nuclear-news

Keep uranium mining ban – Virginia Municipal League and Virginia Association of Counties

2 statewide groups back Va. uranium ban, CBS News 16 Nov 12 RICHMOND, Va. — Two groupsrepresenting hundreds of Virginia cities, counties and towns are recommending that the General Assembly keep a 30-year ban on uranium mining in place.

The Virginia Municipal League cites concerns about health and environmental issues related uranium mining, milling and disposal of radioactive-laced rock, while the Virginia Association of Counties wants the ban to stick “pending further study.”

The league represents all 39 cities, 157 towns and 10 counties, while the association represents the state’s 95 counties.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s a risk that our members are not willing to live with,” Joe Lerch, director of environmental policy, said Thursday of uranium mining. He said the position was unanimously endorsed by its members….. Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium
mining since 1982 but a mining company is lobbying to have the General
Assembly lift the ban so it can mine a 119-million-pound deposit in
Pittsylvania County along the North Carolina line….
In outlying its opposition, the Municipal League sides with the fears
expressed by opponents.

“Uranium mining, milling and waste disposal of generated wastes poses
health and environmental problems for Virginians,” the league states
in its policy position. It also expresses concerns that “radiation and
other pollutants from mill tailings” would contaminate water supplies
and about the health and safety of mine workers.

Lerch said Municipal League members are concerned not only with the
prospect of contamination, but also the stigma uranium mining and its
economic impacts. He said that fear is particularly felt in Hampton
Roads, where Virginia Beach and other localities draw water from
Southside Virginia, but also localities near the uranium deposit.

“Would people be willing to go to Virginia Beach for the holiday if
they thought there’s something wrong with the water there?” he asked.
In Southside, he said, “Would this hurt their real estate interests in
that area? Would a company want to locate there?”

A National Academy of Sciences study issued last December concluded
Virginia faced “steep hurdles” to regulate uranium mining to ensure
the protection of the environment and public health. Gov. Bob
McDonnell asked the 2012 General Assembly to delay any action on
lifting the ban so he could have a multi-agency state panel review the
NAS report and various other aspects of uranium mining, including an
examination of what regulatory controls the state would need to
oversee a uranium mining industry.

The Uranium Working Group is expected to deliver its report in
December. It will not include a recommendation on whether the ban
should be lifted.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57551099/2-statewide-groups-back-va-uranium-ban/

November 17, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Uranium, USA