Don’t learn about (uranium) mining from industry

Comment: Great Letter!

By Published by The Editorial Board
Published: August 25, 2009

To the editor:

The column, “Educate yourself about radiation,” (Aug. 16, page A11), convinced me to take that step and I checked the Internet site of the Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg to see if I could enroll in the course which the author had taken.

After searching for a half-hour, I telephoned the college and asked for information on that specific course, giving the name from the article. The person with whom I spoke asked to let her do some checking and call me back.

The person called back and said all they could find was that in 2006 there was a weekend workshop for teachers at the college conducted by Areva that included that subject. I had to assume that was the course referred to in the column.

Areva has one of its plants located in Lynchburg, and the corporate Web site proclaims: “World leader in the design and construction of nuclear power plants, and the supply of fuel, maintenance and modernization services.” Also stated is the fact that Areva has almost a 40 percent market share in the manufacture of fuel for PWR and BWR reactors.

Since we are to educate ourselves, apparently from industry sources such as Areva, on the dangers of uranium mining, may I recommend, from the World Nuclear Association Symposium Proceedings, a technical paper entitled, “Waste Management in Uranium Mining Industry” by Stan Frost, who was, at the time of presentation, a vice president of Cameco Corp., Canada. Cameco is major producer of, among other products, nuclear power plant fuel.

Another such educational source is the copy of the Cameco corporate newspaper, “The Community Forum,” for October 2007. This discusses the discovery of uranium and arsenic subsurface ground contamination at the Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, uranium hexafluoride conversion plant. It was proposed the groundwater would be pumped to the surface and decontaminated and some contaminated soil would be removed. Uranium mining does not ruin air and water “in a modern, properly managed uranium mining and milling operation”?

After reading these educational sources which bear dates in the last 10 years and which certainly did not take place in, to quote the column, “unregulated mining activities that occurred 30 to 50 years ago,” I find that education by uranium mining sources does not at all reassure me about uranium mining and milling taking place in Pittsylvania County.

HILDRED SHELTON
Danville

http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/danville_letters/article/dont_learn_about_mining_from_industry/13433/