Hearing Coming on Uranium

(Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)By Rex Springston, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

Dec. 13--The public will get a chance next month to suggest how uranium mining should be studied.

A state panel organizing a study decided yesterday to hold a hearing in Pittsylvania County in early January.

The panel, a subcommittee of the Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy, did not set a date during the group's meeting in the General Assembly Building.

Virginia Uranium Inc., formed by landowners who want to mine uranium in Pittsylvania, says about 110 million pounds of the ore, worth about $8 billion, lie underground there.

Opponents fear the mining would pollute streams and farms.

The study could cost up to $1.5 million and last up to 18 months. The panel hopes the National Academy of Sciences will do the work.

Now, however, the panel is trying to determine exactly what to study.

Speakers yesterday asked for a fair, detailed study into such issues as mining's effects on people's safety and property.

Norm Reynolds, president of Virginia Uranium, asked the panel to "separate science and facts from the fear-mongering and rumor which we hear."

Katherine Mull, executive director of the Dan River Basin Association, a river-protection group, said, "We need to understand how pollutants are transported by air or water," among other concerns.

Uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants. Virginia has banned uranium mining since the early 1980s.

The Virginia Beach City Council voted Dec. 2 in support of maintaining that ban.

Much of the water serving Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake comes from Lake Gaston, which lies downstream from the proposed mine.

"Because of water sharing during droughts, some of the Lake Gaston water ends up in all five cites of southeastern Virginia, and that's about a million people," Virginia Beach Public Utilities Director Thomas Leahy told the panel.

Virginia Beach leaders do not want to see the mining ban lifted "unless they have a reasonable degree of certainty there would be no release of radioactive sediments downstream," Leahy said.

Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or rspringston@timesdispatch.com.

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