Beach Senator Introduces Mine Industry's Bill

(From the Lynchburg News and Advance 01/11/2008)



“Six politicians and nine people appointed by a governor who is pro-uranium mining, come on, give me a break,” Dunavant said.


Bill to study uranium mining introduced in Legislature

By RAY REED

RICHMOND - A 15-member panel would study the risks and benefits of mining uranium in Pittsylvania County and elsewhere in Virginia if the General Assembly approves a bill filed this week.
The study proposal has been in the works since last summer. Plans for a study were announced by Walter Coles, who owns most of the land north of Chatham where a $10 billion uranium deposit led him to form Virginia Uranium Inc.
Coles, neighbor Henry Bowen, and other local owners and partners established the company last year.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, would establish a Virginia Uranium Mining Commission, with the task of determining whether “uranium mining and milling in Virginia can be undertaken in a manner that will safeguard the Commonwealth’s environment, natural and historic resources, agricultural lands, and the health and well-being of its
citizens.”
The Richmond lobbying firm Vectre Inc., with six agents, is representing Virginia Uranium’s effort to win approval of the study. The bill’s cosponsors include Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Springfield, and the Democratic caucus chairwoman, Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple of Arlington.
The study commission would include six state legislators, officials of three state agencies, and six citizens with technical expertise appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. The commission would exist for three years and file annual reports to the legislature. It could hire outside experts from state universities or the National Academy of Sciences.
The study panel’s makeup did not impress Jack Dunavant, leader of a citizens’ group that opposes mining.
“Six politicians and nine people appointed by a governor who is pro-uranium mining, come on, give me a break,” Dunavant said.
The bill mentions the state energy plan Kaine proposed last year, which included provisions to explore energy sources, including uranium. The state’s energy plan was based on legislation that Wagner sponsored in the assembly two years ago.
“This is just another attempt by these people to ram uranium down our throats by Virginia Uranium and its Canadian investors,” said Dunavant.
“That is absolutely, absolutely untrue,” Coles responded. “The company is owned 76 percent by the Coles and Bowen families, and 10 percent by employees. The rest is owned by 31 Virginians and some institutional investors.”
Henry Bowen farms the adjacent land where some of the uranium is located. His four siblings share in the farm ownership.
Dunavant asserted there is Canadian ownership.
“The Canadian owners of Virginia Uranium are trying to make us a sacrifice like what was done out on the Four Corners area of (the American West) where they mined in World War II for uranium to make the bomb,” Dunavant said. “That place laid open and festered, and it’s been declared by the federal government a sacrifice zone and nobody is allowed to go in.
“This stuff is forever and we better be ready and willing to fight and I think we are,” said Dunavant. The group he heads, Southside Concerned Citizens, announced several weeks ago that it opposes even a study of mining.
“We’re going to let the General Assembly know that. We’re going to e-mail them, and we’re going to Richmond if they’ll give us time to be heard,” Dunavant said. “But it looks like this thing is on a fast track. It’s so well thought out and so well-planned, and people are being taken by surprise.”
He added that the company, along with state officials, don’t want public debate on the issue.
“The findings need to be subject to public review and peer review, and I don’t think they want that,” Dunvant said. “I think you’re going to have mobs in the street down here if they really try to pull it off that way. We’re not going to let anybody come in here and do that to our county and section of the state.”