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Don’t add radioactive tailings to already polluted streams

What would the mining activities of two huge open-pit uranium mines, with a reported possible third mine at Coles Hill, do to the streams and rivers of Southside Virginia over the proposed mining span of 30 years?

Study links stream pollution to higher cancer rates, Star Tribune, , April 27, 2010 Researchers at West Virginia University and Virginia Tech now have the study findings to show a causal link between West Virginia streams, those polluted by coal mining activities, and premature cancer deaths in the humans who live near them.

Now, just for the sake of argument, let’s toss in mountains of low-level radioactive uranium tailings/wastes, a uranium mill and a chemical plant at Coles Hill, near Chatham, Virginia.(Chemicals, either large amounts of an acid or base, will be needed to leach the uranium ore out of the mined rock and soil.)

What would the mining activities of two huge open-pit uranium mines, with a reported possible third mine at Coles Hill, do to the streams and rivers of Southside Virginia over the proposed mining span of 30 years?

How many more studies have to be done to show a causal link between mining activities and environmental damage?This study found not only damage to the ecosystems around polluted streams where coal mining has occurred, but it also found a causal link between humans living near these polluted streams and premature deaths by cancer.

One has to ask: Does “premature deaths by cancer” sound like a reversible condition? One you can mitigate? WWW.WPCVA.COM

April 29, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, water | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, reactors, uranium, water