Hogan: Let Chambers [of Commerce] Set Questions for Mining Study

Monday, August 18, 2008

Del. Clarke Hogan announced Thursday that he has asked the Halifax County Chamber of Commerce and the Danville-Pittsylvania County Chamber to appoint a local committee to help generate a fair and balanced study of uranium mining.

Hogan said he was delighted that the General Assembly in its last session denied a request by Virginia Uranium for a study of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County, but he knows that the issue is coming right back during the 2009 legislative session.

“It’s very hard to defend a position that says you don’t want to even study an issue,” Hogan said. But it’s the questions that are addressed in the study that Hogan wants to make sure the public has input in putting forward.

“I don’t want to see a study put forth and paid for by Virginia Uranium Mining accepted by the General Assembly,” said Hogan.

Virginia Uranium, Inc. was formed by Walter Coles and Henry Bowen of Pittsylvania County, owners of the land on Coles Road, near the Town of Chatham, where the mining project would take place. Halifax County lies downstream from the site and its residents, along with those of Pittsylvania County, will see the most effects of the any mining activities there.

To that end, Hogan has asked the local Chamber and the neighboring Danville chapter to name four to six members each to address the matter. The committee will be asked to collect information that will assure that the proper questions are asked and answered in any study that may be presented to the legislature.

Nancy Pool, president of the local Chamber, said she welcomes the task and will ask her board of directors for their support in their upcoming Aug. 28 regular meeting. She said she had also talked with Laurie Moran of the Danville chapter, who is willing to take on this task.

Hogan said he cannot imagine that he will ever be able to vote to lift the moratorium on uranium mining which the state set back in the 1980’s. “I don’t believe that technology has made changes that will significantly change the dangers of the tailings from uranium mining since that time,” he said Thursday.

But Hogan said he also fears that a study from the owners of the mine, described as one of the greatest sources of uranium in the world, would not be objective and fair and would not answer the questions of the Halifax County-South Boston community.

According to the plan, the chambers will begin their work as soon as the membership can be announced. Hopefully, the panel will have its questions formulated in time to present to the General Assembly during their 2009 session.

Then, Hogan said, legislators can come up with a study that asks the right questions — a process that he sees taking a year and a half, at least, to work through the answers.

“I’m trying to find a solution to settle this issue definitively for a generation,” Hogan said.

http://www.thenewsrecord.com/2008webfiles/20080818hoganuranium.htm