Missouri's Chernobyl: Bootheel Uranium Mining Poses Real Safety Threat

As does Virginia's possible Chernobyl...

01/05/2009

The current uranium mining/exploration operation in the Bootheel is similar to Chernobyl on two points:

-- Both places, the Ukraine and the Delta Counties of Missouri, have some of the best agricultural soils in the world. The area around Chernobyl never again can be used in humanity's lifespan.

-- The Mississippi County area has the potential to end up in the same boat because in situ leaching will cross both the St. Francis and Ozark aquifers, potentially forever contaminating them with uranium as well as other heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and arsenic. Those minerals are also found in Missouri's bedrock limestone. That water is used for irrigation and potentially could spread heavy metals, including uranium, all over the Bootheel.

Further, no place that has experienced uranium mining or processing has stayed free of contamination, corporate malfeasance and government mishandling. Few laws, if any, regulate mining in Missouri or anywhere in the United States. The Bush administration has weakened whatever laws were on the books, and agencies such as the Mine Safety Health Administration are so under-funded and under-staffed that enforcement is a joke.

Rocky Flats, Hanford, Fernald, Oakridge, Savannah River, Paducah, Lambert Airport, the Missouri Bottoms and Weldon Spring, among others, are blatant proof that human beings are incapable of managing uranium and its processing without contaminating air, water and soil.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/bb40d32209b17f1e86257532007e4c23?OpenDocument