Radiation Exposure

Comment: FYI!

URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/radiationexposure.html

Radiation is energy that travels in the form of waves or high-speed particles. It occurs naturally in sunlight and sound waves. Man-made radiation is used in X-rays, nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants and cancer treatment.

If you are exposed to small amounts of radiation over a long time, it raises your risk of cancer.

It can also cause mutations in your genes, which you could pass on to any children you have after the exposure.

A lot of radiation over a short period, such as from a radiation emergency, can cause burns or radiation sickness. Symptoms of radiation sickness include nausea, weakness, hair loss, skin burns and reduced organ function.

If the exposure is large enough, it can cause premature aging or even death. You may be able to take medicine to reduce the radioactive material in your body.

Environmental Protection Agency

Uranium(Environmental Protection Agency) - http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/uranium.html

NRC Queries Executive's Actions at Tenn Nuke Plant

This is what permitting and regulating does for you! Red emphasis mine. GV

NRC queries executive's actions at Tenn nuke plant

January 15, 2009 12:40 EST

ERWIN, Tenn. (AP) -- Federal regulators are questioning Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. about a senior executive suspected of drinking and acting inappropriately days after a potentially lethal uranium spill in 2006.

The Johnson City Press reports the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent the company a letter Jan. 7 demanding an explanation for failing to remove the unnamed executive for "cause testing" after co-workers smelled alcohol on his breath.

The executive later had an "angry outburst" with an NRC inspector and allegedly made a sexual remark to a female technician.

The letter says this happened in the three days following a spill of 9 gallons of uranium solution at the plant. The spill wasn't made public until a year later. NFS spokesman Jud Simmons says the company is evaluating its response. He did say no one involved in the incident is either in management or still employed by the company.

NFS was acquired by Virginia-based nuclear fuel processor Babcock and Wilcox Co. on Jan. 1.

Information from: Johnson City Press,
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com

$3.3 Billion Contract Given for Savannah River [Nuclear Waste] Site Cleanup

The "Savannah River Site" is the nuclear dump-site near Barnwell, SC that's been accepting "low-level radioactive waste" from several states, including Virginia, for years but which stopped accepting such waste as of June, 30, 2008.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The U.S. Department of Energy on Monday awarded a $3.3 billion contract to Savannah River Remediation as part of the nuclear cleanup at Savannah River Site.

The six-year contract to close the liquid waste tanks at SRS will begin in April.

Savannah River Remediation is a limited-liability company consisting of URS Washington Division, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group, Bechtel National, CH2M Hill Constructors and AREVA Federal Services.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2008/12/09/bus_503222.shtml

SC DHEC Under Fire; Keeps Nuclear Leak Info Secret

I was a resident of SC for many years. I still have many friends and fond memories from my time there. I've canoed and swum in the Little Pee Dee River, boated, swum, and caught fresh seafood in nets and traps along the Grand Strand. It pained me to read these extensive articles. I'm posting parts of them here as a prime example of how state agencies, even those whose responsibility it is to protect the health and well-being of all that lives, sometimes fall very short, not because of funding shortages but because of corrupt people and practices.

The SC Department of Health and Environmental Control has fallen down...way, way down...on the job. Lead in drinking water, radioactive leaks, mercury-saturated fish...these are just some of the issues that DHEC allowed to fester for years, despite knowing about them. The only thing that has forced DHEC to begin a turn-around has been exposure in the media. The State, SC's largest newspaper, has a long history of excellent investigative journalism.

Hold your nose...this is a nasty story. But agencies in Virginia easily could be doing similar things...which will only get worse, and more dangerous, if uranium mining becomes a reality. DHEC oversees the nuclear dumpsite in Barnwell, SC and keeps most of its information about the site secret.

Stories BY JOHN MONK AND SAMMY FRETWELL - jmonk@thestate.com and sfretwell@thestate.com

State regulators have given polluters breaks, withheld information from the public and pushed development over the protection of natural resources. Has the agency that’s supposed to safeguard the environment and our health lost its way?

Imagine a state agency that helps developers build in fragile areas close to the ocean — at taxpayer expense.

Imagine an agency that oversees homes for the disabled in which at least three people have died from neglect in two years.

Imagine an agency posting one of the nation’s worst records for cleaning up leaks from underground gasoline tanks — in a state where more than a quarter of residents drink from wells.

Imagine an agency that regulates garbage landfills helping to turn the state into a trash mecca for the Southeast.

Stop imagining.

That agency exists.

Its name is DHEC — the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

When it comes to decisions that stand to affect millions of people, DHEC has become known as an uneven watchdog for health and the environment. It often sides with companies it regulates during disputes with residents. It often shares crucial information slowly or not at all. And it sometimes remains silent rather than alerting the public to dangers.

[...]

South Carolina’s fifth largest agency, with a $578 million annual budget, DHEC manages more than 150 programs in a growing state.

DHEC regulates the use of land, air and water. Checks tattoo parlors and hog farms. Tracks rabies outbreaks. Oversees prescription drugs and dialysis centers. Promotes flu shots. Monitors shellfish beds. Helps test for HIV.

Decides whether hospitals can expand. Runs health departments in each county. Records marriages, births and deaths.

DHEC’s staff includes welltrained scientists, engineers, nurses, lab technicians and investigators. For legal affairs, the agency has 16 staff attorneys.

No other state agency affects so many lives in so many ways.

[...]

Four recent incidents have brought DHEC greater scrutiny — and stepped up questions of how well the agency does its job:

• DHEC in 1985 found dangerous amounts of lead in the drinking water of Richland County’s Franklin Park neighborhood. But it didn’t get the lead removed until 2005, as The State newspaper was going to press reporting that residents had lead in their blood.

• Not until earlier this year did DHEC post signs at rivers to warn residents of the dangers of eating mercury-laced fish at hundreds of fishing spots across the state. DHEC knew the health threat had been expanding since the early 1990s and had put notices out to the media. But the signs, placed where they can be seen by river users, went up only after Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper reported on mercury found in residents’ blood.

• For years, DHEC kept records secret that showed the magnitude of a radiation leak from a lowlevel nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County. DHEC had long acknowledged a leak. But at the landfill operator’s request, it withheld details, not even telling lawmakers last year as they debated whether to close the facility to the nation. When The State obtained the documents using open records laws, the newspaper discovered levels of radioactive tritium in some places as high as those at the nearby Savannah River nuclear weapons complex. State Attorney General Henry McMaster scolded DHEC for failing to produce the records.

• DHEC failed to closely monitor a Columbia sewer plant it knew had malfunctioned. Later, the plant was found spilling partially sewage into the popular Saluda River. Swimmers and waders complained of nausea and ear, eye, nose and throat infections. Some kayakers and canoers say they fell ill. DHEC waited six days to take water samples and seven days to notify the public. The agency says it and federal officials are investigating. Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild said “the community is watching” DHEC to see how much it fines the utility and how it explains what he says is a slowness to act. The agency’s water bureau chief David Wilson said last week DHEC could have been, if not faster, at least more thorough in notifying the public.

Those actions and others — on shoreline development, gas tank leaks, the rise of large landfills and the safety of group homes — have brought DHEC under increased scrutiny.

[...]

[T]he agency is grappling with several issues as important as any in recent memory. Two in particular will affect future generations:

• DHEC is deciding whether to issue a permit to Santee Cooper, the state’s largest utility, to build a giant $2.2 billion coalfired electricity plant in Florence County. Coal plants are among the nation’s biggest air polluters. Airborne mercury, which falls back to earth and is ingested by fish, is of special concern. Eating mercurylaced fish can cause neurological problems, birth defects and damage children’s brains. In many states, coal plants have been cut back or shelved.

• DHEC has granted permits for one of the biggest — and potentially mostpolluting — projects Charleston will see for decades: a new cargo ship terminal at the city’s port. Conservation groups have appealed DHEC’s decision in state court. They note that ports are major sources of truck and ship pollution and that Charleston’s air quality is increasingly compromised.

A frequently heard criticism is that DHEC isn’t tough enough upfront with industries that have the potential to pollute.

In Charleston, some environmentalists, doctors and residents are criticizing DHEC for approving the port expansion before receiving the results of three air quality studies.

Judges rebuke DHEC, too.

In August, for example, a judge revoked permission DHEC had given for a 3,500hog swine farm to open in Dillon County. The judge ruled DHEC failed to make sure hog waste — 33 tons a day — wouldn’t pollute the Little Pee Dee River.

[...]

In Myrtle Beach, five area lawmakers persuaded the state’s Legislative Audit Council to investigate whether DHEC adequately notifies the public of pollution threats.

In a letter, the lawmakers noted a “growing concern” over DHEC’s “accountability to the public.”

The Audit Council agreed Oct. 23 to scrutinize DHEC’s notification procedures as well as its handling of cleanups and fines.

The controversy grows out of a lawsuit and stories in The Sun News about toxiclaced groundwater that spread from AVX, a major electronic parts manufacturer. Although DHEC knew of the contamination since 1995 — and its potential to move off the property — it took a private landowner doing his own test in 2007 to discover the pollution had spread. The contamination has made surrounding homes “worthless,” according to the suit.

DHEC has said it tries to be upfront about pollution threats, but many city residents, including Mayor John Rhodes, say it hasn’t.

[...]

A recurring criticism of DHEC is that it has a cozy relationship with businesses it regulates.

“Businesses do have an inside track,” said Ben Gregg, executive director of the S.C. Wildlife Federation and a former board member for the state Department of Natural Resources.

“When a company needs a permit for pollution, they go one on one with DHEC. By the time the public gets involved, the company and DHEC already have a relationship. Industry gets first bite of the apple,” Gregg said.

[...]

Locked in a government storage room are files that tell the story of a leaking nuclear waste landfill near Barnwell.

But when environmental lawyer Bob Guild asked to see the documents one day five years ago, state regulators only gave him a thin folder.

Landfill operator Chem-Nuclear had persuaded regulators to withhold many of the files, arguing the information included trade secrets. Without the records, Guild lost a court case that could have forced tougher disposal practices at the 37-year-old landfill. “To say contamination records are trade secrets is just an outrage,” said Guild, who has appealed the court’s decision.

[...]

Still, complaints about secrecy are easy to find. State lawmakers and Attorney General Henry McMaster are among those critical of DHEC’s public information efforts in recent years.

In 2007, McMaster scolded the agency for failing to produce records related to the nuclear waste landfill. DHEC had withheld the documents not only from Guild, but from The State newspaper as well as from legislators during a public hearing.

The House agriculture committee eventually voted to close the landfill to the nation. DHEC had long acknowledged the leaks but had not provided key details about the extent of the contamination. DHEC officials say they provided plenty of data about the leaks to the committee.

Some lawmakers say that’s not good enough. The Barnwell incident continues to bother them.

“They had ample opportunity to come forward and make that information available, but we did not hear about it until after the committee had made the decision,” Democratic Rep. Paul Agnew, an agriculture committee member from Abbeville, told The State recently. “I was disappointed in DHEC.”

http://www.thestate.com/local/story/591534.html

http://www.thestate.com/local/story/593696.html

Ambrosia Lake [Uranium] Tailings Reclaimation Nearly Completed

Gallup Independent

Oct 28, 2008

By Kevin Killough
Staff writer

GRANTS, NM — In about a month, the largest uranium tailings pile in the country will be officially reclaimed, making it safe for 1,000 years without any maintenance. The pile rises like a mesa from the floor of the Ambrosia Lake valley. Heavy machinery continues to climb the rock-covered slopes, finishing up the final tasks before the site can be turned over the Department of Energy.

The designers of the $100 million project went to great lengths to ensure the safety and security of the site. Even if it rained 21 inches in 24 hours, which would destroy Grants and leave Ambrosia Lake under 15 feet of water, the public wouldn’t need to worry about contamination from the tailings pile.

“If you see a guy building an ark, you want to come to the tailings pile,” said Terry Fletcher, president of Rio Algom LLC, who has overseen the reclamation project. It’s a highlight of his career in mining, milling and reclamation that spans 36 years.

Fletcher wants the public to know of the accomplishment, because he says that a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that uranium companies abandoned the toxic tailings piles. In fact, every single mill and tailings pile has been reclaimed or is in the process of being reclaimed, he said.

Tailings piles are common to many types of mining.

Chemical solutions are used in the milling process to separate the desired mineral from the mined ores. The remaining moist sand is left in piles. If not properly contained, they can be dangerous for the public and environment. Uranium tailings have the added hazard of radon gas emissions.

Today, mills are much more regulated, and processes prevent the contamination that has left uranium mining with a bad reputation. Even though no companies are making money off uranium milling in the state, Rio Algom, in a partnership with Kerr-McGee, swallowed the cost of the reclamation as part of what Fletcher says is the companies’ policy of sustainable development.

“It’s what responsible mining companies do,” Fletcher said.

A bridge across the highway stands as a testament that uranium companies today operate with an eye toward safety first. After assessing the potential for an accident with earth moving equipment crossing the road, the company decided to build a $1 million bridge to use during the reclamation processes. No government regulations required this.

“It’s just one of the things the company does that it doesn’t have to,” Fletcher explained.

The bridge pales in comparison to the massive tailings reclamation project. First the tailings were moved on top of a three-layer lining. The middle layer is a mesh that detects any leakage moving between the top and bottom layers. After reclamation, the DOE will constantly monitor the detection system for any leaks into the groundwater and stop any problems in the unlikely event they should occur.

On top, the pile was covered with a clay layer that is 20-feet thick on the slopes. The 30-foot high slopes were then covered with thick rock layers. The largest rocks were placed at the bottom of the slope where the water will be running the fastest. This will stop the sides from being eroded away. Finally, the pile will be covered with dirt, and as vegetation grows over time, the pile will look almost like a natural formation.

“It’ll look like a flatter mesa than nature made,” Fletcher said.

The piles give off about two-thirds less radon emissions than what occurs naturally in this part of the state. This month, Fletcher said, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspected Rio Algom’s pile and gave it an A+ rating.

The mines that supplied the mill with ore have also been reclaimed at about $50,000 each. There’s not much to see at a reclaimed mine. At one time large head frames loomed over the shaft, lowering and raising men and materials. Now, reclaimed mines are just an area of grass and maybe a tree where cows graze.

“That area there you’re looking at was one of the major mining sites in New Mexico,” Fletcher said, pointing to what looks like just a part of the landscape.

Other problems created by the obsolete practices of past mining continue to require cleanup efforts, especially the many “dog holes” that independent miners left behind. The groundwater contamination from some tailings piles is a whole other cleanup effort. But the completion of the Rio Algom pile reclamation is a good sign that past mistakes are on their way to being corrected.

Kevin Killough blogs at http://gallupnm.blogspot.com

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2008/10october/102808tailings.html

Uranium's Crystal Ball is Price Sobering

RCR QUARTERLY REVIEW

The growth of nuclear power is still marching forward but the aspirations on uranium's price have dropped back a peg or two, according to the latest quarterly research by Sydney-based Resource Capital Research (RCR).Author: Ross LoutheanPosted: Sunday , 05 Oct 2008

PERTH -

The industry average long-term uranium price has been downgraded $US15/lb by RCR's just-released quarterly Equity Research Report from its third quarter report to $US80/lb and saying that in the current quarter it will trade between $US50-65/lb.
At the time the report was released the spot uranium price was $US55/lb.

The growth of nuclear power is still marching forward but the aspirations on uranium's price have dropped back a peg or two, according to the latest quarterly research by Sydney-based Resource Capital Research (RCR).Author: Ross LoutheanPosted: Sunday , 05 Oct 2008

Click here for the rest of the article

RADIOACTIVE WASTE HAS NO PLACE TO GO

The article below is important. The first sentence is simply chilling.

Virginia used to take its low-level radioactive waste to Barnwell, SC but the facility there is no longer accepting waste from VA or from several other states. This didn't come as a surprise...there had been a long-term plan to close the facility as of June 30, 2008 to future waste deposits. Virginia and several other states had formed the Southeast Low-Level Radioactive Waste Regional Compact Commission several years ago to deal with the issues surrounding the disposal of their low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) and NC had agreed to open a facility to serve the region.

According to the Virginia Department of Health's website,

http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/epidemiology/radiologicalhealth/radioactive.htm

Virginia is a member of the Southeast Low -Level Radioactive Waste Regional Compact. The Southeast Compact selected North Carolina as the host state for the Compact's waste facility; however, North Carolina has not completed the licensure of the facility. Several of the compact member states including Virginia have filed suit with the US Supreme Court on October 9, 2002 to recover $90 million in funds provided to North Carolina to build a waste disposal facility.

This means that there is no facility now accepting LLRW in the Southeast. In fact, no facility in the country is accepting LLRW from the Southeast...it's piling up in the states.

In July, 2008, the Southeast Low -Level Radioactive Waste Regional Compact Commission, whose headquarters are, oddly, in Raleigh, NC, revised its Strategic Plan. It's now going to monitor and support the activities of the few remaining LLRW sites in the country and "examine and promote new options for the management of the LLRW generated in the Southeast Compact Region"

http://secompact.org/publications/2008-Strategic-Plan.pdf

but makes no plans for the disposal of the Compact's waste. It does vow, however, to "work with legal counsel to bring the pending suit against North Carolina to a satisfactory conclusion". In the meantime, there is no facility accepting low-level radioactive waste from any state in the Southeast Compact, including Virginia.

The Virginia Dept of Health website (at least 2 years out-of-date!) lists the following as VA's Commissioners on the Southeast Low -Level Radioactive Waste Regional Compact Commission:

Senator Charles Hawkins (now retired from the Senate)
P.O. Box 818
Chatham, VA 24531
Telephone: (434) 432-9672
FAX: (434) 432-8577

Richard F. Weeks, Jr.
Deputy Director for Operations
Department of Environmental Quality
629 East Main Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 698-4484 (Office)
(804) 698-4019 (Fax)
RFWeeks@deq.state.va.us

Alternate Commissioners:

Karen Jackson Sismour
Director, Waste Division
Department of Environmental Quality
629 East Main Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 698-4421 (Office)
(804) 698-4234 (Fax)
KJSismour@deq.state.va.us

Herbert S. Wheary, Manager, Public Policy
Dominion Resources Services, Inc.
701 East Cary Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 771-3611 (Office)
(804) 771-3643 (Fax)
Herbert_Wheary@dom.com

We know that Senator Hawkins is no longer serving in Richmond but he's still living in Chatham so maybe he'd have the time to discuss just what the heck the Compact really plans to do...are they thinking, perhaps, they'll put a facility in Pittsylvania Co? Or in Lynchburg?

This is a serious problem, folks. We appreciate Shireen Parsons alerting us to the the article below. It certainly underscores a serious problem that currently has no solution.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, N.J.)

Sept. 26, 2008

By Seanna Adcox, Associated Press

BARNWELL, S.C. — Tubes, capsules and pellets of used radioactive material are piling up in the basements and locked closets of hospitals and research installations around the country, stoking fears they could get lost or, worse, stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs.

For years, truckloads of low-level nuclear waste from most of the U.S. were taken to a rural South Carolina landfill. There, items such as the rice-size radioactive seeds for treating cancer and pencil-thin nuclear tubes used in industrial gauges were sealed in concrete and buried.

But a South Carolina law that took effect July 1 ended nearly all disposal of radioactive material at the landfill, leaving 36 states with no place to throw out some of the stuff. So labs, universities, hospitals and manufacturers are storing more and more of it on their own property.

"Instead of safely secured in one place, it's stored in thousands of places in urban locations all over the United States," said Rick Jacobi, a nuclear waste consultant and former head of a Texas agency that unsuccessfully tried to create a disposal site for that state.

State and federal authorities say the waste is being monitored, but they acknowledge that it is difficult to track and inspected as little as once every five years. Government documents and dozens of Associated Press interviews with nuclear waste generators, experts, watchdogs and officials show that thousands of these small radioactive items have already been lost, and that worries are growing.

"They'll end up offered up on eBay and flea markets and sent to landfills, or metal recycling plants -- places where you don't want them to be," said Stephen Browne, radiation control officer at Troxler Electronic Laboratories, one of the world's largest manufacturers of industrial gauges that use radioactive material.

There are millions of radioactive devices in use for which there is no long-term disposal plan. These include tiny capsules of radioactive cesium isotopes implanted to kill cancerous cells; cobalt-60 pellets that power helmet-like machines used to focus radioactive beams on diseased brain tissue; and cobalt and powdered cesium inside irradiation machines that sterilize medical equipment and blood.

Most medical waste can simply be stored until its radioactivity subsides within a few years, then safely thrown out with the regular trash. Some institutions store their radioactive material in lead-lined safes, behind doors fitted with alarms and covered with yellow-and-black radiation warning signs.

Over the past decade, however, 4,363 radioactive sources have been lost, stolen or abandoned, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report released in February. Though none of the material lost was rated "extremely dangerous" -- meaning unshielded, up-close exposure can cause permanent injury within a few minutes and death within an hour -- more than half the radioactive items were never recovered, the NRC said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, owners of dangerous amounts of radioactivity have been told by the government to take greater precautions, such as having 24-hour surveillance, erecting barriers and fingerprinting employees, regardless of whether the devices are in use or stored as waste.

Yet in 2003, the federal Government Accountability Office reported there wasn't even a record of how many radioactive sources existed nationwide. In June, the GAO concluded that while there has been progress, more must be done to track radioactive material to prevent it from falling into terrorists' hands and ending up in a dirty bomb, or one that uses conventional explosives to scatter radiation.

"I don't think we're yet in crisis, but certainly there's information out there to suggest we may be closer to that than is comfortable for me," said Gregory Jaczko, a commissioner with the NRC, one of the agencies charged with tracking the material.

In 1987, four people died and hundreds fell ill after looters in Brazil found a cancer-therapy machine in an abandoned medical clinic and sold it as scrap metal. More recently, 19 small vials of cesium-137, implanted for cervical cancer treatments, disappeared in 1998 from a locked safe at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, N.C. The tubes were never found and were believed stolen.

A terrorist would need to gather far more of those vitamin-sized capsules to create a dirty bomb capable of killing anyone within one city block, said Kelly Classic, a health physicist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

For decades, the government urged states to build low-level nuclear waste landfills, either on their own or in cooperation with nearby states. But those efforts have run into strong not-in-my-backyard resistance of the sort that led South Carolina lawmakers to close the Barnwell County landfill to all but three states. Only one low-level landfill, in Utah, has opened in the past 30 years. One more could open in Texas by the end of next year, but it would accept trash from only Vermont and the Lone Star State.

The government never set up penalties for states that failed to build landfills.

"Congress should have gotten involved a long time ago," said Richard Gallego, vice president of Thomas Gray and Associates Inc., a California company that prepares low-level waste for disposal.

Rich Janati, chief of nuclear safety for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said: "It's a national issue, and we should look at it as a national problem and come up with a solution."

The government this week did move to shore up security by requiring hospitals and labs to better secure machines used to irradiate blood. Also, dirty-bomb fears have prompted the National Research Council to urge replacing the roughly 1,300 such machines in the U.S. with less hazardous but more expensive equipment.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080926/NEWS01/809260372/1006

Chatham mayor unfazed by chemical trespass setback

FOLKS, JOE RODGERS (A VERY GOOD PERSON and MEMBER of the ORDINANCE COMMITTEE), IS QUOTED AS SAYING: "I don't know if an ordinance is needed at this time. It drives council to take a position without having all of the information." WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, WHAT IS MR. ROGERS WAITING FOR? VUI OFFERS PRIVATE SEMINARS. SCC OFFERS PUBLIC SEMINARS. THERE IS A WEALTH OF INFORMATION ON THE WEB. A "STUDY" WILL TELL US HOW TO PERFORM A GRAND EXPERIMENT ON THE PEOPLE OF PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY AND, INDEED, SHOULD THIS TRAVESTY HAPPEN, ON THE ENTIRE STATE OF VIRGINIA! REMEMBER, AN EXPERIMENT WILL PROVE TRUE, OR FALSE. IF THIS EXPERIMENT PROVES FALSE, IT WILL BE AT THE EXPENSE OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. MR. ROGERS IS AN ENGINEER. AS A TOWN COUNCIL MEMBER, WE DID NOT ELECT HIM TO BE AN ENGINEER. WE ELECTED HIM, AND THE OTHER COUNCIL MEMBERS, TO PROTECT US AND DO OUR WILL, NOT THEIRS.

I HOPE OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS FINALLY "STUDY" THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS: WHAT DO THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WANT? NOT, WHAT DO I WANT!

I realize that I am shouting, but I want our elected officials to hear me! Have they asked (I'm talking about ALL of the elected officials in Pittsylvania County, town councils and Board of Supervisors) the people what they want? I don't think so...

Gregg

By TIM DAVIS/Star-Tribune EditorWednesday, September 3, 2008 10:36 AM EDT

Chatham Mayor George Haley said Monday he plans to move forward with efforts to protect town residents against uranium mining despite a recent setback for a so-called "chemical trespass" ordinance in Chase City.Chase City, which is about 60 miles east of Chatham, was considering an ordinance aimed at a proposed uranium mining and milling operation in Pittsylvania County.

Its ordinance also would have targeted Osage Bioenergy's planned ethanol plant in Mecklenburg County.The ordinance, similar to one passed by Halifax earlier this year, would have stated that Chase City residents "possess a fundamental and inalienable right to the integrity of their bodies, and to be free from unwanted invasions of their bodies by manufactured chemicals and toxins."Chase City Mayor Eddie Bratton abandoned the ordinance last week, however, after a review by lawyer Gregory J. Haley.Haley, who is not related to Chatham Mayor George Haley, is an attorney with the Roanoke law firm of Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore and specializes in municipal law.

In a four-page memorandum to the town, Haley advised Bratten not to move forward with the ordinance, saying he understood the town's concerns about water and air pollution, but cautioned against trying to overstep the county's and state's legal system.Haley said courts would likely decline to enforce most of the provisions in the proposed ordinance, and pointed out towns have little, if any, ability to regulate land use or activities beyond their boundaries.Bratten, who took office July 1, said he was trying to protect Chase City's residents."I wanted us to have some sort of comeback for the Town of Chase City," the mayor told the South Hill Enterprise. "No one else is taking care of us. There is no way it will pass now. Many on the town council are pro to leaving things alone.

"Halifax became the first locality in Virginia to adopt a Corporate Mining and Chemical and Radioactive Bodily Trespass ordinance last February.Halifax Councilman Jack Dunavant called the vote "historic.""The people have finally agreed to protect their health and the environment from corporate assault," said Dunavant, who also is chairman of Southside Concerned Citizens."It's time the constitution was evoked to give the power to the people to protect their own destiny and end this era of corporate greed and pollution," he added.Southside Concerned Citizens, which is opposed to uranium mining, is organizing a petition drive to convince other towns, counties, and cities to adopt chemical trespass laws.

The ordinance is designed to hold corporations and governing officials permitting those corporations liable for chemical trespass.Shireen Parsons, a community organizer for the nonprofit Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Christiansburg, said chemical trespass ordinances have been enacted in Pennsylvania to stop a variety of corporate actions, including the spreading of sewage sludge.Ben Price, a project director with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, said the action "empowers the community" and "is a first shot across the bow to let them know the people have the right to govern.

"Last month, Chatham Mayor George Haley asked the town's Ordinance Committee and fellow council members to explore the possibility of a chemical trespass ordinance aimed at uranium.Haley also asked Town Manager Mike Jones and Town Attorney Larry Gott to participate in the study."I think we would be remiss not to learn more about chemical trespass ordinances that have been enacted in other parts of Virginia," said Haley.Some Chatham Town Council members aren't sure if the town needs a chemical trespass ordinance."I don't know if an ordinance is needed at this time," said Councilman Joe Rogers, a member of the Ordinance Committee. "It drives council to take a position without having all of the information."Rogers, a retired engineer, favors more research, including a state study on uranium mining."I looked at the Halifax decision as a political statement," he said. "I'm not prepared to take that position until I know more about the issue."Councilman Jim McDole, who chairs the Ordinance Committee, said he's in the process of gathering sample chemical trespass ordinances and other information for council to review."I think we need to be cautious," said McDole. "I don't see any point in developing an ordinance just to have an ordinance. However, if it protects the health and safety of residents, it's worth looking at."

Read the rest of the article HERE

Keep uranium mining out of area

Wednesday, September 3, 2008 10:28 AM EDT

Cancer is a devastating and heartbreaking disease which none of us want to have.As everyone knows it can be a debilitating illness that robs one of their health and drains them financially and emotionally.

In Pittsylvania County there is a proposal for a uranium mine and milling to be in operation on Coles Hill.When the mining is done and the leftover products (tailings) are piled high in the air, we are wide open for cancer-causing agents.This will greatly increase our chances of lung and bone cancer along with leukemias and fibrosis of the lung (scarring).They will be blown by the wind for thousands of miles and will affect many people.

It will come to us in the form of radioactive fallout in the rain, snow and dust. This in turn will affect our water and vegetation.Not only will there be a dose from breathing, but also from the foods we eat and the water we drink.The Banister River will be exposed to the seepage from the tailing which will get into the river and travel from Virginia Beach to North Carolina.Low-level radiation is implicated in birth defects, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye skin and reproductive illness.

Help us all to stay healthier. Keep mining out of the area.

Sue Poe
Gretna

YOU NEED TO READ THIS!

FROM CELDF.ORG

Over a century ago, corporate robber barons and their politicians started creating the nation’s regulatory laws and agencies. Corporate managers, their lawyers and their politicians have been perfecting this system ever since. It’s fine-tuned to the point that most of us think it was us trying to regulate them.

By replacing real governing power with the toothless Regulatory System, corporate schemers have us trudging off to permit application hearings, hat in hand, to beg our elected Zoning Board members and Environmental Agency employees not to let corporations use their pre-engineered regulatory law as a community wrecking ball.

By relying on the Regulatory System to solve problems that effect community health, local economies, environments, and the sustainability of a decent quality of life, we let powerful minorities hiding behind corporations and the legal protections they wield call the shots. They are always one step ahead of us, since they wrote the rules.

Our communities expend time, money, energy, and resources in an endless game in which the right of corporations and those who command them to harm our communities and deny our rights isn’t even on the table.

Decades of experience have convinced growing numbers of people that the Regulatory System operates as an “energy sink” -- forcing communities to expend limited resources on roads to nowhere.

Others hold onto the hope that if they make the right presentation, hire the best lawyers, become experts in hydrology, toxicology, traffic patterns...the people working at the regulatory agencies will notice and protect our communities.

What some of us have learned is this: we have been letting corporations regulate us. We’ve been letting corporate mangers LEGALIZE corporate assaults with their deadly technologies, disruptive constructions, and denials of rights. We know this because their Regulatory System has been issuing the permits.

The story of the corporate theft of people’s rights reaches back to the 1600s, when the very first global corporations included the East India Company, the Royal African Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, The Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay Companies. Like today’s multinationals, they exploited cheap or slave labor, appropriated ineffectually defended public resources, and swindled markets.

In 1787, when the U.S. Constitution was drafted behind closed doors, the same institutionalized culture of promoting privileges for the privileged left all women, blacks, Native Americans, and un-propertied white men with no claim to constitutional rights. In 1886 it granted those rights to corporations, which then proceeded to challenge the rights of people.

In 1893, when the very first regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), was established, then Attorney General Richard Olney assured the president of the Burlington Railroad that there was nothing to worry about:

The [ICC]...is, or can be made, of great help to the railroads. It satisfied the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that the supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be to take the business and railroad side of things. It thus becomes a sort of barrier between the railroad corporations and the people and a sort of protection against hasty and crude legislation hostile to railroad interests.

Regulatory agencies established after the ICC are no different. They protect corporations from being governed by the people with laws that would clearly subordinate the powerful minorities commanding them to community majorities. The Regulatory System has, in fact, erected a nearly impenitrable barrier between the soveriegn people and their legal creations, the mighty corporations of today. (e.g. see: PA local officials condemn attempt to usurp authority to govern corporate ag.) And there is much more. The true history of corporations is largely untaught and therefore cannot instruct us as we attempt to protect our communities from the harm they inflict, unless we take the initiative to ferret out the truth, and learn it. Citizens who are interested in uncovering this history are encouraged to attend the Daniel Pennock Democracy School.

Our authority to simply decide what kinds of communities we want to live in has been robbed from us through an ingenious bait-and-switch. Regulatory agencies create the illusion that we have legal remedies in the face of corporate assaults on our communities and families.To safeguard the future for our children and the planet it is time we confront these usurpations. What needs to become clear is that it is no use just fighting a particular corporation, a site battle, a permit. In every campaign, we are fighting hundreds of years of accumulated law and custom that have stolen democracy, rights, and self-determination from us. And it matters what you will do next.

Read: "TRIAGE" from CELDF's March 2008 Newsletter, Susquehanna

"It is business control over politics (and by 'business' I mean the major economic interests) rather than political regulation of the economy that is the significant phenomenon of the Progressive Era. Such domination was direct and indirect, but significant insofar as it provided a means for achieving a greater end -- political capitalism. Political capitalism is the utilization of political outlets to attain conditions of stability, predictability, and security -- to attain rationalization -- in the economy. Stability is the elimination of internecine competition and erratic fluctuations in the economy. Predictability is the ability, on the basis of politically stabilized and secured means, to plan future economic action on the basis of fairly calculable expectations. By security I mean protection from the political attacks latent in any formally democratic political structure.

"I do not give to rationalization its frequent definition as the improvement of efficiency, output, or internal organization of a company; I mean by the term, rather, the organization of the economy and the larger political and social spheres in a manner that will allow corporations to function in a predictable and secure environment permitting reasonable profits over the long run. My contention...is not that all of these objectives were attained by World War I, but that important and significant legislative steps in these directions were taken, and that these steps include most of the distinctive legislative measures of what has commonly been called the Progressive Era." -- Gabriel Kolko in The Triumph of Conservatism

Study finds new earthquake dangers for NYC

VUI's proposed uranium mine is ON THE CHATHAM fault. Representatives of VUI, such as Henry Hurt, will tell you that we are using scare tactics. Folks, you should be scared! The following article is about a nuclear power plant in New York. A major earthquake can happen at any time. An earthquake can also happen at any time along the Chatham fault. VUI's proposed mine is ON THE CHATHAM FAULT! An earthquake of sufficient magnitude could devastate the mine and mill, releasing deadly toxins that will cause us to be in the epicenter of a radioactive Superfund site.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF VUI! They want you to "TRUST THEM" Trust them after they answer some tough questions. You owe that to yourself and all of the people you love...

Gregg

Sat Aug 23, 5:05 AM EDT

An analysis of recent earthquake activity around New York City has found that many small faults that were believed to be inactive could contribute to a major, disastrous earthquake.
The study also finds that a line of seismic activity comes within two miles of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, about 25 miles north of New York City. Another fault line near the plant was already known, so the findings suggest Indian Point is at an intersection of faults.
The study's authors, who work at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Observatory, acknowledge that the biggest earthquakes — in the 6 or 7 magnitude range — are rare in the New York City region. They say a quake of magnitude 7 probably comes about every 3,400 years.

But they note that no one knows when the last one hit, and because of the population density and the concentration of buildings and financial assets, many lives and hundreds of billions of dollars are at risk.

The metropolitan area does not have a single great fault like the San Andreas fault in California, said Leonardo Seeber, co-author of the study.

"Instead of having a single major fault or a few major faults, we tend to have a lot of very minor and sort of subtle faults," he said. "It's a family of faults, and that can contribute to the severity of an earthquake."

John Ebel, director of seismology at Boston College's Weston Observatory, said he agreed with the study's finding that small faults can contribute to large earthquakes. "A quake can jump from one fault to another," he said.

Read the rest of the story here...

Area Can't Afford Uranium Experiment

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 9:54 AM EDT

I read the story by Max Schulz of the Manhattan Institute that appeared in the Wall Street Journal about uranium mining at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County. I have also read numerous quotes from James Kelly, former head of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Virginia on this same subject.

I am always concerned that people like these two and all other proponents of uranium mining in Virginia never live where they would be in any danger of mining operations or they are people who have a financial interest in uranium mining. They always seem to think that they know what is best for us. Of all these proponents of uranium mining, except maybe for local stockholders, I don't think any of them express any great interest in buying property and moving to Southside Virginia, let alone in Pittsylvania or Halifax counties.

Here's something to think about. Let's just suppose someone with a foreign government wanted to come to the United States, and in a densely populated and vegetated area of our country, explode a nuclear device to see what effects the radioactive fallout would have on the populace, animals, crops, food supply and water. What a terrible experiment this would be. What do you think our citizens would do? They would say that it was insanity and would do anything it takes to prevent it.

A foreign-owned corporation is planning on developing a gigantic open pit uranium mine, including a uranium ore milling operation in Southside Virginia, just a few miles from Chatham and Gretna. There could be two pits, each 800 feet deep and each covering 110 acres. That's the equivalent of 55 city blocks wide and one and one-half blocks deep. The constant blasting in the mine, the milling of the ore and the stockpiling of the fine radioactive tailings have the potential of spreading radioactive dust in all directions, much the same way a bomb would spread radioactive fallout. According to Virginia Uranium Inc.'s private presentation, there could potentially be 41,250,000 pounds of tailings, enough to produce a mountain 400 feet wide, 200 feet high (that's 20 stories) and 14 miles long. Remember, this mine would be only about six miles from Chatham, even closer to Gretna and very near the Banister River.

This radioactive dust being blown into the air and leaching into the streams would contaminate humans, animals, crops and vegetation, food supplies and water for hundreds of miles, from the Banister River to the Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, including Lake Gaston, the water supply for Virginia Beach. Possibly the danger of contamination from this dust could be compared to the detonation of a nuclear device, as this mining operation would last 30 years or more. Another danger would be deadly radon gas emitting from these pits.

This operation would really be an experiment for the uranium company, as it cannot assure anyone that it would be safe. At this time, they do not even have any type of liability insurance. They do say that they have "real-time monitoring and reactions." As one of the opponents of this mine said, "If you have to react, then the damage is already done."

We can't afford to be guinea pigs for their experiment. There is no real cleanup for radiation contamination. When the genie gets out of the bottle, you can't put him back. Radiation is forever.

If the state of Virginia should allow them to go ahead and mine, some years later, when the extent of this pollution has been discovered or even sooner in the case of a disaster such as a tornado, hurricane, flood or earthquake, the owners and principles of the corporation would most likely just close the mine and milling operation, declare bankruptcy, move away to safer parts of the world and leave the mountain of tailings there.

Also, leaving the populace to suffer whatever would befall them. Remember uranium mining has never been done in Virginia and nowhere in the type of terrain we have in Southside Virginia, not in places that have the amount of annual rainfall we do. It has only been done in sparsely populated, dry and arid regions of the world. Many places near where it has been done are now ghost towns, unfit for human inhabitation.

The proponents of potentially dangerous enterprises such as uranium mining always want to dismiss the opponents by calling them "environmentalists." If being concerned about the health, welfare and safety of our present and future generations qualifies us, then you can call us "environmentalists."

The people of Southside Virginia had better educate themselves about the dangers of uranium mining and fast. Find out what you can do to help prevent uranium mining in Virginia. For more information, go to http://www.sccchatham.blogspot.com/ and http://www.uranium2008.blogspot.com/. Find out about many other websites and learn more.

W. G. Nunn

Virgilina

(Mr. Nunn is the treasurer of Southside Concerned Citizens. Excellent letter!)

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2008/08/13/altavista/opinion/opinion03.txt

A Note From Gregg:

Henry Hurt, an investor in VUI, sent me an email pointing out that the claims about the size of the tailings pile(s) is a quote from Jack Dunavant, Chairman, SCC and not something in VUI's presentation. In fact, VUI vehemently disagrees with Mr. Dunavant's estimate.

Mr. Hurt's entire email to me follows:

Gregg-

Much of what you say, whether correct or incorrect, is within the realm of free and open commentary, and you know that I respect that.

But FOUL! on Wallace Nunn's attributing Jack Dunavant's wacko version of the tailings pile to OUR presentation. Nunn writes and you publish:

"According to Virginia Uranium Inc.'s private presentation, there could potentially be 41,250,000 pounds of tailings, enough to produce a mountain 400 feet wide, 200 feet high (that's 20 stories) and 14 miles long."

Jack Dunavant has repeatedly made that charge, and we continue to discredit it. So be it. But this is different. I don't know who Wallace Nunn is and am indifferent to his opinions, but it isn't like you (or Tim Davis) to let him use your forum to charge that we have stated something in our presentations we believe is so blatantly wrong. If anyone is tempted to believe Jack Dunavant's wild scenario about a tailings pile, all they have to do is look at any state or federal regulations to see that there is no way on earth such a montrosity could ever happen.

Many thanks,

Henry.

I hope that this post clarifies the record. GV

Testing for Radon

posted 7:47 pm Mon August 04, 2008 - Pittsylvania Co., VA

Reporter: Ashley Singh posted by: Webteam

Radon gas is a colorless, odorless gas and it's the second leading cause of lung cancer. The EPA lists Pittsylvania County as a "Zone One" area, that's an area with the highest potential for having unacceptable "radon levels" inside homes. Supervisors are meeting Monday night about requiring "radon removal equipment" in new homes and that's because the state is recommending it.

The move will make price tags for new homes a bit higher, but county officials say it's worth every penny.

With one of the largest uranium deposits in the United States right in Pittsylvania County, realtor Susan Stillwell says it makes sense to require radon removal in new homes. That's because radon is a product of uranium and Stillwell thinks everyone should test before they buy.

Susan Stillwell, Real Estate Specialist - "If I'm working with buyers that are looking anywhere in the county I would require them to have a radon test." If they refuse, she'd put in writing that she made the recommendation and that the buyers declined to test for it.

Stillwell - "It can be traced back to me - especially if I'm working as a buyer's agent - I'm a professional, been in the business 30 years - I know about radon testing, I should recommend that to my buyer to protect them and myself because I'm ultimately liable for such things if they happen."

But making the state's recommendation a requirement will cost some cash. Anywhere from $500 to $5,000. But officials say safety first. Dan Sleeper, County Administrator - "You have to test for termites before you can sell a house but a termite never killed anybody, but you don't have to test for radon."

The change would only affect new homes. Builders would have to install plastic barriers and vent pipes to remove the cancer causing gas. If you have an older home, it's recommended you test for radon, and you can go to your local hardware store and buy a do it yourself kit -- it'll cost you about $10.

Sleeper - "As long as the radioactive materials uranium is trapped inside the rock, its not as likely to release radon. But once you've disturbed that earth you don't know what you've uncovered, it's truly Pandora’s Box."

We are pleased that Mr. Sleeper, Pittsylvania County Administrator, has finally seen the light. His comment is dead on and something that Jack Dunavant, Chairman, SCC, has stated publicly on many occasions. You can not mine uranium without releasing this deadly gas and many other toxins into our environment. Welcome aboard Mr. Sleeper! GV

http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0808/541348.html