Members of the Virginia Beach City Council are poised tonight to call for a continued ban on uranium mining in Virginia until independent research shows that radioactive particles from the operation won't contaminate South Hampton Roads' major water supplier.
They are reacting responsibly to last month's end run around the General Assembly by the Coal and Energy Commission to study the possibility of mining uranium from Pittsylvania County, upstream from Lake Gaston, the water supply for Virginia Beach and much of Chesapeake.
The study, rejected by the legislature in March, will look at whether more than 60,000 tons of uranium can be safely mined from what is believed to be the nation's largest undeveloped uranium deposit.
Proponents say the alternative energy source - discovered 30 years ago - is enough fuel for all of the country's nuclear power plants for about two years. But before tapping into it, Virginia would have to repeal its ban on uranium mining, enacted in 1983. The first step is to determine whether the government can prevent the myriad problems of other uranium mining operations from happening in Virginia. The commission approved that study last month.
Decades ago, Virginia Beach's council twice went on record opposing uranium mining. The council's main concern now is whether the radioactive byproducts of mining can be confined, especially in a state with high rainfall, rather than being carried downstream to Lake Gaston. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's laws have been considerably strengthened in the past 25 years, but they haven't been tested in a place that receives 44 inches of rain a year. And if a major storm hit south-central Virginia with similar force to the storms that damaged Nelson County in 1969 or Madison County in 1995, Hampton Roads' water supply could be jeopardized.
This isn't an issue divided along party lines. Del. Clark Hogan, a Charlotte County Republican whose districts gets some of its drinking water from the area, vigorously opposes it. Del. Terry Kilgore, the Republican chairman of the Coal and Energy Commission, is pushing for it.
Virginia Beach's resolution is cautious and acknowledges the benefits of thorough, wide-ranging research by a group unconnected to the mining industry. But as the council notes, the study by the National Academy of Sciences and the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research must be transparent, reviewed by environmental, public health and water supply agencies and put the health and safety of the public above all other considerations.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/precaution-needed-uranium-mining-near-lake-gaston
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