Who Gave Them The Right? The Right to Decide is Invested In 'We, the People'

Published: January 9, 2009

Danville Register & Bee

To the editor:

The article, “Voices of the people,” (Jan. 7, page A1), barely skimmed the surface of the issues relevant to the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission’s Jan. 6 charade of a public hearing in Chatham.

The fact is, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Mining, Minerals and Energy preside over the most egregious, legalized, “regulated” corporate assaults on human communities and the environment in the state and nation, including:

• The catastrophe of mountaintop removal coal mining, in which once majestic, forested mountains are leveled, streams are buried under rubble, water, soil and air are contaminated, human health is degraded, local economies are destroyed and communities vanish, leaving only ghost towns;

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• Coal-burning power plants spewing filth into the air, poisoning the soil and water, contaminating the environment and every living thing;

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• Coal and coal ash slurry containment ponds — this approved technology recently resulted in a Tennessee spill that has been declared the nation’s worst environmental disaster ever. And now, thanks once again to the CEC, DEQ and DMME, we have a similar disaster waiting to happen on the bank of the New River in Giles County; and

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• Nuclear power plants, around which rates of childhood cancers soar — and the specter of Chernobyl looms.

These and other legalized, regulated corporate assaults have been the subjects of bogus “studies” just like the current CEC study of proposed uranium mining in Virginia, and were inconceivably determined to be safe. I suggest that this particular bogus study include an analysis of how each of these studies managed to be so criminally insufficient and inaccurate.

The very fact of the CEC’s illegitimate Jan. 6 public hearing — in which the citizens were told (First Amendment rights be damned) what they could and could not say, and for only 3 minutes — is a travesty and a mockery of democracy.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project (http://www.vpap.org), every single CEC member has received money from Virginia Uranium Inc. and/or its lobbyists. And for those 30 pieces of silver, the corporation bought unlimited access to the CEC members. Regardless of the fact that uranium mining has never been done safely anywhere in the world, is there any doubt that the CEC “study” will find uranium mining can be done safely in Virginia?

Actually, the fact is, it doesn’t matter at all what the state agencies “study.” The CEC, DEQ, DMME and the Virginia General Assembly lack the authority to decide whether Virginia citizens will be subjected to this planned corporate invasion, occupation and colonization of Southside for the purpose of enriching the few to the detriment of the many — and the devastation of the environment.

The Coal and Energy Commission and its “study” are irrelevant to the democratic decision-making process. The people have already studied the issue and decided that there will be no uranium mining in Pittsylvania County.

According to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Virginia Constitution, it is we, the people, who decide, and our governments operate with the consent of the governed — us. The governing authority is ours, and the citizens of Southside Virginia say “NO — we do not consent!” They refuse to sacrifice their health, safety and well being, their homes and their heritage. They have decided that they will not be assaulted by Virginia Uranium Inc., aided and abetted by the state.

SHIREEN PARSONS

Christiansburg
Editor’s note: Parsons is the Virginia Organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/danville_letters/article/from_where_i_sit_and_who_gave_them_that_right/8409/