Should Virginia Uranium chairman have been reappointed to river committee?

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 9:26 AM EDT

In 2004, Sen. Charles Hawkins nominated Walter Coles to serve on the Roanoke River Basin Advisory Committee.

The Roanoke River Basin Advisory Committee is an advisory committee to the Virginia delegation to the Roanoke River Basin Bi-State Commission.

The Bi-State Commission's purpose is to provide guidance and make recommendations to local, state and federal legislative and administrative bodies regarding use, stewardship and enhancement of the Basin's water and other natural resources.

The commission provides a forum for discussion of issues affecting the basin's water quantity, quality and other natural resources.

It also identifies basin-related problems, recommends appropriate solutions, undertakes studies and prepares, publishes and disseminates information through reports.

The Senate Rules Committee reappointed Coles in 2006.

During Coles' second term, he formed Virginia Uranium Inc. and began uranium exploration in Pittsylvania County.

Coles' term expired on June 30 and he was eligible for reappointment. The Senate Rules Committee did reappoint him and he will serve through 2010.

When the General Assembly convenes next session Virginia Uranium lobbyist Whittington W. Clement will be lobbying on behalf of Virginia Uranium regarding "matters relating to the establishment of a regulatory program controlling development of Virginia's uranium resources."

I guess some can have their (yellow) cake...and eat it, too.

Karen B. Maute

Danville

A note from Gregg: Thanks Karen! You nailed it!

Accidents Make Nuclear Questions Bigger

Thanks Shireen!

by Julio Godoy

PARIS - The recent proliferation of accidents at nuclear power plants in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe has made calls for greater reliance on nuclear energy questionable, experts say.

Several accidents were reported in mid-July at three nuclear power plants in the south of France. They came days after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Jul. 3 that his government had decided to construct a new nuclear power plant.

In one accident at Tricastin on Jul. 7, up to 30,000 litres of a solution contaminated with more than 70 kilograms of uranium leaked into ground water. The plant is located near the medieval city Avignon, 530 km south of Paris, in a densely populated area with intensive agriculture.

The leak forced authorities to ban use of water for agricultural and domestic purposes around the plant for several days. The accident drew sharp criticism of Electricité de France, the state-owned power generation monopoly. It first concealed the leak, and reacted to it several hours after it had happened.

At the same plant, about 100 workers were contaminated with radioactive dust containing during maintenance operations Jul. 23.

Five days earlier, another uranium leak occurred at the Romans-sur-Isè re plant, some 80 km north-east of Tricastin. Some reports suggested that this leak has been continuing for years.

A fourth accident occurred at the plant at Saint Alban, in the same region, 115 km north of Tricastin. Fifteen workers were exposed to radioactive dust.

Environmental groups say similar incidents occurred during July at the nuclear power plants at Nogent sur Seine, 80 km southeast of Paris, and Gravelines, near the border with Belgium.

“In less than 15 days, we have received information of the accidental contamination of 126 persons working in nuclear power plants,” says Bruno Chareyron, an engineer in nuclear physics, and director of research at the independent investigative commission on radioactivity CRIIRAD (after its French name).

Chareyron told IPS that CRIIRAD had knowledge of other leaks in Tricastin last year. “Carbone 14 and tritium were released into the atmosphere,” he said. “This time, uranium leaked for several hours before the authorities were warned and precaution measures were put in place.”

According to CRIIRAD, the Jul. 7 leak represented at least 17 times the maximum radioactivity allowed legally for a whole year.

Annie Thábaud-Mony, a physician at the French National Institute for Medical and Health Research, says contamination of workers “confronted regularly with important irradiation increases the risks of contracting diseases associated with ionising radiation, such as cancers and disorders affecting the human reproductive cycles.”

All facilities involved in the accidents are the property of AREVA, the state-owned monopoly which constructs nuclear power plants in France. AREVA is also involved in the construction of nuclear power plants abroad.

The new power plant announced by Sarkozy will use pressurised water reactor (PWR) technology. Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, had decided in 2006 to construct the first PWR in Flamanville on the northwest Atlantic coast, by the English Channel.

The PWR in Flamanville is under construction, and is expected to go into production in 2012, and produce 1,600 megawatts of electricity. But the project has been hit by delays, and construction began really only in December last year.

“We want that nuclear energy be one of the main answers to the oil crisis we are facing today,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced. France has long relied on nuclear energy. A total of 58 nuclear power plants produce some 63,000 megawatts, 80 percent of the electricity consumed in France.

But, like all other countries using nuclear energy, France has not found a solution to the disposal of nuclear waste. And, judging by the recent string of accidents, it cannot claim that its nuclear power plants are absolutely safe.

“All these accidents show that, beyond the official incantations praising nuclear power, this technology remains a source of pollution, enormous dangers, and very difficult to deal with,” Fréderic Marillier of Greenpeace France told IPS.

Marillier says that some 900 incidents officially classified as unimportant occur in French nuclear power plants on average every year, in addition to “constant leaks around their facilities.”

Greenpeace has called for a suspension of the PWR programme. It points out that a PWR reactor under construction in Finland, in which AREVA is a partner, has faced numerous setbacks, and will go into production only in 2011, after more than two years delay and a 50 percent increase in construction costs.

Numerous accidents in European nuclear power plants have occurred in recent months. In Sweden, a fire broke out Jul. 11 at the plant at Ringhals, near the city Göteborg. In Spain, accidents led politicians and environmentalists to call for closing the nuclear power plant at Cofrentes, 70 km west of the Mediterranean city Valencia.

As at Tricastin, several accidents took place at Cofrentes, one of seven Spanish nuclear power plants. First, radioactive material was found just outside the plant. Later, on Jul. 13, the plant was automatically shut down after an abnormal surge of power was registered.

Fernando Giner, mayor of Vallada town 60 km south of the plant, says at least 22 accidents have been registered at the Cofrentes plant since January 2007. Giner, member of the right-wing Popular party, has urged the government to close down the plant.

In Germany, two nuclear power plants near Hamburg had to close in March. But leading members of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) have been calling for reversal of a decision taken in 2000 to phase out nuclear power by 2022. That decision was taken by the coalition government of the time, formed by the SPD and the Green party.

“The retreat from the phasing out will come,” former chancellor Helmut Schmidt from the SPD said in an interview with the conservative weekly Die Zeit. “I find it surprising that Germans believe, in contrast to all other industrialised nations, that they can get by without nuclear power.”

Schmidt admitted that nuclear power brings environmental and health risks. “But there is nothing in the world, not even love, that is without risk.”

A note from Gregg: Love never killed massive amounts of people, unless you want to talk about Hitler, Mussolini and others. Then you need to question exactly what it was that they loved.

Stopping Radon

Yes, these are the facts about radon. It is cancer-causing. Yes, there are indications that Pittsylvania Co. currently has elevated levels of radon present in some 50% of its homes. But there's not one word in this op-ed piece about the serious, ugly truth that mining Coles Hill would release huge amounts of radon currently trapped with the uranium below, radon which will poison everything it touches, from ponds to people, leaves to lungs, for thousands of years to come.

Yes, new homes should be constructed to vent existing radon (and current homes should be tested and remediated against existing radon), radon that exists above-ground for reasons we don't understand. However, the easiest way to stop massive amounts of additional radon from killing Virginians is to keep it contained in the ground where it belongs by not mining Coles Hill.

Published by The Editorial Board

Published: July 31, 2008

Radon is not just Pittsylvania County’s problem. The odorless, colorless, tasteless gas — a byproduct of the decay of naturally occurring uranium in the soil — is found in houses all over the country.

When radon gas above a certain level is detected in a house, the cost to fix the problem can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

But people who buy new houses should be able to buy the peace of mind that comes with new construction, especially when it comes to the potential for radon problems.

On Monday, the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance that would require new houses in the county to be built to vent radon gas safely away.

The state recommends the ordinance but doesn’t require it. Pittsylvania County — which has substantial, known deposits of uranium under its soils — should take Richmond’s hint.

The proposed ordinance would add a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to the cost of a new house, but it will give the buyers of those new houses the peace of mind that comes from not having to breathe what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls “The health hazard with a simple solution.”

What is that health hazard?

Lung cancer. The EPA believes radon gas is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and greatly increases the chance of lung cancer in smokers.

Radon can be present in one home and absent next door. Variables as diverse as soil types, the way a foundation is built and the luck of the draw determine who has a radon problem in their house and who doesn’t.

Radon has been detected in older homes as well as newer ones. It has been found in well-insulated houses and drafty ones, too.

The solution for existing houses is testing followed by remediation. For new houses, an ounce of prevention is worth a much more expensive future cure. Pittsylvania County should require that new houses be built to safely vent radon gas.

Reader Reactions

Posted by ( Action Against Radon ) on July 31, 2008 at 9:59 am

Radon induced lung cancer is indeed occuring across the country. The estimates by National Academy of Sciences is that 21,000 people each have their lives claimed by this silent killer. You may go to http://www.cansar.org to see some of those faces and read their words.

Radon control methods built into new homes can reduce the amount of radon entering the homes and I predict in a few years no one will purchase a house unless it has those features. I hope to testify at the hearing in Chatham and speak for those who no longer can.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/editorials/danville_editorials/article/stopping_radon/5361/

Nuclear Power's Dirty Secrets

by Doug Brugge
Boston , Massachusetts

The collapse of part of the Wilkins Ice Sheet in Antarctica in March of this year is the latest warning that global warming is a pressing issue. The seriousness of the problem has prompted some to take a new look at nuclear power. Some powerful interests, including the Bush Administration and presidential candidate John McCain, think nuclear should be promoted to help head off global warming. To me this is as foolhardy and dangerous as continuing to rely extensively on coal and petroleum. Nuclear energy poses multiple problems and threats to people and the environment, most of which have not been discussed sufficiently in the public discourse.

At the top of any list of concerns about expanding nuclear power should be the threat this poses to nuclear non-proliferation. Nuclear power capability is a necessary step on the path to developing nuclear weapons as can be seen by the on-going attempts to restrict the development of nuclear technology in Iran and Syria . Thus, we need to see the spread of nuclear technology as contributing to weapons development around the world. Do we really want a world with even more states facing off against each other with nuclear weapons?

According to the National Academy of Science in 2003, there were about 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the U.S. from commercial reactors. Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the designated depository, but it has yet to open and faces both technical concerns with storing the waste safely for millennia and substantial political opposition. In the meantime, the US and other nuclear countries are storing large quantities of highly radioactive waste at existing reactors or reprocessing facilities. This will suffice for a while, but it does not constitute a long-term solution. Until we have a way to deal with this high-level nuclear waste, expanding the nuclear energy sector is irresponsible.

While risks of catastrophic nuclear releases are low, indeed the record of nuclear safety in the US is good, we must never forget Chernobyl . The hundreds of millions of curies of radiation released during the melt down of the Chernobyl reactor contaminated a large geographic area and caused significant illness and death. We do not know how likely or unlikely another event like that one is, but we should be particularly concerned when countries with little or no experience with nuclear power begin to build a nuclear industry. These may be the circumstances in which risk is greatest.

Uranium mining, like most mining, including coal, has had devastating effects on miners, nearby communities and the environment. The toll, both financial and in human loss, from uranium mining and processing is largely invisible to the American public, but it is with these communities that I have worked for almost 15 years. The Navajo Nation has suffered deaths and illness of hundreds of miners and as yet undetermined harm from over a thousand abandoned mines. As the uranium market begins to make mining profitable again, we need to remember their suffering as well as the environmental damage that has yet to be fully addressed (at hundreds of millions of dollars). Similar stories are repeated all around the world.

Another devastating blow to the revival of uranium mining as a response to global warming is that it is not without a carbon footprint of its own. Mining, milling and processing uranium, building reactors, decommissioning them and disposing of high level waste all release greenhouse gasses. As depletion of uranium ore bodies proceeds, we will have to mine lower and lower grade ore at greater and greater cost in terms of carbon dioxide produced and energy return. Further, starting up a large-scale revival of nuclear power will take decades that we do not have to respond to global warming.

For all of these reasons, nuclear power is not a strong answer to the worrisome global warming threat that we face. Instead we should be aiming to scale back nuclear power over the coming decades while developing and deploying a range of other alternatives, including solar, wind and geothermal, which pose lesser risks than fossil fuels or nuclear. More importantly, we should be doing everything we can to increase energy efficiency and to reduce the use of energy (conservation) . The effort to revive nuclear power seems to me to be an opportunistic proposal by the industry and its allies with little potential to fend off global warming and little thought to adverse consequences, other than to their own bottom line.

About the author: Doug Brugge is Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and co-editor (with Timothy Benally and Esther Yazzie-Lewis) of The Navajo People and Uranium Mining (UNM Press, 2006).

Published in In Motion Magazine July 21, 2008

Even the Government's Nuclear Agency Thinks an Atomic Renaissance Is a Bad Idea

CounterPunch

July 28, 2008

By Harvey Wasserman

A devastating blow to the much-hyped revival of atomic power has been delivered by an unlikely source -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the "standardized" designs on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is based have massive holes in them, and may not be ready for approval for years to come.

Delivered by one of America's most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC's warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors -- and all licensing and construction schedules -- are completely up for grabs, and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best. And any "hard number" basis for independent financing for future nukes may not be available for years to come, if ever.

These key points have been raised in searing testimony before state regulators by Jim Warren of the North Carolina Waste and Awareness Reduction Network and Tom Clements of the South Carolina Friends of the Earth, and by others now challenging proposed state-based financing for new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. The NRC gave conditional "certification" to this "standardized" design in 2004, allowing design work to continue. But as recently as June 27, the NRC has issued written warnings that hundreds of key design components remain without official approval. Indeed, Westinghouse has been forced to actually withdraw numerous key designs, throwing the entire permitting process into chaos.

The catastrophic outcome of similar problems has already become tangible. After two years under construction, the first "new generation" French reactor being built in Finland is already more than two years behind schedule, and more than $2.5 billion over budget. The scenario is reminiscent of the economic disaster that hit scores of "first generation" reactors, which came in massively over budget and, in many cases, decades behind promised completion dates.

In North and South Carolina, public interest groups are demanding the revocation of some $230 million in pre-construction costs already approved by state regulators for two proposed Duke Energy reactors. In both those states, as well as in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors have been presented to regulatory commissions to be financed by ratepayers as they are being built.

This astounding pro-utility scheme forces electric consumers to pay billions of dollars for nuclear plants that may never operate, and whose costs are indeterminate. Sometimes called Construction Work in Progress, it lets utilities raise rates to pay for site clearing, project planning, and down payments on large equipment and heavy reactor components, such as pressure vessels, pumps and generators, that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars, even before the projects get final federal approval. The process in essence gives utilities an incentive to drive up construction costs as much as they can. It allows them to force ratepayers to cover legal fees incurred by the utilities to defend themselves against lawsuits by those very ratepayers. And the public is stuck with the bill for whatever is spent, even if the reactor never opens -- or if it melts down before it recoups its construction costs, as did Pennsylvania' s Three Mile Island Unit Two in 1979, which self-destructed after just three months of operation.

According to Warren and Clements, Duke Energy and its cohorts have "filed some 6,500 pages of Westinghouse' s technical design documents as the major component of applications" to build new reactors. "Of the 172 interconnected Westinghouse documents," say NCWARN and FOE, "only 21 have been certified." And most of what has been certified, they add, rely on systems that are unapproved, and that are key to the guts of the reactor, including such major components as the "reactor building, control room, cooling system, engineering designs, plant-wide alarm systems, piping and conduit."

In other words, despite millions of dollars of high-priced hype, the "new generation" of "standardized design" power plants actually does not exist. The plans for these reactors have not been finalized by the builders themselves, nor have they been approved by the regulators. There is no operating prototype of a Westinghouse AP-1000 from which to draw actual data about how safely these plants might actually operate, what their environmental impact might be, or what they might cost to build or run.

In fact, as the NRC's June 27 letter notes, Westinghouse has been forced to withdraw key technical documents from the regulatory process. The NRC says this means design approval for the AP-1000 might not come until 2012.

The problem extends to other designs. According to Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, the "Evolutionary Power Reactor" proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, "is way behind in certification" causing delays in the licensing process. Similar problems have arisen with the "Economic Simplified Boiling War Reactor" design proposed for North Anna, Virginia and Fermi, Michigan. "All of these utilities seem to want standardization for the other guy, not for themselves, so most of them are making changes to the 'standardized' designs, says Mariotte. "Even the ABWR," being planned for a site in south Texas, which has actually been built before, "has design issues" that have caused delays.

The problem, says Mariotte, "is that the NRC is still trying to go ahead and do licensing even with the designs not certified. This is going to lead to a big mess later on."

But in the meantime, Public Service Commissions like the one in Florida, have given preliminary approval to reactor proposals whose projected costs have more than doubled in just one year. Florida Power & Light's two proposed reactors at Turkey Point, on the border of the Everglades National Park, are listed as costing somewhere between $6 billion and $9 billion. FP&L refuses to commit to a firm price, and is demanding south Florida ratepayers foot an unknowable bill for gargantuan projects whose costs are virtually certain to skyrocket long before the NRC approves the actual reactor designs. By contrast, the "huge" preliminary deal just reached between Florida, environmentalists and U.S. Sugar to buy some 180,000 acres of land to save the Everglades is now estimated at less than $2 billion, less than one-sixth the minimum estimated cost of the two reactors proposed for Turkey Point.

In the larger picture, the depth of this scam is staggering. With no finalized design, and no firm price tag, a second generation of nuclear power plants is now being put on the tab of southeastern citizens whose rates have already begun to skyrocket. These reactor projects cannot get private financing, and cannot proceed without either massive federal subsidies and loan guarantees, or a flood of these state-based give-aways. They also cannot get private insurance against future melt-downs, and have no solution for their radioactive waste problem. Current estimates for finishing the proposed Yucca Mountain national waste repository, also yet to be licensed, are soaring toward $100 billion, even though it, too, may never open.

By contrast, firm costs for proposed wind farms, solar panels, increased efficiency and other green sources are proven and reliable. These projects are easily financed by private investors lining up to become involved. Some $6 billion in new wind farms are under construction or on order in the United States alone. They are established and profitable, and can in many cases can be up and running in less than a year.

The high-profile campaign to paint atomic energy as some kind of answer to America's energy problems has hit the iceberg of its economic impossibilities. The atomic "renaissance" has no tangible approved design, and no firm construction or operating costs to present. There are no reliable new reactor construction schedules, except to know that it will be at least ten years before the first one could conceivably come on line, and that its price tag is unknowable.

In short, the "nuclear renaissance" is perched atop a gigantic technical and economic chasm that looms larger every day, and that could soon swallow the entire idea of building more reactors.

Harvey Wasserman, a co-founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy, edits the nukefree.org web site. He is the author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia. org. He can be reached at: Windhw@aol.com

The Pickens Plan Generates Attention... and Profits

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Dear Energy and Capital Reader,

The Pickens Plan has transformed into a media phenomenon.

From the New York Times to Fox News, newspapers and news networks across the country are touting the man, and his plan, as a major piece to solving the energy puzzle.

Pickens is wise enough to know we can't drill our way out of the unfolding energy crisis. He has even said that efforts aimed at convincing the public that drilling in forbidden areas will reduce gas prices are "totally misleading."

And this is from a man who made billions in the oil industry.

He's not totally against new drilling, he just has enough gumption and clout to say that the effect won't be that great.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's actually correct about the matter.

Rather than oil, Pickens is placing his bet for a prosperous future on alternative energy technologies.

He's making a $12 billion wager on what will be the world's largest wind farm, which will span the Texas panhandle.

Texas state officials have even supported the plan by approving $4.9 billion - the biggest government investment in clean energy in American history - to build increased transmission capacity for wind energy.

The billionaire also has a 40% stake in a natural gas fueling company called Clean Energy Fuels.

And that's where the second part of T. Boone's plan comes into play... using the natural gas saved by using wind energy to power cars.

What's so exciting about this plan is that as individual investors, you have the opportunity to profit alongside one of the richest men ever to play the energy game.

There are numerous ways to do so, but the most profitable may be through the small company that's going to get the lion's share of the natural gas engine market.

We have a full report on how to do it, and we'll guide you every step of the way.

Take a moment to read the attached report, and take the first step to making energy profits just like T. Boone Pickens does.

Your portfolio will surely reward you.

Good Investing,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Energy and Capital

"One undeniable beneficiary of the Pickens Plan would be Pickens himself. He has bet $12 billion on a massive new wind farm in rural Texas and his BP Capital hedge fund is heavily invested in the natural gas industry."

-The Guardian, UK

Public hearing to address radon detection proposal

By John Crane

Published: July 28, 2008

The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Monday to determine whether to require radon-detection and removal equipment in new homes.

The proposed addition to the county code is recommended by the state for counties believed to have high radon levels, CountyAdministrator Dan Sleeper said.

About half the state’s counties, including Pittsylvania County, have a high potential for radon, he said.

The public hearing will be held during the Board of Supervisors’ regular meeting at 7 p.m. Monday in the General District Courtroom on the second floor of the Edwin R. Shields Courthouse Addition in Chatham.

The change would establish radon requirements as a condition of building inspections of all new homes in the county. It also would bring the county in line with the 2006 Virginia Construction Code, which took effect May 1.

With one of the largest uranium deposits in the world at Coles Hill near Chatham, it makes sense to implement the code, Sleeper said.

He said the required equipment would cost from $500 to $1,700.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/public_hearing_to_address_radon_detection_proposal/5311/

Wall Street Journal: Virginia Is Sitting on the Energy Mother Lode

You simply must read this entire article (link at the end of these excerpts). It's an incredible example of how the Kool-Aid continues to flow...

If the U.S. is to expand nuclear power's role in a time of energy insecurity and climate change worries, we will have to confront the hysterical antinuclear pronouncements that have been the currency of environmentalists for nearly 30 years. The Old Dominion could be a good place for a new start.

By MAX SCHULZ
July 26, 2008

Chatham, Va.

Amid the rolling hills and verdant pastures of south central Virginia an unlikely new front in the battle over nuclear energy is opening up. How it is decided will tell us a lot about whether this country is willing to get serious about addressing its energy needs.

AP

Walter Coles Jr. and Walter Coles Sr. discuss uranium.

In Pittsylvania County, just north of the North Carolina border, the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States -- and the seventh largest in the world, according to industry monitor UX Consulting -- sits on land owned by neighbors Henry Bowen and Walter Coles. Large uranium deposits close to the surface are virtually unknown in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River. And that may be the problem.

[...]

Jack Dunavant, head of the Southside Concerned Citizens in nearby Halifax County, is another outspoken critic. He paints a picture of environmental apocalypse. "There will be a dead zone within a 30 mile radius of the mine," he says with a courtly drawl. "Nothing will grow. Animals will die. The radiation genetically alters tissue. Animals will not be able to reproduce. We'll see malformed fetuses."

[...]

James Kelly, who directed the nuclear engineering program at the University of Virginia for many years, says that fears about uranium mining are wildly overblown. "It's an aesthetic nightmare, but otherwise safe in terms of releasing any significant radioactivity or pollution," he told me. "It would be ugly to look at, but from the perspective of any hazard I wouldn't mind if they mined across the street from me."

[...]

The situation is rich with irony as well as uranium. While you can't mine yellowcake, it is perfectly legal in Virginia to process enriched uranium into usable nuclear fuel, which is somewhat dangerous to handle. .

[...]

Since Virginia is already a nuclear-friendly state that properly manages the risks of nuclear power, what sense does it make for the state to ban the safest step in the nuclear fuel cycle?

[...]

For his part, Mr. Coles can't understand the hostility. "I tell these groups that my concerns are your concerns. I have been protecting the environment here for decades, long before any of them became interested in this land." He's received offers to buy his land for sums that would make him incredibly wealthy, but has turned them down. "We love the land. My family has lived here for over 200 years. We're going to continue to live here. That's the reason we decided to keep it, as opposed to selling out." He says Virginia Uranium will continue to push for the independent study.

Mr. Schulz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Read the full article HERE

What a Place for Walter To Be

Another excellent Letter to the Editor!


Published: July 26, 2008

To the editor:

In 2004, state Sen. Charles Hawkins nominated Walter Coles to serve on the Roanoke River Basin Advisory Committee. The VRRBAC is an advisory committee to the Virginia delegation to the Roanoke River Basin Bi-State Commission.

The commission’s purpose is to provide guidance and make recommendations to local, state and federal legislative and administrative bodies regarding use, stewardship and enhancement of the basin’s water and other natural resources. The commission provides a forum for a discussion of the issues affecting the basin’s water quantity, quality and other natural resources. It also identifies basin-related problems, recommends appropriate solutions, undertakes studies and prepares, publishes and disseminates information through reports.

The Senate Rules Committee reappointed Coles in 2006. During Coles’ second term, he formed Virginia Uranium Inc. and began uranium exploration in Pittsylvania County. Coles’ term expired on June 30, but he was reappointed and he will serve through 2010.

When the General Assembly convenes next session, Virginia Uranium Inc. Lobbyist Whittington W. Clement will be lobbying on behalf of VUI regarding “Matters relating to the establishment of a regulatory program controlling development of Virginia’s uranium resources.”

I guess some can have their (yellow) cake … and eat it, too.

KAREN B. MAUTE

Mount Cross

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/danville_letters/article/on_the_committee_jobs_and_no_crowd/5272/

In Pittsylvania Co., Uranium Would Benefit a Few, But Would Endanger Many

From the current Chatham Star-Tribune:


Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:19 AM EDT

Recently, I had cause to search records in the Pittsylvania County Clerk's Office on Marline Corporation, the entity which started the uranium mining effort in Pittsylvania County in the late 1970s-early 1980s and went bankrupt.

I found several pieces of information which were quite interesting to me though I do not know if others will be interested.

First, in the early 1980s Marline leased the parcels of land on which the uranium deposits were located, and these leases were recorded in the clerk's office.

Believe it or not, there was not a single entry made at that time in the indices of the clerk's office using the word "Marline"! (This was before the tenure of the present clerk.)

So if anyone thinks government officials are going to protect the public if mining is done, that fact should be a wake-up call.

So how did I find the records? Last fall the treasurer of Pittsylvania County put these leases up for sale for delinquent taxes - after only about 25 years - and these sales are indexed in the current records of the clerk's office.

I am sure everyone will be shocked to know that Walter Coles was the purchaser of these leases.

Secondly, what interested me about these leases was the boundary line described in several leases.

Specific phrases were "center line of Mill Creek as it meanders"; "an iron placed on the southwesterly bank of Mill Creek"; and "to a centerline in Mill Creek."

These phrases referred to plots ranging in size from four and one-half acres to 10 acres.

Norman Reynolds, an official of Virginia Uranium Inc., has been quoted in a local newspaper article as stating the uranium mine could be 850 feet deep.

It would seem to me to be especially dangerous to dig a hole 850 feet deep on a four-acre parcel of land which is bounded on one side by a creek, or any size such similarly located parcel, for that matter.

This creek would have the potential to pollute with radioactive waste the Dan River, Staunton (Roanoke) River, Kerr (Buggs) Island and the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, which would contaminate the Atlantic Ocean.

Somehow, it seems to me it is going a little far to allow the personal financial interests of a few to set up a situation with the potential to endanger the welfare of so much of the Earth.

Hildred C. Shelton

Danville

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2008/07/24/chatham/opinion/opinion30.txt

What’s Lurking in Your Countertop? Radon, Maybe?

By Kate Murphy
Published: July 24, 2008

SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.

“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.

[...] The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”

[...]

[W]ith increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country concerned about high readings,” said Lou Witt, a program analyst with the agency’s Indoor Environments Division.

[...]

The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.

[...]

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised. Children and developing fetuses are vulnerable to radiation, which can cause other forms of cancer. Mr. Witt said the E.P.A. is not studying health risks associated with granite countertops because of a “lack of resources.”

[...]

Research scientists at Rice University in Houston and at the New York State Department of Health are currently conducting studies of granite widely used in kitchen counters. William J. Llope, a professor of physics at Rice, said his preliminary results show that of the 55 samples he has collected from nearby fabricators and wholesalers, all of which emit radiation at higher-than-background levels, a handful have tested at levels 100 times or more above background.

[...]

To find a certified technician to determine whether radiation or radon is emanating from a granite countertop, homeowners can contact the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (aarst.org). Testing costs between $100 to $300.

Information on certified technicians and do-it-yourself radon testing kits is available from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site at epa.gov/radon, as well as from state or regional indoor air environment offices, which can be found at epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. Kits test for radon, not radiation, and cost $20 to $30. They are sold at hardware stores and online.

Read the full NY Times article here

Bush Administration Rushes to Change Workplace Toxin Rules

This in from Shireen. She says: "Walter Coles must be kicking his heels -- the already lax and unenforced regulations are about to get even laxer. Anyone hoping for a job at the Virginia Uranium mine should think again.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said: "...This Congress will not stand for the gutting of health and safety protections as the Bush administration heads out the door." Oh really? We'll see...."

The Washington Post
July 23, 2008

Despite a White House deadline of June 1 on new regulations, political appointees in the Department of Labor have been given the go-ahead to change workplace risk assessment regulations without consulting scientists and safety experts within OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.

The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May. Instead, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao's intention to push for the rule first surfaced on July 7, when the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posted on its Web site that it was reviewing the proposal, identified only by its nine-word title.

The text of the proposed rule has not been made public, but according to sources briefed on the change and to an early draft obtained by The Washington Post, it would call for reexamining the methods used to measure risks posed by workplace exposure to toxins. The change would address long-standing complaints from businesses that the government overestimates the risk posed by job exposure to chemicals.

The rule would also require the agency to take an extra step before setting new limits on chemicals in the workplace by allowing an additional round of challenges to agency risk assessments.

The department's speed in trying to make the regulatory change contrasts with its reluctance to alter workplace safety rules over the past 7 1/2 years. In that time, the department adopted only one major health rule for a chemical in the workplace, and it did so under a court order.

In an interview, Labor's assistant secretary for policy, Leon R. Sequeira, said officials did not disclose their interest in the rule change earlier because they were uncertain until recently whether they wanted to follow through and pursue a regulation.

But the fast-track approach has brought criticism from workplace-safety advocates, unions and Democrats in Congress. Some accuse the Bush administration of working secretly to give industry a parting gift that will help it delay or block safety regulations after President Bush leaves office.

"It's an insult to America's workers for the Department of Labor to be spending its time in the last year of this administration allegedly fine-tuning the details of how to do these regulations when, other than the one ordered by a court, they have issued no major worker-health regulations, " said Adam Finkel, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who is a former health standards director at Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "The reality is there's a great need to light a fire under this moribund agency to do something - anything - to protect workers."

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said: "The fact that the Department of Labor seems to be engaged in secret rulemaking makes me highly suspicious that some high-level political appointees are up to no good. This Congress will not stand for the gutting of health and safety protections as the Bush administration heads out the door."

Sequeira said department policy prevents him from discussing the details of a draft rule, how it was written and by whom, until it is reviewed by the OMB. The public will have 30 days to critique the draft after it is published.

"It's premature to comment," he said. "People appear to be making assumptions about what's in the draft."

Last week, the proposal was defended in an opinion piece in the New York Sun written by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a fellow at the conservative- leaning Hudson Institute. She wrote that it would bring a "rationalized approach" to risk assessments and probably move away from the incorrect assumption in current rules that workers stay in a job, with daily exposure to the same chemicals or toxins, for as long as 45 years.

Furchtgott-Roth did not mention in the article that she was one of the consultants who worked with Labor beginning in September 2007 on a $349,000 outside study of the risk-assessment process.

The OMB has been trying to address the issue of risk assessment since 2006, when it attempted to set new standards governing how a host of federal agencies reach their conclusions. That plan was withdrawn after the National Academy of Sciences called it "fatally flawed" because it lacked scientific grounding.

Early this year, Deborah Misir, a political deputy in Labor's office of the assistant secretary for policy, worked with the OMB to draft a new risk-assessment rule. A former ethics adviser to Bush, Misir had complained that the department's assumption of a 45-year working life overstated the risk of exposure.

Typically, before drafting a rule, agency officials consult with staff members, lawyers and outside experts, and sometimes industry and other interested parties. But Misir initially did not consult scientific and workplace-risk- assessment experts in OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, according to sources briefed on her work.

Charles Gordon, a recently retired Labor Department lawyer who worked on regulations in OSHA's solicitor's office for 32 years, said the policy office does not usually take the lead on rules involving risk assessments. "Normally, issues of health science like risk assessment are performed by OSHA and MSHA, that have statutory authority and expertise in the area," Gordon said.

Misir waited until April to seek comments from the department's experts. They objected to both the legality and substance of the proposal and recommended that Chao not pursue such a rule, according to the sources.

A few weeks later, when the agency listed regulations "under development or review" in its semiannual agenda, the risk-assessment proposal was not included. But a draft was circulating among a small group of advisers, according to a date-stamped copy obtained by The Post.

In spring 2007, the department listed 38 potential workplace-safety regulations as works in progress. Among its priorities were a proposal to reduce deaths and injuries from cranes and derricks, following a spate of fatal accidents; a new rule to reduce illnesses from silica, which can cause respiratory diseases; and a proposal to change regulation of beryllium, a light metal that can harm the lungs of dental and metal workers.

But virtually overnight, changing the risk-assessment process became the agency's top priority for workplace regulations. The July submission of its proposal broke a deadline set by White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, who had ordered that all agencies submit proposed regulations before June 1 and "resist the historical tendency of administrations to increase regulatory activity in their final months."

Nevertheless, the OMB agreed to work with Labor on the proposal. The July 7 posting on its Web site shocked many inside and outside the agency who had been following the events.

"This is flat-out secrecy," said Peg Seminario, director of health and safety policy at the AFL-CIO. "They are trying to essentially change the job safety and health laws and reduce required workplace protections through a midnight regulation."

Seminario said she was stunned that the administration would consider the rule its top priority, when for years it has "slow-walked and stalled" safety rules that would reduce worker deaths and injuries from diacetyl and beryllium.

David Michaels, an epidemiologist and workplace safety professor at George Washington University's School of Public Health, said the rule would add another barrier to creating safety standards, in the name of improving them.

"This is a guarantee to keep any more worker safety regulation from ever coming out of OSHA," Michaels said. "This is being done in secrecy, to be sprung before President Bush leaves office, to cripple the next administration. "

Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

French Government Calls for Water Table Tests After Nuclear Leak

By Lisa Bryant
Paris
18 July 2008

Officials downplayed the significance of the leak at a nuclear plant in southeastern France Friday, saying it posed no threat to the public or the environment. They said there was no sign it had contaminated local water supplies. They blamed it on defective piping which they said had probably been leaking for several years.


The leak is the second detected at a French nuclear power plant this month. A uranium spill in the Vaucluse region in southern France on July 7 polluted the local water supply.


Environment Minister Jean Louis Borloo has called for a independent probe into this latest leak, and suggested toughening controls at nuclear power plants.


Borloo told reporters Friday that it was critical to have in place systems that could detect, inform the public and summon experts immediately should anything go wrong.


France leads Europe in nuclear power, which generates 80 percent of the country's electricity. Recently, the French government has also signed contracts to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East and North Africa.


Read the full article here: http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-18-voa47.cfm

VOP going door to door to talk to voters

Photos by Jill Nance/The News & Advance

Norman Brown speaks to Virginia Organizing Project intern Kisha Johnson who went door-to-door on Wadsworth Street in Lynchburg on Tuesday taking notice of issues that residents feel are important during this election year. VOP interns are also trying to register as many voters as possible.

By Ray Reed

Published: July 17, 2008

A Virginia group is knocking on doors in Lynchburg neighborhoods, looking for a few people willing to get involved with their government leaders.

Four paid intern workers for the Virginia Organizing Project say they are finding people who say that crime and safety are the primary issues in some neighborhoods, while in others the residents’ top concerns are about economic matters like housing.

“We’re going door to door in a nonpartisan way,” said Barry Butler, Lynchburg coordinator of the Virginia Organizing Project. Butler said the effort is a “civic engagement project,” and is being conducted in cities across Virginia.

Its primary targets are people who are in “marginalized constituency groups,” Butler said.

In Lynchburg, the group’s goal is to knock on 13,000 doors. That’s the task facing Kisha Johnson, Zach Barrett, Joshua Davis and Becky Eades, all young Lynchburg residents themselves.

The interns usually ask people three questions, one of which is: “On a scale of one to five, how important do you think it is for everyone to have health care?”

They also urge people to attend a meeting to discuss health-care issues with the city’s state legislators, Sen. Steve Newman and Del. Shannon Valentine.

In Lynchburg, the group asks people to name an issue that concerns them most, and also to say whether residents are aware of the city’s efforts to promote dialogue about race relations.

About 40 to 50 percent of people tell the interns they were not aware of the race dialogue, Butler said, although the program has been heavily publicized.

Working out of a union hall on Campbell Avenue in Lynchburg, the four interns fan out daily with clipboards to record people’s responses, and a handful of voter-guide booklets that tell people how to register to vote.

Although voter registration isn’t the project’s primary goal, Butler said, it has led between 50 and 60 people to fill out registration forms.

The booklet takes a stand on several issues, none of which is specifically on the ballot this year.

Among the issues are racial profiling by police officers, child care for workers, and immigration rights. Environmental issues and workers’ rights are key elements in the 32-page guide.

It urges people to support energy independence, and to oppose uranium mining in Virginia.

One page focuses on civil rights, with an anti-discrimination message that quotes the Rev. Jerry Falwell as saying in 2005 that rights for everyone, including people who are gay, are “an American value that I would think we pretty much all agree on.”

That page of the guide urges people to write letters to legislators and newspapers expressing their opinions about discrimination based on sexual orientation.

While the Virginia Organizing Project serves as a conduit for wages paid to 50 interns around the state, VOP lists 12 organizations that support it:
The ACLU, Democracy South, Equality Virginia, Tenants and Workers United, AFL-CIO, Association of Personal Care Assistants, Virginia Conservation Network, Virginia Education Association, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, NAACP, and the Sierra Club.

Kisha Johnson (right) speaks with Nancy Fitzgerald and her husband, Dewey, on Tuesday as Johnson went door-to-door on Wadsworth Street. The group’s goal is to knock on 13,000 doors.

Uranium-Bearing Liquid Leaks From Underground Pipe at 2nd French Nuclear Site

The Associated Press

PARIS: Uranium-bearing liquid has leaked from a broken underground pipe at a nuclear site in southeastern France, the national nuclear safety authority said Friday. It was the second leak discovered at a French site this month.

Experts are working to determine how much leaked uranium is present at nuclear company Areva's plant in the town of Romans-sur-Isere, the Nuclear Safety Authority said in a statement. Specialists are to work to clean up the site.

The communique said the pipe is believed to have ruptured several years ago. It added that the pipe "was not in line with the applicable regulations, which require shock resistance ability sufficient to avoid rupture."

Read the full article here

Surface Blasting

For those living in the vicinity of Coles Hill, this web page should be required reading. Virginia Uranium Inc.proposes open pit mining of uranium for a period of 30 years. Even if naysayers discount the environmental pollution and health risks posed by a uranium mining and milling facility to its neighboring communities, the physical effects of its operation will not be so easily dismissed.

http://www.dmme. virginia. gov/DMM/training materials. shtml

Under Training Materials, click on:

SURFACE BLASTER’S CERTIFICATION STUDY GUIDE

Not only will we be exposed to low-level radioactive dust fallout from a uranium mining and milling facility, we will have to become accustomed to daily, successive TNT blasts-- for 30 years no less!!! (Maybe there will be no blasting on weekends or holidays?)

Study Guide Excepts:

Page 50:

It has been found that windows are probably the weakest part of a structure that will be exposed to air blast, they are most apt to suffer damage. Poorly mounted panes that are prestressed will be cracked and broken most easily. Extremely high overpressure could cause the formation of exterior masonry cracks or interior plaster cracks.

Although it is possible that high air blast overpressure could cause structural damage; those produced by routine blasting operations under normal atmospheric conditions are not likely to do so. The principal effects are most often 1) a slight overpressure that rattles windows and 2) noise that startles people. The rattling windows and noise may leave them under the impression that their house was violently shaken by blasting. Complaints may result if the subjective response of the people is such that the disturbance is annoying or intolerable.

Page 56:

The public relations problems involving blasting have increased in the past years. The increased difficulty that blasters face with public relations is the result of urban expansion and the commencement of surface operations near densely populated areas. When blast effects intrude upon the public's comfort, strained relations usually arise between operators and surrounding communities.

The two most common complaint problems are air blast and ground vibration. Blasting produces ground vibration and airblast that can result in structural response at off-site buildings. This perceived motion could be very disturbing to homeowners; therefore, it is advantageous to establish good public relations with nearby neighbors. Most homeowners mistakenly believe that any motion of window glass or house structure originates from ground vibration striking the foundation of the house, when in fact the concussion element of airblast is often the culprit. DMM Safety & Health Regulations establish maximum limits for both ground vibration and airblast based on comprehensive studies conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM).

Considering the last paragraph, has VUI begun to establish good public relations with its nearby neighbors, by explaining how surface blasting (open pit mining) is going to affect them? Or, is it like the low-level radioactive dust fallout from a uranium mining and milling facility: we will just have to learn to live with it?

Anne Cockrell

Notes from Gregg:

1) How will the Chatham Fault line be affected by all of this blasting? Will we have earthquakes? They will be blasting right on the fault line!

2) Will your insurance cover any damage from the mine, e.g. radioactive dust contamination, decrease of property value, damage caused by blasting (this will surely lower property values), etc. Better ask your agent. I did and the answer was "NO"! Nor could I get additional coverage for this.

3) I don't know about you, but no amount of public relations, propaganda, or glad handing, as blasters are apparently trained to do, will EVER convince me to live with the dust (can't live with it, it will kill you) or the constant blasting.

4) Thanks for this Anne!

Forest Service Says Uranium Is Something That HasTto Be Considered...

Jul 17 2008 8:32AM
Associated Press

Forest Service says uranium is something that has to be considered

BELFIELD, N.D. (AP) Residents of southwestern North Dakota say the idea of uranium mining is not something they welcome.

Anje Cymbaluk, who lives north of Belfield, says she told her husband she'd leave if mines are opened in the area.

Wayde Schafer, of the Sierra Club, says the health risk from exposed uranium affects humans and wildlife. He says strong winds could below the uranium around.

The comments came at a public meeting held by the Forest Service this week.

Formation Resources is a Bismarck-based subsidiary of Australia-based PacMag Metals. It wants to take the dirt samples from 17,000 acres of public grasslands near private land where it already is drilling for uranium.

The company also proposes a plant near Belfield or Bowman to treat and burn coal to extract the uranium.

Federal officials estimate it would take about ten years before any mining could be done.

Lonny Bagley is the field manager for the Bureau of Land Management. He says his agency would be in charge of issuing any uranium mining leases on the grasslands, if it gets to that point.

Bagley says officials just cannot say, "we don't like it." He says they have to take a look at it.

Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 07-17-08 0821CDT |

Letters To The Editor

VCN has a very helpful page re: writing letters to different editors. It's time to start submitting. I hope we'll see a letter from YOU soon.

K

http://www.vcnva.org/news/uranium_lte.html