, are concerned. The Virginia NAACP unanimously passed a resolution to support keeping our ban against uranium mining. The Virginia Municipal League has adopted a similar position for 2012. The Virginia Farm Bureau supports keeping the ban until after studies have been thoroughly evaluated.
Individual localities--from Virginia Beach to Roanoke, from Halifax County to Rappahannock County--have all enacted resolutions opposing uranium mining in Virginia.
The National Academy of Sciences is studying the prospect, with a report due out this month. The Academy's overall project, however, won't be complete for several more months. Our state's contract with the Academy calls for "a 5-month period after public release and delivery of the report to allow for extensive public outreach that will include public meetings in Virginia to disseminate the report's findings."
Virginia Uranium isn't waiting. It's pushing to lift the ban now--before the National Academy completes its work. The company has hired five lobbying or public relations firms and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to press its agenda. Recently, it flew more than a dozen legislators to France.
With worries emanating from so many diverse communities, why are uranium lobbyists trying to muscle legislation through now? Perhaps because they know that the more Virginians study the issue, the greater our concerns become.
When Virginians look to France, we see significant problems that have persisted for decades. One French laboratory found contamination at every mine it studied. Samples taken downstream from Les Bois Noirs mine,
In Colorado, a Cotter Corp. mill has been leaking for 30 years, despite repeated efforts to address the problem. The mill was declared a Superfund site in the 1980s, but a 2004 report found that it continued to release "millions of gallons of leachate into the environment each year." Cleanup was estimated to cost anywhere from $50 million to $500 million.
The picture is no better
All of this might make you wonder about sites closer to home. Has uranium been mined near Virginia, or in a place where hurricanes could flood waste disposal sites? According to Virginia Tech geochemistry professor Robert Bodnar, open-pit or underground uranium mining has never occurred east of the Mississippi. The industry, however, points to Florida, where uranium was extracted as a by-product of phosphate mining. The comparison is not reassuring.
In 1997, a spill at one Florida phosphate mine released 50 million gallons of wastewater, poisoning 35 miles of the Alafia River and killing up to 3 million fish. When that corporation declared bankruptcy in 2001, it left the state holding the bag on another contaminated site. The cleanup of the second disaster cost taxpayers $144 million.
The industry also points to Louisiana, where, as in Florida, uranium was recovered at phosphate mines. Again, the reference is not comforting. From 1990 to 1994, two Louisiana plants--the Saint James and Uncle Sam facilities--dumped more than 540 million pounds of toxic waste into the Mississippi River. In 1991 alone, those plants were responsible for 130 million pounds of contaminated runoff--helping to give Louisiana the unsavory honor of leading the nation in toxic releases for the year.
Given this legacy of contamination, it's understandable why voices outside of the environmental community are calling for a go-slow approach.
Cale Jaffe is a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center and a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law.