Published: November 6, 2008
A study will be undertaken to determine whether uranium can be safely mined in Virginia.
The Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy voted unanimously Thursday to proceed with the study.
Delegate Danny Marshall, R-Danville, said he attended the meeting, along with Delegate Don Merricks, R-Pittsylvania County, and asked the commission to broaden the study to include the health, economic and social impact such mining would have in Southside.
“It’s about more than just digging a hole and getting uranium out,” Marshall said after the meeting. “What happens to real estate values? What impact will it have on Chatham Hall and Hargrave enrollment? What impact will it have on health now, 30 years from now, 300 years from now — here and downstream?”
Marshall said he also encouraged the commission to have pre-study public hearings in Pittsylvania County, where the mining would take place, so the people who will be directly affected can provide questions they want to see answered by the study.
“I think we may need two studies,” Marshall said. “One to look at the mining of it, and second to study the social, health and economic impact.”
Marshall said about 20 people from Pittsylvania and Halifax counties were at the meeting in Richmond.
Jack Dunavant, chairman of Southside Concerned Citizens, said the decision to proceed with the study did not surprise him.
“I think it’s probably going to be a setup,” Dunavant said. “It (the study) will come back and say it’s safe, when everyone knows it isn’t. I don’t think it will be a fair and impartial study.”
Dunavant said uranium mining has never been done in an area as populated as Pittsylvania County, and that it would affect every facet of life in the region.
“We’ve been through this before, in the 80s when they put the moratorium in,” he said. “We need to put this to rest for good.”
Walter Coles, of Virginia Uranium Inc., said he is pleased the study is going forward.
“It’s the right way to go,” Coles said. “This points it in the right direction, to the scientific community.”
Coles said he understands that the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech will handle setting up the scope of the study and will negotiate with the National Academy of Sciences to do the actual study.
Marshall said he expects the study to take a year or two to complete, and then the findings have to come before the Gen-eral Assembly.
“The moratorium can only be lifted by the General Assembly; the governor would have to pass it, too,” Marshall said. “The commission is only advisory. It has no legislative power to lift the moratorium; it can only make recommendations.”
Contact Denice Thibodeau at dthibodeau@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7985.
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