Uranium mining opponents host forum at Chatham High

The News & Record / April 30, 2009

A public forum, “Who Decides Whether Southside Virginia Will Be Sacrificed for Uranium Mining?” will be held Friday, May 1 at 7 p.m. at the Chatham High School Auditorium, 100 Cavalier Drive, Chatham.

The forum for citizens and public officials is presented by The Alliance and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and will feature remarks by Thomas Linzey, attorney, founder and Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund; Mari Margill, Associate Director of the Legal Defense Fund; and Shireen Parsons, Virginia Community Organizer for the Legal Defense Fund.

Who Decides?

Who decides whether the people of Southside Virginia should have to endure uranium mining and its catastrophic impacts on human health and our environment – the citizens, or the corporate officers of Virginia Uranium Inc., enabled by the Virginia legislature? That’s the question that will be posed to the citizens and elected officials of the Southside communities that would be directly affected by the proposed mine in Pittsylvania County.

Since 1995, the Legal Defense Fund has assisted community groups and local governments in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, the State of Washington and Virginia to draft municipal ordinances that prohibit corporate activities determined by the citizens to be a threat to their health, safety, environment and quality of life. Municipalities that have asserted their right to self-governance by adopting such ordinances have tackled issues including mining, ground water withdrawals, factory farms, land application of sewage sludge and corporate waste dumping.

Just Government Exists Only With the Consent of the Governed

Some who distrust democracy argue that it is “beyond the authority” of communities to make governing decisions and pass laws on such issues. They assert that it is up to the state and the “experts” to decide what’s best for the people, the ecology, and future generations of Virginians. But that’s not the model of decision-making and self-government envisioned by the American Revolutionaries who signed their names to a bold statement of community rights that asserted: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Clearly, when people are governed by powers derived, not from their consent, but from some other force, governing power is separated from justice.

Regulating Is Not Governing

State regulatory agencies issue permits for corporate activities that are detrimental to communities throughout Virginia, and the people in those communities are prevented by their own elected representatives from fending off such corporate assaults. Citizens are told they can regulate the rate of harm by advocating for the strict enforcement of permissive regulations. But to regulate harm is to allow it, while merely attempting to limit the severity. To regulate is not to govern. The people have an inalienable right to self-government, not a limited right to mitigate harms.

The Time Is Now

This presentation will bring the necessity for action to the forefront. Gathering data, writing to legislators, petitioning regulatory agencies, testifying at public hearings — these are not self-governing activities, but grievance procedures.

Attendees will learn about the origins of rights-based community organizing, about the structure of law – including Dillon’s Rule – that prohibits communities from saying “no,” what has been achieved in Virginia and in other states, and the next steps in rights-based organizing in Pittsylvania County and other threatened Southside communities.

There is no hero waiting in the wings to save our communities from ruin. We are the ones we have been waiting for. The time is now.

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