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Activists warn US lawmakers of uranium mining perils

Activists warn US lawmakers of uranium mining perils
18 hours WASHINGTON (AFP) 1 March 09 — A French physicist and a US actor have joined representatives of indigenous peoples from Africa, Australia and the United States to send US lawmakers a stark warning about the dangers of uranium mining.”We want US lawmakers to understand that uranium mining is highly pollutant and that there is currently no scientific answer to the question of radioactive waste containment,” Bruno Chareyron of France’s CRIIRAD laboratory, which measures radioactivity in the environment, told AFP Friday.”We want them to know that the information they are given by the mining companies is not wholly reliable,” he said.Representatives of the Tuareg nomads of Niger, Native Americans and Australian aborigines told of the ravages of uranium mining on their communities.In Niger, French company Areva has been mining uranium for more than 40 years with “no regard for the environment, people’s health, animals,” Sidi-Amar Taoua, a Tuareg who has lived for seven years in the United States, told AFP……………………….. Native American environmental activist Manny Pino.

“In this process of nuclear renaissance, it’s almost like the federal government is ignoring the historical legacy of uranium mining in the past and prioritizing the economic benefits of nuclear power in the future at the expense of our land, our water and our people,” he said.

Mitch, an aboriginal militant against radioactive waste dumps and uranium mining in Australia, currently the world’s biggest producer of the mineral, said: “Short term monetary gain will leave us with long-term deadly waste for generations to come.”

AFP: Activists warn US lawmakers of uranium mining perils

March 2, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized