a major effort now underway to lift the state’s three-decade-long ban on uranium mining. The ban was first put in place after tests showed a Pittsylvania uranium deposit beneath the small town of Chatham in the southern part of the state could contain about 119 million pounds of the radioactive mineral, which is used to supply nuclear power plants. Studies also showed that mining the site would generate about 29 tons of waste, which could endanger life in the region for centuries.
Well, the ban went unchallenged until recently, when the cost of uranium began to rise. Now the company that owns the deposit wants to develop it. During the lead-up to a failed effort to lift the ban in the 2012 legislative cycle, Virginia Uranium, Inc., spent at least $300,000 lobbying lawmakers.
Robert Burnley talking:
What’s going on here in Virginia, is an experiment. Uranium has never been mined and never been processed in this part of the country before. It’s always been done in the arid southwestern part of the country, where it doesn’t rain and there are no people. In Virginia there are fewer people.
In Virginia, the opposite is true. We get over 40 inches of rain—excuse me. We’re subject to severe weather events. Hurricanes are very common. We have tornadoes on a regular basis. And we experienced a level 6 earthquake last year for the first time in a long time. We were told in the past that Virginia didn’t have earthquakes. So, this has never been done in that type of environment before, in a wet environment. And there are a lot of people that depend on water for drinking and other uses.
Virginia Uranium is a—it was founded by the owner of this uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County. There’s been some corporate structure changes recently, and I can’t really describe exactly everything that’s going on. But it’s—Virginia Uranium is mostly owned by Canadian companies that have some familiarity with uranium mining and processing. Of course, no one in Virginia does, because it’s never been done before.
What’s going to happen, if uranium is mined, and especially if uranium is processed in Virginia, there are a huge amount of waste that’s generated. When uranium—when the uranium, the yellowcake, is taken and marketed, 85 percent of the radioactivity remains in the waste products. Those products are just—are buried, and they’re buried in facilities very much like we store municipal solid waste: hole in the ground, plastic liner, fill it up with this toxic, radioactive waste, cover it over for thousands of years, and hope nothing happens. We have, as I said, a lot of rain and severe weather in Virginia. And to think that these facilities would withstand those types of stresses is just ludicrous.
The fact of the matter is, it’s never been done in a positive water balance area before, in a wet environment. It’s an experiment. We don’t know how to regulate it. We don’t know how to design the facilities. And we don’t know how to manage the wastes.
– source democracynow.org
Bob Burnley is former director of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality. He served 32 years in the Virginia government, now an environmental consultant to the statewide coalition, Keep the Ban.