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Opponents of uranium mining have made their voices heard in Virginia. Steve Helber/ASSOCIATED PRESS View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place |
Date published: 1/27/2013
Associated Press
CHATHAM
--The rolling fields of Coles Hill were once full of tobacco. Along with furniture and textiles, the leaf sustained farmers, blue-collar workers and families in this part of Virginia's Southside.All three industries are in decline now, and the region typically leads the state in unemployment. But something beneath the fields--something you can't see--could be Southside's salvation.
Uranium--enough to power every nuclear power plant in the U.S. for 2 years--lies under these fields where dozens of black-and-white Angus-Hereford beef cattle were grazing on a gray, drizzly winter day.
Geologist Patrick M. Wales walked the field's fence line with a Geiger counter to illustrate what hundreds of jobs sound like. He stooped to clear layers of wet leaves from a culvert, then cradled the detector in the middle of the trough he made. The instrument that had rhythmically clicked like a cicada seconds before now emitted a steady, piercing shriek.
The deposit runs deep, about 1,500 feet. "This is really one of the areas where it just happens to pop up to the surface," Wales said.
The ore detected by the Geiger counter is the tip of an iceberg that is the largest known uranium deposit in the United States and among the largest in the world.
Now a company's bid to mine the 119 million pounds of the radioactive ore has churned up the political landscape in Virginia. Virginia's General Assembly is taking up the fiercely debated issue this session and it's a coin flip whether it will clear the way for the state to become the first on the East Coast to mine uranium.
Most uranium mining in the U.S. has occurred in the arid West. Virginia is prone to tropical tempests--some of historic proportions--and opponents fear a catastrophic storm could create an environmental nightmare if the mining and processing of the ore is allowed. Drenching rains and winds could carry radioactive waste to local waters that are used for drinking supplies in the state's largest city, Virginia Beach, and others in southeastern Virginia, they argue.
"We're looking at an extraordinary high-stakes gamble and it's not a gamble the state of Virginia should take," said Cale Jaffe, director of the Charlottesville office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.
It's not the mining that stirs the most concern, but the so-called milling--the separation of the ore from hard rock.