If anyone doubts that low-level radioactive dust, from uranium mining and milling, would not drift to Chatham and Danville, they should consider the heavy, acrid smoke that blew in over our area this past Thursday. The source? Smoke-filled winds from wildfires in the N.C. Outer Banks and Suffolk, VA.
With visible, smoked-filled skies, folks were wise to stay inside their homes to avoid breathing in the particulate-laden smoke while it remained heavy in the area-- making the state's Air Quality Index's level of yellow, second of a six-level color chart.
Question: Where do folks go to escape low-level radioactive dust that will be in the atmosphere for the next 30 years? Virginia Uranium, Inc. has given this estimate of time it will mine and mill uranium on the Coles Hill Farm near Chatham, VA. Sadly, the low-level radioactive dust created by open-pit uranium mining (through successive TNT blasts) and milling (the grinding of mined rock into a powdery state for ore extraction) will create a continuous dust fallout--a low-level radioactive fallout, carried by the winds, onto food and water sources and into the airways of man and all other animal life. It is known that sufficient exposure (I consider 30 years to be a long exposure period) to low-level radioactive waste materials has been shown to increase the risk of cancer and other illnesses. To quote one source: "While uranium mining is most commonly associated with cancer, low level radiation is also implicated in birth defects, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses." ( http://www.anawa.org.au/mining/problems.html)
At least with the smoke from the wildfires, folks could recognize the potential health hazard and stay indoors until the smoke had dissipated. The potential health hazards attributable to low-level radioactive-laden dust, from a uranium mining and milling facility, operating over a 30-year span, would be much harder to detect because its radioactivity is odorless, colorless and tasteless. The true health effects will come years later when it is too late to undo the damage.
Question: Do we really want to expose our beautiful state and our loved ones to the potential health hazards caused by a uranium mining and milling facility? VUI would have us believe there is no danger--don't believe it!
Anne Cockrell
Southside Concerned Citizens Member
Southside Concerned Citizens Member
Danville, Virginia
1 comment:
I posed this same question to someone from Southside who wrote and told me of the fires and the smoke. "What if it were radon and not smoke?"
Were it radon, it wouldn't have been seen or smelled...it would just been out there waiting for the next pair of vulnerable lungs in which to reside. Waiting for water or vegetation to land on to be consumed. Waiting for the next flower to be sniffed, cut and taken indoors. Children and adults alike, taking advantage of the summer weather, would be outside playing, gardening, boating, swimming, etc...and becoming contaminated unwittingly.
And for those uranium proponents who claim that no one west or north of Southside would be affected, pay attention to where the wildfires are burning. If my memory serves correctly, Southside is west and north of the Outer Banks and west of Suffolk. Uranium tailings would eventually affect everyone.
You've hit the nail on the head, Anne...danger lurks everywhere but especially in mined uranium. The uranium must stay in the ground.
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