Tide of toxic water poses health risk

"The water is half a metre from the surface and about to decant into the Vaal River system"

Comment: The same problems has happen out West and our future if uranium mining is approved in VA!

Bobby Jordan Published:Jun 27, 2009

Acid dissolves minerals in old mines

A river of acid water — enough to fill 600 swimming pools a day — has flooded old gold mines west of Johannesburg and is just days away from spilling over, causing an environmental disaster.

Natural ground water becomes highly acidic after flowing into old underground mines, where it dissolves heavy metals such as iron and uranium. In this form, it poses a health risk to humans and animals and damages the environment and agricultural land.

Long-term exposure to the poisoned water poses major health risks, including increased rates of cancer, skin lesions and retarded brain development.

An overflow of toxic mine water in the past led to radioactive contamination of Robinson Lake — a fishing and picnic area that has now become lifeless — outside Randfontein on the West Rand.

Acidic water is also dissolving huge areas of underground rock, threatening the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site.

The rapid rise in the water level follows the partial closure of a water treatment plant outside Randfontein because of wrangling between the government and mining companies over the cost of cleaning up the toxic mess caused by mining, and the quality of water left behind.

Despite warnings from scientists, the toxic tide — called acid mine drainage — has filled an underground void called the western basin, which comprises hundreds of square kilometers between Krugersdorp and Randfontein, once the world’s richest gold mining area. The water is now half a metre from the surface and about to start decanting into the Vaal River system.

Acid water is also fast filling up two other underground caverns — a central basin beneath Johannesburg and Soweto stretching as far as Alberton, and an eastern basin beneath the East Rand as far as Nigel and Springs.

If left unchecked, this water could also decant and contaminate water that ultimately flows into the Orange River.

The looming crisis in the western basin has prompted a flurry of negotiations between the government and mining companies, which have set up a technical task team in the hope of avoiding a potential environmental disaster.

In the past, pumps kept gold mines outside Johannesburg largely free of water because most water was pumped to the surface, partially treated and released into rivers. Now many of the gold mines have closed or can no longer afford to keep pumping, and vast underground areas are filling up.

“It (the western basin) is the first gold basin that has filled and decanted — to overflow uncontrollably. That’s why it’s an issue,” said Rand Uranium senior consultant for sustainable development Rex Zorab. “It’s not like the central basin where there’s a huge void still to be filled,” he said.

At the heart of the problem are new water management regulations released this year, which direct mining companies to clean all pumped water to drinking-quality standard. Until now, they only partially treated pumped water before releasing it into the Vaal River system.

Mining firms said it would take at least two years to build a new water treatment plant to meet the government’s demands, at a cost of about R550-million. The government says the companies are nevertheless liable for environmental damage caused by discharging partially treated water — so the companies have reduced the amount of water they pump out.

The impasse involves three mining companies: Mintails, DRD Gold and Rand Uranium. Until recently, they treated 25 megalitres of acid mine drainage daily at two plants.

But a stalemate in negotiations over water quality prompted Mintails to partially close their treatment plant in April, causing water in the basin to fill up. It is now just days until acid water starts pouring out of an old mine shaft close to Randfontein — and spilling into the Tweelopie Spruit, which feeds into the Mooi River that supplies untreated water to Potchefstroom. The spruit also feeds into the Crocodile River.

Department of Water and Environmental Affairs spokesman Linda Page said: “They (the three companies ) have been given 90 days to stop discharging into the Tweelopie Spruit. Failure to do so will result in further action from the department.”

Mintails spokesman Basie Maree said: “We are committed to turn the water plant to full production once we have a clear directive on water quality standards and liability impacts.” jordanb@sundaytimes.co.za

http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=1024839

Did Toxic Chemical in Iraq Sicken GIs?

Comment: The state of Virginia will not protect us from Uranium Mining, look at the Federal gov't has done to our family members in wars. Pray for our military families! I hope this company people rot in He..!

Published on Sunday, June 28, 2009 by The Associated Press
Did Toxic Chemical in Iraq Sicken GIs?
by Sharon Cohen

Larry Roberta's every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can't walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.

Sgt. David L. Moore during his National Guard service in Iraq in a photo provided by his brother Steve. The guardsman's post-war life was plagued by health problems until he died in 2008 of lung disease at age 42. (By Jared Fawks, AP)James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer.

David Moore's postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.

What these three men - one sick, one dying, one dead - had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.

These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.
No one disputes that. But that's where the agreement ends.

Among the issues now rippling from the courthouse to Capitol Hill are whether the chemical made people sick, when KBR knew it was there and how the company responded. But the debate is about more than this one case; it has raised broader questions about private contractors and health risks in war zones.

Questions, says Sen. Evan Bayh, who plans to hold hearings on the issues, such as these:

"How should we treat exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals as a threat to our soldiers? How seriously should that threat be taken? What is the role of private contractors? What about the potential conflict between their profit motives and taking all steps necessary to protect our soldiers?"

"This case," says the Indiana Democrat, "has brought to light the need for systemic reform."

For now, dozens of National Guard veterans have sued KBR and two subsidiaries, accusing them of minimizing and concealing the chemical's dangers, then downplaying nosebleeds and breathing problems as nothing more than sand allergies or a reaction to desert air.

KBR denies any wrongdoing. In a statement, the company said it actually found the chemical at the Qarmat Ali plant, restricted access, cleaned it up and "did not knowingly harm troops."

Ten civilians hired by a KBR subsidiary made similar claims in an arbitration resolved privately in June. (The workers' contract prevented them from suing.)

This isn't the first claim that toxins have harmed soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; there have been allegations involving lead, depleted uranium and sarin gas.

This also isn't the first challenge to KBR, whose billions of dollars of war-related contracts have been the subject of congressional scrutiny and legal claims.

Among them are lawsuits recently filed in several states against KBR and Halliburton Co. - KBR's parent company until 2007 - that assert open-air pits used to burn refuse in Iraq and Afghanistan caused illnesses and death. (KBR says it's reviewing the charges. Halliburton maintains it was improperly named and expects to be dismissed from the case.)

This case stems from the chaotic start of the war in 2003 when a KBR subsidiary was hired to restart the treatment plant, which had been looted and virtually stripped bare. The Iraqis had used hexavalent chromium to prevent pipe corrosion at the plant, which produced industrial water used in oil production.

It's the same chemical linked to poisonings in California in a case made famous in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

Hexavalent chromium - a toxic component of sodium dichromate - can cause severe liver and kidney damage and studies have linked it to leukemia as well as bone, stomach and other cancers, according to an expert who provided a deposition for the civilian workers.

The chemical "is one of the most potent carcinogens know to man," declared Max Costa, chairman of New York University's Department of Environmental Medicine.

KBR, however, says studies show only that industrial workers exposed to the chemical for more than two years have an increased risk of cancer - and in this case, soldiers were at the plant just days or months.

The company also notes air quality studies concluded the Indiana Guard soldiers were not exposed to high levels of hexavalent chromium. But Costa says those tests were done when the wind was not blowing.

Both soldiers and former workers say there were days when strong gusts kicked up ripped-open bags of the chemical, creating a yellow-orange haze that coated everything from their hair to their boots.

"I was spitting blood and I was not the only one doing that," recalls Danny Langford, who worked for the KBR subsidiary. "The wind was blowing 30, 40 miles an hour. You could just hardly see where you were going. I pulled my shirt over my nose and there would be blood on it."

Larry Roberta, a 44-year-old former Oregon National Guard member, remembers 137-degree heat and dust everywhere. He sat on a bag of the chemical, unaware it was dangerous.

"This orange crud blew up in your face, your eyes and on our food," he says. "I tried to wash my chicken patty off with my canteen. I started to get sick to my stomach right away."

Roberta had coughing spells and agonizing chest pains, he says, that "went all the way through my back. ... Every day I went there, I had something weird going on."

Russell Kimberling, a former Indiana National Guard captain, had severe sinus troubles that forced his medical evacuation to Germany. After returning, he became alarmed one August day in 2003 while escorting some officials to the plant in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

"I jumped out of the truck and I turned around and they (KBR staff) had full chemical gear on," he says. "I looked at some of my soldiers and said, 'This can't be very good.' ... They could have told us to put chemical suits on."

Ed Blacke, hired as plant health, safety and environmental coordinator, says he became worried after workers started having breathing problems and a former colleague sent him an internal KBR memo outlining the chemical's dangers. Blacke says he complained, was labeled a troublemaker and resigned under pressure.

"Normally when you take over a job, you have a briefing - this is what's out there, here's what you need for protective equipment," says Blacke, who testified at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing last year. "There was nothing, nothing at all."

Blacke and Langford were among those whose civil claims were resolved in arbitration.

Kimberling is among nearly 50 current or former Guard members - most from Indiana, a smaller number from Oregon - who've sued. Some soldiers who served with the West Virginia Guard are expected to follow soon.

Mike Doyle, a Houston lawyer representing the soldiers and civilians, maintains KBR knew as early as May 2003 the chemical was there, but didn't close the site until that September.

"Once they (KBR) found out about it, they didn't tell anybody and they did everything to conceal it," he contends. "Their staff was getting reports and soldiers and civilians who were in the field were told ... 'There's nothing to worry about."'

The lawsuit cites minutes of an August 2003 KBR meeting that mentions "serious health problems at the water treatment plant" and notes "almost 60% of the people now exhibit the symptoms."

In a recent Associated Press interview, KBR chairman William P. Utt said the company has been unfairly targeted for its military work.

"People think there's an opportunity here in Iraq, let's paint it on KBR, then we'll worry about making the facts precise or correct later," he said.

As for the water plant, KBR says once it learned of the chemical, it took precautions to protect workers, notified the Army Corps of Engineers and led the cleanup. It says the Corps had previously deemed the area safe.

KBR also points to Army tests of Indiana Guard soldiers that showed no medical problems that could be linked to exposure, as well as a military board review that found it unlikely anyone would suffer long-term medical consequences.

But Bayh and Doyle say those tests were done too late to be valid and note that soil tests were taken after the contaminated area was covered.

Doyle also disagrees with KBR's contention that workers weren't there long enough to have elevated cancer risks.

It can take a long time for symptoms of illness to surface - five to 10 years or more for cancer. But some of those who say they were exposed are already ill.

James Gentry, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Indiana Guard, is in the late stages of lung cancer and the disease has spread to his ribs and spine, according to his friend, Christopher Lee.

Gentry hasn't sued but in a December 2008 deposition he said it was "very disappointing" KBR managers didn't share information soldiers were around cancer-causing chemical.

"I'm dying because of it," he said.

While acknowledging he wasn't 100% certain that's why he has cancer, Gentry - who served a second tour in Iraq - said his doctor "believes the most probable cause was my exposure to this chemical."

The Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon National Guards have sent hundreds of letters to soldiers notifying them of possible contamination and urging them to seek medical attention.

Bayh has introduced a bill calling for a medical registry that would require the Department of Defense to notify all military members of exposure to potential toxins and ensure their medical care. A similar measure that only mandates notification was approved Thursday in the U.S. House as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.

All these steps come too late for 1st Sgt. David Moore.

When he returned from Iraq, his persistent cough escalated into breathing problems, nosebleeds and boil-like rashes, recalls his brother, Steve.

Even when doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong, Moore didn't give up, Steve Moore says.

"He was always upbeat," he recalls. "He said, 'They'll figure it out, they'll figure it out.' He thought that until the last time I talked to him."

Moore died in February 2008. The cause was lung disease. His death was ruled service related. His brother believes it was hexavalent chromium.

Larry Roberta, the former Oregon Guardsman who needed stomach surgery after his return, says he suffers from post-traumatic stress, mood swings, nose polyps, chest pains and debilitating migraines.

"I have 100% disability," he says. "I've got a long laundry list of things that happened to me while I was there. If you add it all up, I'd be almost 200% disabled."

Kimberling, the former Indiana Guardsman, struggles as well.

The father of two young children - he's a pharmaceutical salesman in Louisville - says he hasn't been able to get life insurance because his possible exposure is mentioned on his medical records.

Sometimes, he says, it's hard to separate his ailments - sinus problems and joint pains - from his fears.

"I feel like I'm a 38-year-old in a 60-year-old's body," he says. ... "I'm not sure if it's the anxiety of finding out about it or not. I kind of know and feel it's just a matter of time before it catches up with me."


http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/28

Ontario suspends nuclear power plans

Comment: Nuke Power is too expensive, not CO2 free because of construction, uranium mining and milling!!

Published: June 30, 2009 at 10:42 AM

The government in the Canadian province of Ontario canceled a deal for the first North American nuclear power facility in three decades on cost concerns.

George Smitherman, the energy minister in the Ontario provincial government, called the $22.4 billion price tag "a substantial challenge" to a bid from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. on the reactor, the Financial Times reports.

Ontario has expressed reservations over dealing with AECL. The government canceled two AECL reactor projects in 2008 because of malfunctions and in May closed an AECL reactor used to produce more than 30 percent of the world's medical isotopes.

Smitherman, however, said the government would reconsider the reactor project if the costs are reconsidered.

Ontario had served as an industrial hub, looking to secure more nuclear technology by 2018. The province gets roughly half its electricity from nuclear power.

The North American nuclear energy sector, meanwhile, stalled 30 years ago following a meltdown at a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/06/30/Ontario-suspends-nuclear-power-plans/UPI-95431246372962/

MTR: Destroyer of Mountains, Streams, Wildlife, and Communities

Comment: When you read the article, just replace the coal with uranium. We will have the same problems, our water will be ruin, and the air will have small uranium matter from the blast. The lies from the local uranium company about jobs, flying the American flag it is their duty to take out the uranium. We may be forced off our land for corporate monies. We will feel the blast of the open pit uranium mining, 24 hours a day, all week long. The churches in Sheva area will be shaking from the blast and the dust will settle on everyone cars! People wake up; we will be living the same way as our families and the legal Mt. Top Removal!


Published on Monday, June 29, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
MTR: Destroyer of Mountains, Streams, Wildlife, and Communities
The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.
by Maria Gunnoe

The following was submitted as prepared testimony to the The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife on Thursday, June 25, 2009:

My name is Maria Gunnoe. I am 40 years old and I am a life long resident of Boone County in southern West Virginia. My family history there goes back to the 1700's. I know the areas and the people that are being impacted by mountaintop removal very well simply because this is the homeland where generations of our ancestors before me have raised their families and lived their lives. Most of these families have depended on underground coal mining to make a living but we as a culture of people have depended on these mountains to take care of our families. We are gatherers, hunters, gardeners, fishermen, active and retired miners, loving community members, we are stewards of this land and we are now organizers. We are working to protect and preserve the communities, culture and people that we love and hold dear to our hearts

Water Quality Impacts

There is a relatively new method of mining now happening in the coal fields of Appalachia called mountaintop removal coal mining. This method of mining is where the coal companies use nearly 4 million pounds of blasting material a day (in WValone) to blast the coal out of the mountains. Then everything other than the coal (including trees and topsoil) is used to create valley fills in our headwater streams. The artificial streams running off these sites are toxic with selenium.

The energy is temporary energy. You only burn coal one time. The destruction of the land, air, communities and people is permanent. There have been 500 mountains leveled for their coal and energy in the name of homeland security. These 500 mountains were surrounded by communities who depended on the mountain's resources and water for their very existence.

There have now been more than 2000 miles of streams buried by valley fills. People depended on these streams as much as any animals. The cumulative impact of the permits that are being allowed in some incidents are further depopulating and destroying communities and people. The regulatory agencies turn a blind eye to this pollution by continuing to allow the companies to buy more time to come in compliance with the existing laws. Without enforcement these laws are only words on paper.

Local communities truly do not have a voice in the process of these permits.

The DEP will set up what is called an informal conference to inform citizens of what the DEP and coal companies are planning to do and to give community members a chance to comment. These comments are recorded and we are told that they become a part of the permit record. In these hearings the citizens often beg the regulatory agencies to not allow these permits but commonly they approve every permit applied for. The people who live in these communities do not want mountaintop removal mining. Especially near their homes and communities simply because it is destroying everything they and their families before them have worked for.

In the 8 years of the Bush Administration the laws and courts were aligned to destroy any protection that we had for these beautiful and unique places and their people. The clean water act lost its meaning when the Bush Administration changed one word of this law - the definition of fill material. Another important rule, --the buffer zone rule- that protected our streams was done away with on the eve of Christmas 2008. With this rule change the Bush Administration opened us as residents up to nothing but destruction.

There are health impacts too. A study by Dr Michael Hendryx at West Virginia University has proven that there is reason to be concerned about the pollution that the people throughout the coalfields are being exposed to.

This study has not been taken seriously by our state leaders or our state regulatory agencies as a matter of fact it has been ignored. Portions of this study were based on the community of Twilight near where I live. Twilight Surface Mines surrounds the small communities of Lindytown and Twilight and the people who live there either put up with the impacts or leave.

The blasting has been horrible and the community's members concerns are not being heard.

There is near 4 million pounds of blasting material used each day in WV alone.

At one point the department of defense and Department of Environmental Protection allowed the coal company to dispose of old munitions from war {called tetryl its used as an igniter} on the mine site behind my home. It was too dangerous to use in war so they thought they would dispose of it in our community over our people's heads.

We have for many generations depended on the water from these mountains.

Now this water is being polluted forever.

In the case of Big Branch Creek where I live it is now polluted with toxic level of selenium. This is also present in my well water. This was quietly done by the coal company and the regulatory agency permitted it.

The entire aquifer of where I live is now pollution spill way. The loss of timber from our hollow alone will be felt for thousands of years to come. There is no way that the reclaimed land can grow the hardwood forest that the natural land does.

This land is dead. It's impossible to grow a healthy forest on dead polluted land. Reclamation is a pretty word but on the ground it has been proven to be impossible.


Culture

My family before me settled these mountains through the forced removal of the Cherokee known as the trail of tears and most of my neighbors have a similar story.

My grand father told me the story his mother told him of the men in the family dressing as women to allow the women and children to escape this forced removal. The women and children then followed the rivers to their headwaters and settled the area where I now live.

Throughout the past 250 years our families have built these places through determination and love for the place itself.

The mountains here sustained our families by supplying us with an abundance of food and fresh clean water in our wells, springs and streams. Southern West Virginians are fortunate enough to live in the second most bio-diverse region on this planet. This is richness beyond wealth. As residents we recognize our most valuable resources as being our land, water and people not the coal that lies beneath it all. Our people were here before the coal was discovered. Why should we have to leave now in the name of coal?

Some of our current resident's ancestors were awarded their land for military service to this country.

Now this very land being destroyed and the residents don't have the rights to protect it.

Appalachians are the history of this country. We have given all to build the infrastructure that supports this American dream that we all share. We help to supply 48% of this country's energy and the cost of this is never truly calculated. I have heard coal referred to as a cheap and clean energy. This ignores the facts. The facts are that the true cost of coal fired energy has never been calculated.

We must consider the cost of coal from the cradle to the grave. We must consider the cost of mountaintop removal coal mining not only the aquatic life and the wildlife where this coal is being extracted but on the human lives of everywhere it touches.

I have to ask what about the homeland security of the folks that are being forced to sell out to the coal companies in Lindytown W.V?

The people who proudly built this community are being told that they are in the way of coal production and that they must leave their homes of many generations.

The coal company engineers strategically buy out homes and family heir owned land to depopulate communities by making life unbearable. Their air land and water are being destroyed by mountaintop removal there is no way people can continue to live here and be healthy. They are being forced to leave home places of many generations to save their lives.

This alone is personally and emotionally devastating. The boom of "Big Bertha" -- a dragline -- swings over the community of Lindytown. Blasting is frequent and terrifying for residents that are holding out not wanting to sell.

This same "clean coal" that forced an elder woman out of her home who happened to die of a heart attack while she packed her belongings for the first time in 72 years. She too was in the way of production. The people in Lindytown were only free to leave. Why is it as homeland security increases here in DC ours only gets less and less likely to even exist?

In our mountains we have many mountain cemeteries that date back to the beginning of civilization here. We are grounded like our ancestors before us.

These cemeteries are awarded no protection by our regulatory agencies or law enforcement.

We as citizens are expected to register and account for these cemeteries in order to protect them from mining activity and most of the time the coal companies won't allow us into our family cemeteries to do this work. They stop us from visiting our dead by locking us out of our ancestral land in these mountains. I know of many grave yards that were in our mountains that no longer exist. The areas where they were are now gone.

The people here belong no where but here. These folks will thrive in their own environment but taken away from here they will perish as they are not where they belong. The culture of people in West Virginia is a culture of survivalist not environmentalist. We have survived here throughout times of extreme poverty during the rise and fall of the coal markets. We have always had the land to sustain our lives. Now the very reason for our existence as a culture of mountain people is being annihilated for its coal.

Jobs

Boone County falls second in poverty only to McDowell County, WV another leading coal producing county.

This is still the most impoverished area in the US today. If mountaintop removal was about jobs and prosperity where is it? In the 1960's we had 125,000 direct coal mining jobs in the coal industry in WV, but now we have less than 12,000. Ask yourselves is this really about jobs or profit and exploitation? These jobs are temporary jobs at best. The operation behind my home started in 2000. It is now closed down.

These good paying jobs only lasted long enough for the employees to get in debt.

I have watched as coal companies have destroyed one of the most beautiful places in this country by mountaintop removal coal mining. The people who live in these areas are often retired or active UMWA underground miners and their families. The people who work in mountaintop removal most often do not live in the environment that their jobs create. The companies are out of state coal companies and the workers are out of area workers. The companies commonly do not hire local people.

The coal companies will tell all that will listen that they are doing this for future economic development of an impoverished region.

They will say that we don't have any flat land for development. They will tell you that we need this flat land and that our mountains are useless land in their natural state. I have even heard them say that the mountains are in the way of development. There will be no future here for anyone with mountaintop removal. I cannot believe that we as a nation are depending on continuing to blow up mountains to supply energy in this country when the energy we need in this country rises with the sun everyday and blows in each churn of the wind. The ridges of southern WV are wind viable ridges until they are blown up. We cannot continue to allow this to be called clean coal.

Stop Mountaintop Mining

In my own mind I know that mountaintop removal coal mining will stop.

According to USGS we are running out of mineable coal and we are quickly running out of mountains in Southern, WV.

Global warming is very real. We are all just pawns on this chess board called earth. I hope that we can stop mountaintop removal and coals global attack soon enough to preserve some of what is left of one of the most beautiful and ecologically diverse places in this country. The rolling hills of Appalachia are becoming the flat plateaus of the West as I speak.

We have the opportunity to stop the annihilation of mountains and people by mountaintop removal and to change the history of energy in this country. We are at a cross roads.

We must put all special interest aside and follow what we know to be best for all of our future generations. Stop the attack on Appalachia's water supply and the people it sustains.

Thank you again to Senator Cardin and Senator Alexander for standing up for what any fellow human knows to be the right thing.

I would like to extend my tremendous appreciation to Senator Cardin and Senator Alexander for introducing Senate Bill 696 the Appalachian Restoration Act. This Bill if passed could turn back some of the Bush administration changes that is currently allowing coal companies to destroy valuable headwater streams and all that is connected to them. The residents I work with in the Boone County coal fields send their support for this bill as it is in some cases the only hope we have of remaining in our ancestral homes and in our ancestral homelands.

I leave you with photos and a recent article about flooding in the coalfields caused by run off from flattened mountains.

This is what inspired me to get involved in stopping mountaintop removal. There are other organizers just like me being created everyday by this industry. We have no choice but to oppose the practice of filling headwater streams, we live here!

Maria Gunnoe is an organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition [1], based in Huntington, W.Va.

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/29-1

Should renewable energy include nuclear?

Greenpeace activists painted a skull surrounded by the symbol of radioactivity on the reactor dome of Unterweser nuclear power plant near Nordenham, Germany on June 22. The protest was aimed to draw attention to the lack of security at the plant in case of a plane crash or an airborne terrorist attack. The banner reads: "Nuclear power damages Germany."
Fred Dott/Greenpeace/Reuters

Comment: Nuke Bunch, nuke power are not renewable,not CO2 free, uranium mining, mills and transportation is full of CO2! Nuclear power is dependent on finite uranium resources!

from the June 29, 2009 edition

The US, China, and dozens of other countries are meeting today in Egypt to chart the course of a new international agency aimed at promoting renewable energy.
By Lily Riahi and Lisa Desai Contributors

Berlin

A new global effort that aims to make renewable energy more accessible to every country in the world will launch on July 1st.

Governments are lining up to join the first agency that will advise them on how to make a renewable energy transition. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has attracted 108 countries, including the United States and China, which are both expected to announce their membership this week, in a move that experts say could boost the agency's credibility, since both countries are leaders in renewable energy.

But supporters worry that IRENA could be undermined by countries that are trying to promote nuclear power as a solution to climate change and dwindling oil reserves. Today, members will meet in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt to vote on a director general for the group and decide which country will host the agency's headquarters.

Currently, a leading alliance between France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is forming. French ministerial official Helene Pelosse is a nominee for IRENA'S director general and the UAE is lobbying to host its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. IRENA advocates say if the alliance succeeds, the agency would become "nuclear tainted."

France pushes nuclear as 'low-carbon technology'

France generates nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. It's also one of the world's largest providers of nuclear technology and expertise. Since 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has signed multibillion-dollar nuclear deals with the UAE, Qatar, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco.

At the same time, France is promoting nuclear as a form of renewable power because it emits low levels of carbon dioxide. When the European Union defined its long-term target for renewable energy production last year, it tried to include nuclear power in the definition of renewable energy, a move that was rejected by EU members.

France is also advocating to power the Mediterranean region using "low-carbon technology."

IRENA supporters worry that under French leadership, the agency will support both renewables and nuclear options together.

Most discussions separate the two because renewable energy is defined as naturally replenishing resources, like solar or wind, which don't produce waste.

Nuclear power is dependent on finite uranium resources, and produces radioactive waste that has to be isolated and stored for thousands of years.

"Advocates of nuclear try to avoid these essential differences by linking these two forms of energy under the umbrella term 'low-carbon technology,'" says Dr. Doerte Fouquet, Director of the European Renewable Energy Federation. "People forget that emitting zero CO2 is only one of the characteristics that defines a renewable source of energy."

Renewables tied to oil

The US, Japan, Britain, and France are actively signing nuclear power cooperation agreements with the UAE and they're expected to back Abu Dhabi's bid to headquarter the agency, analysts say.

"Their support for Abu Dhabi as IRENA's headquarters is linked to these agreements and a secure supply of oil," says IIda Tetsunari, advisor to Japan's Minister of Environment and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies.

IRENA supporters say that would contradict its founding purpose to set the foundations for a renewable energy economy.

"Are the original goals of IRENA being co-opted so that renewables get pushed aside by a nuclear agenda – 'sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power'?" asks Dr. Eric Martinot, an international expert on renewable energy markets and former World Bank energy officer.

The UAE has a 7 percent future target for renewable energy and is planning to build Masdar, a city powered only by renewable resources. The Emirates claim that their vast solar potential is not enough to power the rest of the UAE and are looking to nuclear power to fill the gap.

"Since the 1970s, scientists have shown that renewable energy can satisfy the energy needs of the entire world, but these studies get systematically ignored. IRENA will change this," says Hermann Scheer, a member of the German Parliament, and pioneer of the agency.

The case for Germany

Many supporters say the better picks to host and lead the agency are Bonn, Germany, where the concept of IRENA was born, says Hans Jurgen Koch, member of Denmark's climate and energy ministry.

In both countries building new nuclear plants is illegal.

Instead, they've focused on introducing new policies to encourage renewable energy generation.

Germans can access interest-free loans to buy solar panels and get paid to feed renewable energy to the grid.

The country has 300,000 green jobs, and is hoping to double its share of renewable energy power to 30 percent by 2020, four times more the UAE's target.

Dr. Scheer, who has been fighting to establish the agency since the 1990s, says the founding of IRENA took off when the German government sought support of like-minded countries.

"This was the only way to avoid the veto power of countries with strong nuclear or fossil interests, who have stopped IRENA in the past," he says. "IRENA could be designed as a lame duck or it could promote renewable energy acceleration everywhere. This is the case for decision."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0629/p06s10-woeu.html

Underreported Struggles #27

Comment: Everyday all over the world people are fighting for their rights against uranium and gold mining, clean water and just to live on their land!

June 29, 2009 at 10:37am

In this Month’s Underreported Struggles:Nak’azdli First Nation goes to court, evicts company; Maya Protesters burn equipment at gold mine; Peru govenrment revokes laws after two months of protest;Australian Indigenous People burn, spear new government policy; Colombia Approves Involuntary Sterilization Program; US Gov FINALLY cleaning uranium on Navajo land

June 29 – UN agency ignores indigenous approach to knowledge protection – Once again, the United Nations has been accused of “shutting out” indigenous people — this time over approaches to protecting and sharing traditional knowledge and biological resources.

June 26 – Nak’azdli First Nation goes to court, evicts company – The Nak’azdli First Nation in British Columbia has filed a petition against the province, in an effort to defend their rights and block a copper and gold mine from being developed on their Traditional lands. The Nak’azdli will also be issuing and eviction notice to Terrane Metals, the company behind the mining project.

June 24 – Canada: Cold War-era radar sites to get $103M cleanup – It has taken nearly 40 years, but 16 abandoned radar sites that were part of the Mid-Canada line set up to monitor the Soviet air threat during the Cold War will be cleaned up over the next six years at a cost of $103 million. (background)

June 24 – US Gov FINALLY getting rid of uranium contaminated homes on Navajo land – The federal government is finally moving on its promise to remove and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death.

June 23 – Statement from Ngobe communities affected by the Chan 75 Hydro dam – The Ngabe speak out against the CHAN 75 Hydro Project, urging the government of Panama to execute the precautionary measure adopted on June 17 by the Interamerican Court of Human Rights which consists of “suspending the construction and other activities.

June 23 – Colombia Approves National ‘Involuntary’ Sterilization Program – The Colombian House of Representatives has approved a program to convince Colombians to submit to sterilization. News of the bill arrives at the same time Peru ’s right-wing government announces it will shelve an investigation into that country’s former sterilization program, in which thousands of indigenous women were sterilized against their will in the 1990s, with help from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

June 21 – Stop devastating the Karanpura Valley! – A unique palaeoarchaeological site dated over 8,000 years old, will be gouged out into 300-feet-deep mine pits running shoulder to shoulder down the Karanpura Valley, rendering the region incapable of supporting human or animal life.

June 20 – Bhutan: Villagers protest mining boom – About 40 indigenous people from various villages in Bhutan are speaking out against new quarries and other developments on their land. Among their concerns, they say blasting is threatening the safety of their children as well as an important religious site.

June 20 – Maya Protesters burn equipment at Guatemala gold mine – A group of Maya Mam villagers set fire to a pickup truck and an exploration drill rig, after the Canadian company Goldcorp repeatedly failed to remove the equipment off the community’s land.

June 19 – Peru revokes land laws, but the struggle continues – Yesterday Peru’s Congress overwhelmingly voted against two of the key land laws that sparked two months of protests, which culminated this month in a violent confrontation that left 34 dead and hundreds more injured and missing. Despite this important victory, the struggle is far from over.

June 17 – China: new protest over land development erupts in violence – Violence erupted between police and villagers protesting a land acquisition by the government, leaving around 18 people injured.

June 16 – Celebrity resort threatens isolated tribes – A luxury resort being built on the Andaman Islands in India is threatening the survival of the Jarawa tribe, who number just 320 and have only had contact with outsiders since 1998.

June 14 – Canada: What’s missing in Mining Act changes? The Right to Say NO – In response to proposed changes to Ontario’s Mining Act, Mushkegowuk Council, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and Ardoch Algonquin First Nation call on the province to respect the right of First Nations to say NO to all aspects of mining from prospecting to exploration to full mine development in their traditional territories.

June 13 – Over 250 indigenous people homeless in Bangladesh arson attacks – More than 250 members of Bangladesh’s indigenous Santal community were left homeless after attacks on their homes. Witnesses reported that as many as 300 men attacked the Santal, stealing and damaging their property, then setting their homes on fire.

June 12 – Australia: Indigenous Protesters burn, spear new government policy – Copies of the Northern Territory Government’s controversial funding policy for remote Indigenous communities have been burned and speared by Indigenous Peoples. Under the plan, funding would be kept at absolute minimum for 500 smaller communities, while they invest millions into 20 large communities with the aim of making them into towns – spelling the end for Indigenous Identity in those regions.

June 12 – NAFTA Tribunal recognizes Quechan sacred site – denies Glamis Gold’s claim – The only good thing to come of NAFTA. The Tribunal sided the with Quechan People and the U.S. Government who previously blocked Glamis Gold (now known as GoldCorp) from going ahead with a mining project on Quechan Lands.

June 11 – Outrage over WWF denial of indigenous rights around the world – Over 70 human rights and environmental groups from around the world expressed outrage at the planned launch of the World Wildlife Fund’s Aquaculture Stewardship Council last month. Influenced by the aquaculture industry, the WWF is completely ignoring indigenous people in six regions around the world.

June 10 – Victory for Tibetans blockading sacred site – Chinese authorities have come to an agreement with Tibetan villagers over a proposed gold mine in Mangkang county, occupied Tibet. The villagers have been protesting the mine since last April, out of concern that the mine would destroy a site they hold sacred. There was a tense standoff on the road leading to the site last month.

June 9 – Thousands of Karen Women and children flee Burmese military assault – Thousands of ethnic Karen have fled their camps in Burma for refuge in Thailand after an assault on their camps by the Burmese junta, according to a spokesman for the Karen and aid groups in the area.

June 9 – Nunatsiavut government refuses to lift uranium moratorium – the Nunatsiavut government in Canada has stated it has no intention of lifting its moratorium on uranium mining. The Inuit legislature put the ban in place one year ago, and it will continue for two more years.

June 8 – Cordillera: Tribes Fight To Keep Out Mining Corporation – Tribal elders in Cordillera, a province in the Philippines, are renewing a peace pact in a common effort to defend their lands from large-scale mining plans.

June 7 – New Mexico to Protect Mount Taylor – The cultural and natural resources of New Mexico’s Mount Taylor will now be protected by the state, ending a yearlong battle between American Indians and landowners concerned about preserving their rights to use the mountain without interference.

June 5 – Police violently attack peaceful indigenous blockade in the Peruvian Amazon – At 5:30 am this morning, the Peruvian military police staged a violent raid on a group of indigenous people at a peaceful blockade on a road outside of Bagua, in northern Peru. The blockade was part of a two-month-old National mobilization involving more than 1200 indigenous communities. Reports later revealed a total of 34 policemen and indigenous people died. Hundreds more were injured, and as many as 200 indigenous men and women were reported as missing.

June 5 – 360 Mískito communities secede from Nicaragua – representatives from 360 Mískito communities declared the secession of the entire Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, also known as the Mosquito Coast. They announced that the area, which accounts for 46% of Nicaragua’s territory and an estimated 11% of the population, would form the independent Nation of Moskitia.

June 4 – Indigenous communities in Venezuela seek land rights – The 12,000-strong Yukpa tribe complains that it is victim to a range of powerful business interests – from cattle ranchers to drug traffickers, fugitive Colombians and mulitinational mining groups. The Venezuela govenrment does little to assist the Yukpa.

June 4 – Doe Run Peru shuts down zinc and lead smelter in La Oroya! – US-owned mining company Doe Run has shut down its zinc and lead smelter, which has operated for the last 82 years. The smelter is located in the Peruvian town La Oroya, which is widely considered to be one of the most polluted places on earth.

June 2 – Ipperwash returned to Kettle and Stony Point First Nations – Today the government of Ontario returned Ipperwash Provincial Park to the Kettle and Stony Point First Nations, bringing an end to a saga that goes back to the 1930s. In memory Dudley George, who was killed by police in 1995 for defending his land, and his Brother Sam George, who passed away soon after this meeting.

June 2 – Ogiek tribe to become “conservation refugees” – The President of Kenya has stated plans to remove the Ogiek from their ancestral lands- in the name of “conservation.” More than 60 Ogiek leaders responded by saying they will resist any attempt at their removal.

June 2 – Baluch natives call to denuclearize Pakistan – With concerns rising over Pakistan’s horde of nuclear weaponry, a Washington-based education and advocacy group for the Baluch People begins a campaign to denuclearize Pakistan and stop the government from conducting further nuclear tests in the once-sovereign Nation of Baluchistan–now a province of Pakistan.

June 1 – Andean indigenous propose int’l tribunal for environmental crimes – Latin American indigenous peoples are proposing the creation of an international court to address actions which harm the environment. The tribunal would depend on the United Nations.

June 1 – Akwesasne Alert — blockade established by police – In the early morning of June 1, the Mohawk community of Akwesasne was blocked off by American and Ontario Police forces on either side of the border – as a result of Mohawk defiance of the order to permit the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) to carry lethal weapons.

Videos
Our Concerns About the Lower Sesan 2 Dam – In this video, villagers in northeastern Cambodia express their concerns about the proposed Lower Sesan 2 dam project. Located on the Sesan river in Cambodia’s Stung Treng Province Province, the Lower Sesan 2 will block two of the largest rivers in the Mekong River Basin, forcing tens of thousands of people to relocate.

Indigenous Resurgence and Traditional Ways of Being – Recommended viewing – University of Victoria Professor of Indigenous Governance Gerald Taiaiake Alfred talks about the “Resurgence of Traditional Ways of Being: Indigenous Paths of Action and Freedom.”

Jadugoda The Black Magic – This 10-minute documentary, based on the 2007 study “Black Magic of Uranium at Jadugoda” conducted by the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD Patna chapter), explores the harsh realities of indigenous peoples living near the Jadugoda mine, mill and tailings dam in the mineral-rich Singhbum district of Jharkhand, India.

http://intercontinentalcry.org/underreported-struggles-27-june-2009/

Groups sue Mirant Mid-Atlantic over nuclear power plant

Monday, June 29, 2009, 2:35pm EDT Modified: Monday, June 29, 2009, 2:36pm
by Vandana Sinha Staff Reporter

Four Maryland residents and an environmental nonprofit are suing Mirant Mid-Atlantic LLC, which operates a southern Prince George’s County power plant, claiming that the plant fails to adequately control the amount of harmful pollutants it releases in the air.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, claims that the Chalk Point Generating Plant operated by Atlanta-based Mirant Mid-Atlantic has spewed unacceptable levels of sulfur dioxide into the air hundreds of times without the appropriate pollution controls required under the federal Clean Air Act.

A Mirant spokeswoman said the company hasn’t been served with the lawsuit yet, and can’t comment on the claims.

The Environmental Integrity Project, a legal nonprofit founded by former Environmental Protection Agency enforcement attorneys, and Villari, Brandes and Kline have filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and four residents, including a married couple, Nancy and Norton Dodge, who live seven miles away from the plant on a 1,200-acre farm in Mechanicsville.

The Dodges “need to close windows, limit their time outdoors and/or cover their faces when they are outdoors to avoid the respiratory irritants and smell of the pollution from the Chalk Point Power Plant,” the lawsuit reads.

Of the other two residents suing Mirant, David Bookbinder lives in Accokeek, about 30 miles from the plant, and Chris Schmitthenner lives in Mechanicsville, 11 miles away, and works five miles from the plant. The Environmental Integrity Project had sent Mirant a letter in January notifying of its intent to sue the power company this year.

The plaintiffs pointed to a Harvard University 2006 study that showed that such particulate matter pollution from the Chalk Point plant can have negative effects on the health and respiratory systems of people living in a 400-kilometer, or nearly 250-mile, radius of the plant.

In their initial notification letter, the plaintiffs wrote that EPA hourly data shows that two boilers at the Chalk Point plant exceeded allowable levels of sulfur dioxide emissions 591 times in 2006, 726 times in 2007 and 113 times in 2008.

Mirant has said it’s launched a $1.6 billion project to install scrubbers and other pollution-reducing equipment on its Chalk Point boilers by the beginning of 2010.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/06/29/daily15.html

Sunday Bloggers Act: Top Ten List on Why President Obama Must Visit Appalachia and Launch War for Green Jobs

Comment: Virginia allows legal Mt. Top Removal; therefore, VA is destroying people lives for Corporate Mining! Therefore, Virginia will not have a second thought about blowing up the Piedmont, valleys or the area around interstate 95 where uranium is in abundance! The dust from uranium open pit mining will be falling on us in the Piedmont, near University of Virginia and all the main rivers in Virginia!

(Bloggers across the nation are making a joint request this Sunday: It is time for President Barack Obama and CEQ chief Nancy Sutley to make their FIRST visit to a mountaintop removal moonscape and coal slurry impoundment and bear witness to the impact of the Obama administration's regulatory strip-mining policies on affected coalfield residents. For other posts, see Deviltower's DailyKos roundup: http://devilstower.dailykos.com/ )

First, let's us praise Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward, whose Coal Tattoo blog has become an indispensable forum for breaking news and debate in the coalfields. You haven't already, bookmark it:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/

Here's the beyond-the-Beltway truth: With millions of pounds of explosives ripping across the Appalachian mountains every day, and the Office of Surface Mining (OMSRE) still operating without a director, it is almost beyond belief that President Obama, CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson have made no attempt to visit actual mining sites under their jurisdiction.

Only through a firsthand look at the economic and environmental devastation wrought from mountaintop removal's 38-year rap sheet of pollution crimes and human rights violations, will President Obama, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Sutley truly understand three stark realities:

--stricter Obama mining regulations can easily be circumvented;

--as a vanishing carbon sink, the Appalachia coalfields are ground zero in any climate change battle;

--mountaintop removal destroys any chance at a sustainable economy or new initiatives for Green Jobs.

In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson made a trip to Tom Fletcher's porch in Martin County, Kentucky, to announce the launching of the "War on Poverty."

Forty-five years later, Martin County still ranks as one of the poorest counties in the country, with over 35 percent of the population living under the poverty level, while 67 percent of the coal mining jobs have disappeared due to strip-mining and mechanization in the last two decades.

This summer, President Obama should follow in LBJ's footsteps and journey to Martin County, Kentucky, a poverty-stricken area shamelessly ravaged by strip-mining and mountaintop removal (and the site of an ignored 300-million-gallon coal slurry accident in 2000), and announce his intention to launch a "War for Green Jobs and a Phase Out of Mountaintop Removal Operations."

August 3rd, the anniversary of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act that granted federal sanctioning of mountaintop removal in 1977 in a disastrous moment of compromise by liberal Democrats, would be a fine day for a visit.

For history on SMCRA, see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/dear-mr-president-declare_b_202321.html

In the meantime, here's my top ten list on what President Obama, Sutley, Jackson and others in his administration would learn from such a fact-finding trip:

1) Stricter Obama Regulations Can Be Circumvented--Just Asked Bo Webb About Getting Your House Blasted Daily by ANFO Explosives, Shelled by Fly Rock and Rained on by Silica Dust and Heavy Metals: While Vietnam vet/businessman Bo Webb received a slight reprieve this spring on the daily blasting above his home in Clay's Branch, West Virginia, he just received notice that the violations noted by federal regulators will be circumvented by a WV state decision. Webb was told on Friday: While operators were ordered to stop blasting in Clay's Branch until they placed all the material, rocks, flyrock, boulders, downed trees and all back on their permitted area, the WV Department of Environmental Protection reviewed solution is to blast down to the next seam of coal, blasting closer to residents so they can get to all the material that is off the permitted area.

So much for stricter regulations from Washington, DC.

Webb wrote President Obama earlier this spring of this state of terror in his community: "As I write this letter, I brace myself for another round of nerve-wracking explosives being detonated above my home in the mountains of West Virginia. Outside my door, pulverized rock dust laden with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives hovers in the air, along with the residual of heavy metals that once lay dormant underground. The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black top soil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The under-story thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root, and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls, and thousands of birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish."

To read the entire letter, see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/urgent-webb-letter-to-oba_b_168604.html

2) Mountaintop Removal Kills Green Jobs and Clean Energy Project, Just Ask Lorelei Scarbro, a Coal Miner's Widow in Coal River Valley, West Virginia: Facing an impending 6,000 acre mountaintop removal operation bordering her property, coal mining families like Scarbro developed a plan for an industrial wind farm that would create more energy, more tax revenues and provide more sustainable jobs than the destructive mountaintop removal operations on Coal River Mountain, and save their historic communities. See: www.coalriverwind.org

3) Coal Companies Receive A Lot of Welfare, and Martin County, Kentucky, Home of the War on Poverty, Lost 67 Percent of Its Coal Mining Jobs Due to Stripped Down Mountaintop Removal Operations: For a chart on the relationship between mountaintop removal, lost jobs and poverty in Martin County, see: http://www.kftc.org/our-work/canary-project/campaigns/mtr/county-profiles

Earlier this week, a new study found that the Kentucky coal industry is a major recipient of WELFARE: Coal companies in Kentucky take $115 million more from Kentucky's state government annually in services and programs than they contribute in tax revenues.

4) Like Coalfield Parents, President Obama Wouldn't Want to Send His Daughters to the Marsh Fork Elementary School Either: Unlike the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, children at Marsh Fork school in Sundial, West Virginia, must play in toxic coal dust from a nearby coal silo, as 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge held back by a precarious earthen dam stare down daily at the playground, as mountaintop removal explosions take place nearby.

5) Union-Busting Out-of-State Coal Companies Have Polarized the Coalfields and Inflamed Violence: With less than 1,000 United Mine workers employed at mountaintop removal sites in West Virginia, the truth is that most mountaintop removal operators are owned and operated by union-busting outside corporations like Massey Energy, a Richmond, VA company that celebrated record profits in 2008, paid millions in penalties for criminal and civil violations, and then slashed its union-busted workforce this spring.

Infamous Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship revels in mountaintop removal conflict and union-busting--and yet, his ruthless operations receive tacit support from the Obama administration.

Here's a clip of a violent Massey supporter attack on this week's nonviolent march with Goldman Prize Winner Judy Bonds from Marsh Fork Elementary School this week:

6) Flooding from Mountaintop Removal Operations Still Rolls Down Like Injustice: Living under a mountaintop removal operation, Goldman Prize winner Maria Gunnoe, in Boone County, West Virginia, has seen seven floods sweep by her home, where the natural mountain valleys and waterways have been destroyed and clear cutting and blasting have led to massive erosion. Here's a clip from one of the floods:

7) Mountaintop Removal Stripmines Black History Month and Appalachian Heritage: Just as our nation has quietly overlooked the Appalachian coal mining origins of Black History Month godfather Carter Woodson, whose coal mining tenure in Raleigh County, West Virginia inspired his work as a historian and moved him to launch Negro History Week in the 1920s, the 38-year nightmare of mountaintop removal mining and its origins of betrayal in the same county of Woodson's mining experience have led to the destruction of the rich Appalachian heritage. See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/stripmining-black-history_b_83918.html

8) Mountaintop Removal Operators Are NOT Coal Miners, But Mostly Heavy Equipment Operators (Bulldozer and Truck Drivers) Who Could Easily Be Used on Infrastructure Projects, Waterworks, Highway Projects, Genuine Reclamation and Reforestation Projects, and a Lot of Green Jobs Initiatives and Manufacturing Plants (Building Wind Turbines, Solar Panels).

In fact, every mountaintop removal operator job has taken away 2-3 jobs from underground coal miners.

9) President Obama Might Share a Beer But Not a Glass of Water with the Residents of Prenter, West Virginia: In a community stricken by coal sludge contamination of their wells and watersheds, illnesses including gallbladder disease abound--and yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of coal company negligence, American citizens can still NOT drink their tap or well water and must pay to truck in bottled water for the next two years until a new water system is set up. See:
http://www.prenterwaterfund.org/about

10) And When President Obama Returns to DC, Mountaintop Removal Will Come With Him: The joy of President Obama's air-conditioner at the White House and Oval Office requires the devastation of Appalachian mountains and historic communities, where coal stripmined from mountaintop removal sites in Appalachia are trained into the Potomac River power plant, which generates the electricity for Washington, DC.

Bottom line: It is time for the President and his CEQ and EPA administrators to come up to the mountain.

For more information, see: ilovemountains.org

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/sunday-bloggers-act-top-t_b_221976.html

Radon emission rate increases as Cotter impoundments dry

Publish Date: 6/27/2009
Guest Column
Sharyn Cunningham/CCAT Co-Chair

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in conjunction with Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste and Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, will hold a public meeting Tuesday. A review of radon emission regulations for uranium mill tailings impoundments will be discussed. The meeting will be from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday at Quality Inn and Suites, U.S. 50 and Dozier Avenue.

Uranium milling produces large quantities of tailings placed in impoundments. ISL uranium mines utilize evaporation ponds, as well, and are being considered for compliance under these regulations. Tailings contain large amounts of radium, and therefore, they emit large quantities of radon. Radon is a dangerous radioactive gas, and it attaches to dust particles. The National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) Subpart W is the radon emission standard for operating uranium mill tailings. Over 20 years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was recommending that the limit or standard be set at 2 picocuries per square meter per second. Instead, EPA set the limit at 20.

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required EPA to review this standard and, if appropriate, revise it within 10 years. By 2001, EPA still had not performed this non-discretionary duty. Because of concerns over air emission violations at the Cotter Uranium Mill, CCAT and RMCAA began discussions in 2006 with the EPA. Failure to reach agreement on this issue led to the filing of a lawsuit. CCAT and RMCAA requested the radon standard review from EPA, and public participation during the review through public meetings, teleconferences, and an Internet Webinar. The lawsuit is nearing final settlement. In the meantime, EPA has begun the review of the standard. The Tuesday meeting in Cañon City is the first of three meetings to be conducted to allow participation from affected communities.

Why should you care? ISL uranium mining is moving forward in Colorado. In 2007, CDPHE confirmed leakage from the Cotter Uranium Mill tailings impoundment. Radon emissions from tailings in the impoundments have been stopped by water coverage, so we are facing a no-win situation. The weight of water covering the tailings threatens the liner and will increase leakage of contamination into groundwater, while drying the impoundments and exposing tailings to the air increases the rate of radon emissions. CDPHE has directed Cotter to dry the primary and secondary impoundments.

EPA regulations require once-a-year tests for radon at uranium mill tailings impoundments, but EPA can require more frequent testing when a facility nears the radon emissions rate limit. Between 2006 and 2008, as Cotter has been drying the Primary Impoundment, tests showed a 230 percent increase in the radon emissions rate.

In 2008, Cotter’s test results were just a fraction below the NESHAPS limit. CCAT believes the current unusual circumstances warrant more frequent tests. CCAT also has requested proof that alternative measures used to control radon emissions, such as sprinkling the tailings, are supported by scientific research and evidence.

If you care about the air you breathe, or the dust blowing in our winds, participate in this hard-won opportunity for our community to have a voice in decisions that are being made in far-away places, join us in voicing our concerns and offering our personal experience and knowledge for this review.

http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/Opinion-story.asp?ID=11005

Opinions split on uranium lawsuit

By JULIAN CAVAZOS •
Originally published June 28, 2009 at 2:54 p.m., updated June 28, 2009 at 2:54 p.m.

Open bore holes blamed

Of the more than 900 bore holes drilled in northern Goliad County, 136 of them were left open longer than 48 hours, which is a violation, said Jim Blackburn, Goliad County's environmental attorney.

Goliad ...

Of the more than 900 bore holes drilled in northern Goliad County, 136 of them were left open longer than 48 hours, which is a violation, said Jim Blackburn, Goliad County's environmental attorney.

Goliad County contends the open bore holes allowed rainwater to cause contamination to the subsurface, also known as illegal injection, Blackburn said.

Blackburn said the county would take another month or so to decide if they will re-file the case in state court.

GOLIAD - Goliad County commissioners presented their case against Uranium Energy Corp. to the public on Saturday.

County residents attended so that they could become more informed and offer input on whether the county should re-file its legal case in state court.

The county sued the uranium company in March 2008. The lawsuit contends the company failed to cap exploratory bore holes, which they county says contaminated the water supply.

A federal judge dismissed the case a few weeks ago. Now, commissioners are debating whether they should re-file the case in state court.

"We're going to have this public meeting before we come up with a solution," said Goliad County Commissioner Jim Krenek.

Some residents who attended supported re-filing the lawsuit, while others opposed the costly move and think uranium mining should continue unimpeded.

Brad Moore, a uranium company exploration and land manager, said the county should avoid spending money on the case.

"It's really amazing that the citizens of Goliad County who support the opposition are supporting the expenditure of their funds to fight their own rights," Moore said. "The federal judge dismissed the groundwater suit, and they want to continue to spend money."

Sherilyn Arnecke, a Goliad landowner, supports the mining. Her family has been in the area for eight generations.

Mining will bring more jobs and pump more money into the county, Arnecke said.

"I just heard yesterday that in the next 20 years, they're going to build 100 more nuclear power plants in the United States," Arnecke said. "This is concerning the climate bill that's before Congress right now. And where is this uranium going to come from?"

All the money the county would spend on the re-filing in state court would cause financial neglect for the rest of the county, Arnecke said.

"They're fighting for one little part of the county," she said. "And what about the rest of the county that's being totally ignored? They're putting half a million dollars into one, little-bitty area of Goliad County, but then you have all these citizens in other parts of Goliad that are going to suffer. (The county) needs to spend their money on something Goliad County needs."

County Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said the contaminated water was not caused by the open bore holes, but is naturally occurring.

"Muddy water there was supposedly clogged by uranium mining. It just happened to happen when those guys were out doing their drilling," he said. "It's basically one of the reasons federal judge threw the lawsuit out."

The county should negotiate with the company on a cleaning agreement, because the Uranium Energy Corp. is going to mine anyway, Rodriguez said.

"These people are here to stay," Rodriguez said. "We should work with them and put sanctions in place so they can put money in a savings account. That way if they contaminate it, they're responsible to clean it."

On the other hand, other residents oppose mining and support the lawsuit.

Susan Orr's home in Ander is near the proposed mining site.

"I live out there," Orr said. "I don't want it in my backyard. There's too many environmental issues that could come up over the years."

Contaminated water would cause Orr to lose her cattle, she said.

"I don't want to see my property value go down. We have cattle. I don't want to have to end up getting rid of our livestock because of issues of water."

Water is precious and cannot be contaminated, said Julie Fritz, a Goliad county resident.

"Water is water. It's all our water," Fritz said. "It affects everybody in the county, and in other places. Victoria should care."

Krenek agreed. He is unsure what the county will do without water.

"My position has been opposed to the uranium mining since the very first day I heard about it," Krenek said. "It has everything to do with our drinking water. Without drinking water, what do you do? Would you have to import it?"

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2009/jun/28/jc_uraniummeeting_062809_56225/

Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Nuclear Power

MONDAY 22 JUNE, 2009

Nuclear power has been increasingly hailed by lobbyists as a source of clean, cheap and safe power; but cost blowouts in the construction and maintenance of new nuclear plants, along with their need for massive amounts of water and continuing radioactive waste storage issues, is again making renewable energy look to be the only really viable option to power our future.

According to a recent study by economist Dr. Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School, the cost of electricity generated by new nuclear reactors would be (USD) 12-20 cents per kilowatt hour, whereas increased energy efficiency and renewable energy sourced power would cost around 6 cents per kilowatt hour.

This translates to USD $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors.
Projected construction and maintenance costs for nuclear plants have quadrupled since the start of the nuclear renaissance in 2000. The required massive subsidies from taxpayers and ratepayers would not change the real cost of nuclear reactors, they would just shift the risks to the public, according to the report.

According to Dr. Cooper: "We are literally seeing nuclear reactor history repeat itself. The "Great Bandwagon Market" that ended so badly for consumers in the 1970s and 1980s was driven by advocates who confused hope and hype with reality." This latest version of the "Great Bandwagon Market" will see reactors cost seven times as much as the cost projection for the first reactors of the Great Bandwagon Market.

Cost has always been one of the the major issues haunting the solar power and wind energy industry, but the public have been generally unaware of the massive tax payer funded subsidises fossil fuels and current nuclear reactors receive. It's only been in very recent times that renewable energy is starting to see levels of funding to help put it on equal footing with non-renewable power generation technology.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=481

Nuclear 101

Public Forum Letter

Updated: 06/26/2009 06:10:19 PM MDT


Sen. Bob Bennett proposed that we build 100 new nuclear power plants by 2030, 21 years from now. ("Bennett: U.S. needs 100 more N-power plants," Tribune , June 23). Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi was stumped why anyone would oppose such a construction blitz.

Here's why. One hundred large nuclear plants of 1,000 megawatts each would constitute a generating capacity of 100,000 megawatts. It costs an estimated $8 a watt to construct nuclear plants today, so the total estimated cost would be around $800 billion! Divide this by 21 years, and this requires an annual expenditure of around $40 billion. Divide this by the 300 million people in America today and you have a cost of approximately $130 each year until 2030 for every man, woman and child in America.

Why do we need this large expenditure for electricity generation? To meet the anticipated needs of the growing U.S. population (births plus immigrants).

One of the benefits of stopping U.S. population growth would be the elimination of the need for all these proposed nuclear power plants and of the associated problems of waste disposal.

Albert A. Bartlett

Boulder, Colo.



http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_12699338

Company Seeks Ariz. Permit Mine Near Grand Canyon

Comment: What's up with the Canadians invading our country looking and mining for uranium? Most people out west have PAID a deadly price for the greed of corporations and the federal gov't and now Canada want to kill us? HECK NO, WE WON'T GLOW, DEMAND OUR LEADERS TO BAN URANIUM MINING THRU OUT AMERICA!

By (AP) FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.
Published: Sat, June 27, 2009 - 12:33 pm
Last Updated: Sat, June 27, 2009 - 1:05 pm
Short URL: http://wkrg.com/a/140938/

A Canadian company is one permit away from reactivating an Arizona uranium mine near the Grand Canyon where conservationists have been pushing for protection from new mining operations, a state official says.

Thousands of mining claims dot a 1 million-acre area around the canyon, but Arizona Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Mark Shaffer says only Denison Mines Corp. has a pending air permit with the agency for a site about 20 miles from the canyon's northern border.

Most of the claims for uranium are staked in an Arizona strip, a sparsely populated area immediately north of the Grand Canyon National Park known for its high-grade uranium ore. The silvery white metal is used in nuclear energy and weapons and for medicine.

If the permit is approved, Denison would be the first to restart mining at the Toronto-based company's Arizona 1 site, some 20 years after previous operations ceased.

The project could be a boon for some residents in Fredonia, a town of 1,000 closest to the mine. Many in the small town about 35 miles away are employed in the mining industry, and Mayor Dixie Judd said earlier operations provided an economic boost to the community that has three service stations and one restaurant.

"It just hasn't been what people perceive it to be," she said Friday, adding that the town's only bank closed shortly after previous uranium operations were shuttered.

Ron Hochstein, president and chief executive of Denison, said operations could begin within a year. A shaft already had been sunk at the mine, ventilation work was complete and agreements have been secured to sell the ore, he said.

"It would start ramping up once we receive the permit," he said.

The company also is seeking aquifer protection permits for its Pinenut and Canyon mines, 40 miles southwest of Fredonia and six miles southeast of Tusayan near the South Rim of the canyon, respectively.

Interest in reopening mines in the area is expected to rise following a public hearing on the permits next month in Fredonia, Shaffer said. The price for uranium has risen eight-fold since the 1980s, now selling at $55 per pound.

But nearby residents and environmentalists, who are pushing to ban new mining in the area, are worried about possible groundwater contamination, destruction of wildlife habitat and the transport of radioactive material. Some miners and their families have blamed exposure to uranium for deaths and health effects, including cancer and kidney disease.

The company plans to ship the ore from its three mines to a processing site hundreds of miles away near Blanding, Utah. Environmentalists say that without new environmental impact studies, residents along the trucking route won't have a say about the noise, traffic or dust from the ore escaping.

Kaibab Paiute Indian tribal administrator Tony Phillippe said members who live downwind from former nuclear testing sites have suffered enough from the exposure to nuclear dust. The reservation lies outside of Fredonia off State Route 89A where the ore would be trucked.

"I will not tolerate that type of invasion of the health of this community," he said.

Taylor McKinnon, the public-lands program director for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, said mining also could harm species in the area, including the endangered California condor and fish in the Colorado River. He said environmental analyses on the mines that were completed in the 1980s should be redone.

Environmentalists also have said that the mining would cause harm and that vertical columns below the ground would allow water from mining to flow downward, contaminating the water table below with uranium.

Hochstein, the Denison president, disputed those claims, saying that the company was not changing the ground structure.

"Those vertical lines have been there for millions of years, the water should be seeping down there already," he said.

ADEQ Director Ben Grumbles said the department recognizes that "uranium mining needs to be closely regulated and that adequate environmental safeguards must be in place before any work begins."

The department said Denison's air permit includes stringent monitoring and reporting requirements that would assure airborne dust from the mine and hauling operations are minimized.

Support from the state's congressional delegation has been divided. Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva's efforts to ban new mining claims and exploration on unproven claims have been blocked, while Arizona's two U.S. senators have said there was already an adequate balance of resource development and wilderness protection around the canyon.

Denison has staked 110 claims within the 1 million-acre area around the Grand Canyon and plans to produce nearly 110,000 tons per year of uranium ore at its Arizona 1 site over 10 years.

http://www.wkrg.com/associated_press/article/company-seeks-ariz.-permit-mine-near-grand-canyon/140938/Jun-27-2009_1-05-pm/

Santoy Provides Update on Plan of Arrangement

Comment: Will this pay for the Uranium Subcommitte study!!??

Fri Jun 26, 2009
News Release: 09-11

Santoy Resources Ltd. (TSX.V: SAN) wishes to announce that the business combination involving Santoy and Virginia Uranium Ltd., by way of a statutory plan of arrangement and approved by joint shareholders at the Special and Annual Meeting held on May 21st (news release dated May 21, 2009) is now scheduled to close on or before July 21, 2009, subject to required approvals. In order to facilitate the on-going environmental baseline program and a new Preliminary Economic Assessment study, Santoy will advance US$ 904,159.13 (the equivalent of CAD$1,000,000) which upon closing of the transaction will be converted into 1,666,666 shares of VA Uranium Holdings, Inc, which will satisfy the financing commitment specified in the Amended and Restated Combination Agreement dated April 14, 2009. In accordance with the same agreement, the maturity date of the Convertible Promissory Note issued January 2, 2009 will be extended to coincide with the closing of the business combination.

Virginia Uranium Ltd. owns an interest in the Coles Hill uranium deposit located in southern Virginia. Coles Hill, considered to be one of the largest undeveloped uranium deposits in the United States, had been advanced through to the feasibility stage in 1982 and has now been investigated by 220 drill holes. It has an estimated measured and indicated resource of 119 million pounds of U3O8 (at a cut-off grade of 0.025 per cent U3O8) based on a National Instrument 43-101 technical report on the Coles Hill property prepared for Santoy by Behre Dolbear and Company Ltd., Marshall Miller and Associates Inc., and PAC Geological Consultant Inc. [Dr. Peter Christopher, P.Eng.] dated Feb 2, 2009 and revised April 29, 2009. This report is available on SEDAR and on Santoy's website at www.santoy.ca

The proposed Private Placement financing announced May 14, 2009 is scheduled to close prior to the closure of the business combination.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors
SANTOY RESOURCES LTD.
"Ron Netolitzky"
R. K. Netolitzky, President & CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

http://www.santoy.ca/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=354106&_Type=News-Releases