Residents should learn about uranium

Letter to the Editor:

Uranium has never been mined safely anywhere in the world in the past nor in the present, and it won't be mined safely here in Virginia.

People have suffered from uranium mining in thousands of ways. Air, water, soil, plants, animals, homes, things you touch and eat, your hair and everything else around each person and for hundreds of miles around a mine get polluted by radioactive uranium, radon or other poisonous byproducts of mining. Once uranium and radon have been released and extracted from the ground, you can be sure it will find its way into your food, clothing, water, homes and, of course, your cells and DNA. You may experience sicknesses of all kinds, including cancer.
Please protect your family and yourself by educating yourself about uranium mining and what it really is. Don't take the word of politicians, mining company technicians and scientists paid by the mining companies or for that matter anyone else, nor mine either.

You won't get rich or even get a job. Special trained people will be imported to do jobs you think you will get. The economy in our area will not get richer. You will see people sicker, home and land values go down the drain forever and your family will suffer for the rest of the generations because DNA changes do not show up immediately, but will be in your children, grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren and so on. Also, your water and soil and homes will never get cleaned up because radioactive materials don't disappear. Once our area is polluted, it will stay polluted for hundreds of years.

The mines in Australia, quoted often as examples of safe mining, are some of the worst polluters of all, causing great harm to thousands of people and thousands of acres of land.

Don't take my word for it, but look it up for yourself. Look up "danger of uranium mining" and find out what curse would be brought upon us if we allow uranium mining in our state anywhere. It is worse than terrorism, the turn down in our economy and anything else you can think of.

If you neglect to get involved to fight for your home, family, health and everything dear to you, then you are allowing people who have no interest in you or our community to open a Pandora's Box that will spew out poisons that will eat up everything you have.

We can't be complacent. I went through World War II. No one thought it was really going to get to us and so we did nothing. We then were swallowed up in the horrors of war and our lives were changed forever.

This is worse. We will never recover from the pollution that uranium mining will bring! So don't allow it to happen right under our noses.

Educate yourself first, then educate your grown children, then get involved educating neighbors and friends, and join organizations that are fighting uranium mining. If you look up "danger of uranium mining" and follow some of the links given you there and look at some of the movies, you will see how bad uranium mining would be for our area. You can join organizations that can fight for you. Look up "Danville, Virginia SCC against uranium mining."

Just think what the flooding of 1996, which covered many towns in this area, including Coles Hill, where the mines would have been, would have done to all of our water sources and wells, land, trees, gardens, homes and animals.

Don't think pollution couldn't happen here.

I pray and hope this letter will inspire some people to educate themselves on this important subject, which will affect their lives in the near future if nothing is done to stop uranium mining.

Irene Buss

Gretna