Chatham mulls updating uranium resolution

By John CranePublished: February 11, 2009

The towns of Hurt and Gretna have passed resolutions on uranium mining this month, and now Chatham is mulling a resolution of its own to replace the previous one the town passed a year ago.

Chatham Mayor George O. Haley said he wants to bring the town’s resolution up to par with the other towns’ more detailed documents.

“Their resolutions were a little more comprehensive than ours,” Haley said.

Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to mine and mill a uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill six miles northeast of Chatham.

Chatham passed a simple resolution on Feb. 11, 2008, asking the state’s General Assembly not to consider scrapping Virginia’s moratorium on uranium mining unless a thorough, independent study finds uranium mining and milling safe.

A year later, the situation has changed. Senate bill 525, which called for a study, was tabled in the House Rules Committee in March 2008. The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission approved a study in November to be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences or a comparable institution.

Also, Gretna and Hurt have passed resolutions calling for the study to meet certain criteria. Both request the entire process be open to the press and public and that the respective towns be allowed to participate in the study.

Both also call for a peer-review group separate from the parties conducting the study and made up of representatives from agencies in environmental public health, water supply and resources, air quality and the Army Corps of Engineers to monitor and critique the study.

In addition, the towns want ample time and adequate funding for the study. And the study must be thorough, unbiased and conducted by an agency outside the mining industry.

Eloise Nenon, a founding member of Southside Concerned Citizens, asked the Chatham Town Council during its regular meeting Monday night to pass a resolution calling for a study to determine whether uranium can be mined safely in the commonwealth, as well as a companion study to examine issues other than scientific aspects.

Nenon wants the resolution to be broader than those passed in Gretna and Hurt and to include a request for a parallel study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation or other comparable institution. Nenon would like to see a study cover quality-of-issues separate from “hard science” aspects.

Haley said he would discuss Nenon’s request with the town manager and report back to the council. Haley said he is anti-uranium mining but supports a study to determine whether it can be done safely. Chatham’s original resolution was “not as comprehensive as I would like for it to be,” he said. However, “it was a step in the right direction,” Haley said.

Besides public health and environmental issues, Haley said he is also concerned about the aesthetic effects uranium mining and milling would yield.

“What are we going to look like physically when this takes place?” Haley said.
Delegate Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, who heads the Coal and Energy Commission’s Uranium Subcommittee, said the study process will be open and honest. Ware said the towns’ resolutions will not fall on deaf ears.

“There is no question that we are highly interested in and attuned to the views of those who are the most directly affected,” Ware said.

Ware said the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research will present the scope of the study at the subcommittee’s next meeting. A date and time have not been set. The NAS would examine the study’s language next, Ware said. The NAS would probably designate about a dozen or 15 internationally known scientists to conduct the study, Ware said.

The study will take about 18 months.