VCN: Events: Take part in one of the upcoming events near you

VCN:   Events:  Take part in one of the upcoming events near you

Virginians cannot afford to ignore the relationship between energy and the environment. The wayswe produce and consume energy in Virginia impact our forests, rivers and ourair.  The finite nature of coal and gas, as well as their potential todangerously destabilize our climate, demands that Virginia look to renewableenergy.

This transition tocleaner energy won't be easy. Questions remain about the carrying capacity ofour forests for wind and biomass. Industrial-scale offshore wind must beconnected to the transmission grid. However, the chief hurdle facing cleanenergy is neither technological nor regulatory; it is financing.

While renewable energymay be cheaper in the long run because it doesn't require fuel, the up-frontcosts are significant.  Not so significant that banks and investors can'tfinance them, but those institutions won't put capitol on the line unless theybelieve regulators and utilities are committed to clean energy.  Rightnow, tepid goals and draconian laws arekeeping clean energy investors out of Virginia.  What can you and I do tochange that?

Read the recently released VCN report aboutVirginia's untapped renewable energy potential. Using a conservative estimateof clean energy supply, the report still shows tremendous in-state job creationif Virginia will harness its renewable resources. Using renewable energyto meet half of the projected increased electricity demand by 2035 will provideup to 172,328 jobs and produce $20.8 billion in Gross State Product. (View Report)
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Sarah Fields will give a series ofpresentations entitled “Uranium Mining and Milling in Your Community: What ToExpect?”  May 2 in Martinsville and May 3 in Danville at the Institute ofAdvanced Learning and Research, both from 6:30-8 p.m. Sarah Fields is a citizenexpert who has a first hand knowledge of the issues faces by communitiesimpacted by uranium operations in the western United States.  Bring afriend and meet other Virginians concerned about the prospect of uranium miningand milling in Virginia.

OnMay 5th Northern Virginia Climate Action Network will host "Climate Changein Virginia: Local Impacts, Local Action." Meet Virginia ClimateCommissioner Delegate David Bulova, who will discuss specific risks Virginia isfacing from the impacts of climate change, and Chesapeake Climate ActionNetwork’s Keith Thirion, who will explain what is blocking development of morerenewable energy in Virginia. (Details and to RSVP) 

Act
On May 8th Dominion Power will be seeking theState Corporation Commission’s (SCC) approval of their 15-year plan in ahearing in Richmond. This plan includes no large-scale wind or solar and failsto meet even the conservative benchmarks for energy efficiency and renewableenergy set by the General Assembly. You are invited to attend a rally in frontof the SCC’s building (1300 East Main Street) on May 8th at 12 PM to tellDominion to put clean energy in the plan!   (Details and to RSVP).

Events
Take part in an event near you.
May 2 Livable Communities Leadership Awards - DC
May 2 Uranium Mining and Milling and Your Community -Martinsville
May 3 Dyke Marsh Survey
May 3 Uranium Mining and Milling and Your Community -Danville
May 3 Discovery Day: Marvelous Mommies - Virginia Beach
May 4 Water is Life Luncheon - Roanoke
May 5 Chesterfield County Rain Barrel Workshop
May 5 Bald Cypress Canoe Trip
May 5 Spring Float Trip – Powell
May 9 Make and Take Rotating Compost Bin Workshop -Shenandoah County
May 10 Rain Barrel Workshop - Edinburgh
May 11 BikeFest - DC
May 12 North Fork Rafting Trip
May 12-13 - Camping in Spruce Knob Area - WV
May 12 Eco-Paddle at Presquile National Wildlife Refuge

Click here for all events and info:
http://www.vcnva.org/anx/index.cfm/1,93,0,0,html/Events

More Tar Heels opposing uranium; issue emerging as fodder for campaigns

SoVaNow.com / April 19, 2012

More North Carolinians are joining the fight against uranium mining in their neighbor to the north, Virginia — and the issue is being raised in political forums for state-level candidates.

The North Carolina Coalition Against Uranium Mining has formed to oppose what it says are threats to the drinking water of about 1.9 million people in the two states.

Among the requests by the group is that North Carolinians be added to the roster of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s uranium working group, which was formed to draw up draft regulations should the ban be lifted.

The group’s president is Mike Pucci of Littleton, N.C.

The issue is also graining traction as a political issue.

At a recent candidate forum in Halifax County, N.C., State Sen. Ed Jones, Rep. Michael Wray and James Mills, who is challenging Wray, said they were adamantly opposed to a mine in Virginia. House challenger Jesse Shearin did not comment.

Opponents question whether uranium can be mined safely and whether the mine site can be adequately protected for thousands of years. Plans call for uranium tailings to be stored at the mine, underground. Critics fear that a single significant earthquake, a powerful hurricane or sloppy government oversight could forever contaminate the watershed east of the site.


Read more:
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?/news/article/more_tar_heels_opposing_uranium_issue_emerging_as_fodder_for_campaigns/

Halifax re-ups for uranium billboards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SoVaNow.com / April 12, 2012

Halifax Town Council on Tuesday evening voted to renew for another six months their leases on two billboards that oppose the lifting of the ban on uranium mining. The signs are located on Route 501 (in Centerville) and another on U.S. Route 58, just west of Riverdale. The cost of renewing the two leases for another six months will run about $2,000, Town Manger Carl Espy advised.

Councilman Jack Dunavant told fellow council members that he will contact members of the Coalition Against Uranium Mining to see if they are interested in leasing another billboard on Route 58 which would give passersby the ability to see the signs as they travel both east and west.

Read more:
http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fhalifax_re-ups_for_uranium_billboards%2F

Uranium Question 7 Where are we in March 2012?

Program Information

Uranium Question 7 Where are we in March 2012?
Series:	Lightly On The Ground Radio
Subtitle:	after the NAS report
Program Type:	Unspecified
Featured Speakers/Commentators:	Olga Kolutushkina, Mike Pucci, Sunny Gardener
Contributor:	Sunny Gardener [Contact Contributor]
Broadcast Advisory:	No Advisories - program content screened and verified.
Summary: 3 people discuss the National Academies of Science’s report which begins: “A range of health and environmental issues and related risks are important considerations as Virginia deliberates on whether to rescind its almost 30-year moratorium on mining uranium. Although there are internationally accepted best practices to mitigate most of these risks, there are still steep hurdles to be surmounted before mining and processing could take place within a regulatory setting that appropriately protects workers, the public, and the environment.”
Credits: Olga Kolutushkina, Mike Pucci, Sunny Gardener, engineer Ethan Scott and WRIR Richmond Independent Radio
Notes: Olga Kolutushkina and Mike Pucci discuss the report researched by National Academies of Science on the potential effects of mining uranium in Virginia. Olga is the regulatory and legislative adviser for the Roanoke River Basin Association, and spokesperson for the Dan River Basin Association's Uranium Mining Task Force. Mike lives on Lake Gaston a huge reservoir in North Carolina , just downstream from where business men want to mine and mill uranium in Virginia. He is a concerned and informed citizen, who has thoroughly researched the issue and is working to ensure that NC is involved in decisions that will affect the fate of their water. Yet people continued to ask for recommendations and Paul Locke demurred saying “I would be very uncomfortable saying anything about that.” He and the others researchers were considerate, neutral and consistently pointed out that there are many hurdles to mining and milling safely. Read more: http://radio4all.net/index.php/program/59295

Impact of mining on agriculture

By: The Editorial Board| GoDanRiver
Published: April 11, 2012 Updated: April 11, 2012 - 8:00 AM


To the editor:

I read with great interest the recent article in Virginia Business magazine on "Farm to Table" (April 2012).

But I have to ponder the deleterious effects of uranium mining and milling on our agricultural economy.

Best practices will never guarantee that our water and air will be safe if the moratorium is lifted by the General Assembly.

Pittsylvania and Halifax counties have a very successful economy based on cattle, sheep, dairy farms, at least eight wineries and growing both animal feed and vegetables.

The recently built Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex could become defunct if our "way of life" is contaminated.

Since the uranium deposits run from Southside to Culpeper, what will be the effect on the many outstanding wineries, horse farms and fish hatcheries if mining and milling occur all over the commonwealth?

I would hope but do not trust that the Uranium Working Group study will consider the detriment of this risky and unprecedented development.

We have much to lose when water and food are such precious commodities.

SUSAN STILWELL
Danville

http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/apr/11/impact-mining-agriculture-ar-1832519/

Mining and wildlife

By: The Editorial Board | GoDanRiver
Published: April 11, 2012 Updated: April 11, 2012 - 7:00 AM

To the editor:

Here is an aspect of uranium mining that I haven’t heard addressed, and that is the effect on certain wildlife including birds that live on those mounds of tailings and on animals and insects that burrow into the tailings mounds, living underground during the winter and emerging in the spring.

What happens to birds and other wildlife that prey on those insects?

Do they die of radiation sickness? What about hunters that kill and eat the birds that have ingested radioactive insects? What happens to them?

If anyone has answers to those questions I would like to hear them.

In the news lately were pictures of huge tractor-trailers being flung high in the air by tornadoes in Texas.

What are the risks of tornadoes swooping down and sucking up the radioactive dirt from those mounds of tailings and scattering it all over the place?

How do the studies of uranium mining deal with that possibility?

RALPH DORR
Danville

Read more:
http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/apr/11/mining-and-wildlife-ar-1832514/

Uranium, Cattle Grazing and Risks Unknown

By LESLIE MACMILLAN

As I reported last weekend in The Times, a cattle rancher stumbled upon an abandoned uranium mine in the summer of 2010 on his grazing land, about 60 miles east of the Grand Canyon on the Navajo reservation, and notified federal officials. They came in with Geiger counters and found levels of radioactivity that were alarmingly high.

A year and a half later, the former mine in Cameron, Ariz., is not fenced off to either humans or animals, and cattle continue to roam through the site and eat grass that might be tainted with uranium and other toxic substances.
“Those cattle go to auction in Sun Valley and are sold on the open market,” said Ronald Tohannie, a project manager with the Navajo advocacy group Forgotten People. “Then people eat the meat.”
The owner of Valley Livestock Auction in Sun Valley, Ariz., Derrek Wagoner, confirmed that he buys cattle from the Navajo reservation and is aware that cattle graze on uranium mines there. He added that cattle come to him from all over the Southwest, where there are plenty of former uranium mines.
There is no dispute that beef and milk from those cattle make their way into the food chain.  What is not precisely known is how much radioactive material plants absorb through the soil, how much the cattle ingest by grazing on the plants and what the effect might be on humans.

 Livestock grazing around the abandoned mines is common throughout the Southwest, according to many environmentalists, scientists, government officials and people in the cattle business. The Colorado Plateau is particularly rich in minerals and in the former mines, which for 40 years supplied crucial materials for the nation’s cold-war nuclear weapons program.

But the effect of the radioactivity on the food chain remains an open question. “There’s just not a lot of data,” said Chris Shuey, an environmental health specialist with the Southwest Research and Information Center. “That’s because mining ended 25 years ago, and the studies ended then, too.”

Yet a resurgence in corporate interest in mining uranium has brought a new wave of studies. In a 2010 report, the Department of the Interior said that proposals for uranium mining at sites adjacent to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona had prompted the agency “to investigate physical, chemical, and biological issues potentially affected by mining.”
In January, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed a 20-year moratorium on new uranium and other hard-rock mining claims on a million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon, saying it was needed to preserve the mile-deep canyon and the river that runs through it. The mining industry is challenging that decision in court.

The Interior report summarizes the available findings, saying that although conclusive data is lacking, studies have indicated that toxic substances like uranium and its decay products — including radium and radon — “can affect the survival, growth, and reproduction of plants and animals.” It cited reptiles, birds and “mammalian wildlife that represent essential components of the food web.”

Safety and Inspection Service.

The lack of data makes some experts uneasy.

“We still can’t answer fundamental questions — are there wide population health effects due to uranium mining?” said Mr. Shuey, the environmental health specialist.
“Immune function, kidney disease, high blood pressure — all these things contribute to the burden of ill health” and could be affected by uranium, he said, “but we don’t know for sure.”

“Now there are companies that want to mine uranium again,” he said, “and we’re still a couple of generations away from dealing with the totality of that legacy.”

Read more:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/uranium-cattle-grazing-and-risks-unknown/

COMMUNITY VOICE: Uranium Policy: Why insist on transparency?

Written by Katie Whitehead

08:08 am 04/11/12 The Uranium Working Group’s work plan presented at a March 7 meeting of the Uranium Mining Subcommittee drew instant, sharp criticism for its lack of transparency, which was deemed particularly reprehensible in light of the report by the National Academy of Sciences, which told us that international best practices are “founded on principles of openness, transparency and public involvement in oversight and decision-making.” In response to the criticism, Martin Kent, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s chief of staff, sent out a letter to correct “errant reports.” Valid concerns remain. Some were addressed in Kent’s letter; some were not. Here are some points from his letter and concerns that persist: • The letter assures us that neither the Uranium Working Group nor the governor can lift the moratorium. Why worry that the public won’t have a say? The Uranium Working Group will draft a statutory proposal that, if approved by the General Assembly, would end the ban on uranium mining. It might take years to write detailed regulations, but the moratorium would be over. • The letter makes clear that we can write to the working group and comment in meetings. Isn’t that sufficient public participation? This would seem to fall short of the NAS report’s recommendation that, “Meaningful and timely public participation should occur throughout the life cycle of a project, beginning at the earliest stages of project planning.” For example, there appears to be no opportunity to interact with the Uranium Working Group and no opportunity to ask a direct question and receive a direct answer from state agency experts or the independent experts they retain. • The letter does not correct a common misunderstanding that the Uranium Working Group will conduct site-specific studies. The governor’s Jan. 19 press release stated that the group will do “a comprehensive and on-site study of the issue” and led many people to expect them to define the impacts and risks at Coles Hill. However, nothing in the group’s actual assignment or work plan indicates that it will either do a site-specific analysis or produce the kind of assessment of risks and impacts that would provide guidance on the decision of whether or not to proceed. Virginia has no experience with current best practices for storing mineral processing tailings, making it essential to evaluate any proposed site thoroughly. Coles Hill combines characteristics found at sites in other countries, but no one site is sufficiently comparable that we can simply look to that site to know what to expect at Coles Hill. Geologists, hydrologists, geochemists, environmental scientists, climatologists, engineers and risk analysts would have to rely on complex modeling to predict the impacts of new practices interacting with climate and site conditions. In January 2013 scientists will not know what could happen at Coles Hill; nor will lawmakers voting on whether to accept the risks of ending the ban. • According to the letter, the group will tell us whether public safety can be ensured. Isn’t that what everyone wants to know? It doesn’t appear that the group’s work will address this issue in sufficiently realistic terms. For example: (1) It is possible on paper to write regulations that describe how uranium mining could be done with an acceptable level of risk. But, regulations will not tell us all the things that could happen in practice if human beings undertake uranium mining, milling and tailings storage in Virginia. Regulations will not tell us whether uranium can be mined safely at Coles Hill or any other location . (2) The experts on tap do not appear to include economists. There is nothing to indicate that the working group will do more than summarize the Chmura and RTI International socioeconomic study reports, which focus on scenarios that assume 35 years of profitable mining and milling at Coles Hill, full regulatory compliance and no new uranium discoveries. Neither study fully acknowledges either end of the realistic range of future uranium prices — neither prices below the break-even point at Coles Hill that would result in no economic benefit, nor prices high enough to stimulate exploration and mining elsewhere in the commonwealth. • The letter states that the governor established the Uranium Working Group “at the request of many legislators.” More interesting is what it doesn’t say. Among the legislators who contacted Gov. McDonnell were seven members of the Uranium Mining Subcommittee who also advised the governor that: “While we do not prejudge the agencies’ substantive work, we do suggest that the draft regulations and any ensuing adjustment to the statutory moratorium relate specifically to the uranium deposit at Coles Hill.” This possibility raises a couple of immediate concerns: (1) No scientific or economic rationale dictates limiting the law, the risk or the profit to one project. Science, economics and the Virginia Constitution — not to mention basic fairness — would seem to require that regulations and statutes apply statewide. While there is no indication that the Uranium Working Group intends to draft a regulatory framework customized for Coles Hill, the intentions of legislators and the governor are not clear. (2) The NAS report characterizes the Coles Hill deposits more precisely than the subcommittee letter, “Of the localities in Virginia where existing exploration data indicates that there are significant uranium occurrences, predominantly in the Blue Ridge and Piedmont geological terrains, only the deposits at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County appear to be potentially economically viable at present.” The economic viability of a uranium site can change quickly. In 2002, there were no deposits of economic interest in Virginia. When the price spiked in 2007, Virginia Uranium Inc. spokesmen proposed paying taxes on potential extraction not just to Pittsylvania County, but to Halifax and Henry counties, as well, implying their interest in mining uranium throughout the area. Company executives and consultants have touted the likelihood of extensive uranium development in Virginia. Greater transparency is possible and appropriate. Even so, government officials are not likely to volunteer all the information we want or frame it in a way that’s clear. We need to ask for answers to our questions and full transparency regarding our concerns. Whitehead is a native and resident of Pittsylvania County. http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/opinion/43-letters-to-the-editor/5352-community-voice-uraniumnpolicynwhy-insist-on-transparency

Another challenging year ahead for uranium miner

By Carl Curtain
Wednesday, 11/04/2012

Energy Resources Australia, which operates the Ranger Uranium Mine near Jabiru, held its annual general meeting in Darwin today.

With a massive wet season forcing the company to lose $154 million last year, it's hoped a new underground exploration project will offer brighter prospects.

CEO Rob Atkinson says there are a number of priorities to achieve this year to pull the operation back to a profitable course.

"The challenge we have is to continue to progress with the exploration decline, the construction of that and the building of the brine concentrator.

"It is a challenging year because of the water, and water will continue to dominate."

Read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201204/s3475022.htm





http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201204/s3475022.htm

Coles should abandon uranium

Posted: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 10:21 am

On Wednesday, March 5, 2008, an ad ran in the Chatham Star-Tribune. It was placed by Walter Coles, chairman of Virginia Uranium Inc.
It appeared shortly after the General Assembly decided not to support a study proposal for uranium mining.

Of course, that was remedied by the Coal and Energy Commission.

Virginia Uranium paid for the National Academy of Sciences study by paying Virginia Tech to handle the payments to the NAS.

Specifically of note, the Coles ad states: “We want an independent scientific study to determine beyond question that mining can be done safely at Coles Hill. If it cannot be done safely, it will not be done.”

He got the “independent scientific study” he asked for and it did not “determine beyond question that mining can be done safely at Coles Hill.”

Yet he persists. Shouldn’t this be the end of it?

Karen B. Maute
Danville

Read more:
http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_632cf9d4-78e1-11e1-93ee-001871e3ce6c.html

Earth Day: Volunteers from Life, Inc

Volunteers from Life, Inc. participated in the county wide pick up beautification in honor of Earth Day.

Volunteers are Deborah Gross, Allen Gross, Sue Poe, Byron Motley, Kay Patrick,
Deborah Lovelace and Phillip Lovelace.


Approx. 5 miles were picked up on Chalk Level Road, Ben Annie Road and Rockford School Road.

Happy Earth Day!

EarthDay

Earth Day Activities Whether or not this is your first Earth day or your twentieth Earth Day, this day is a great day to spend time with your children and teach them more about the environment around them. Our children are the leaders of the future. It is important that they learn the importance of the environment now, instead of waiting until they have grown. There is no better way to teach children than to make crafts and play educational games. Making Crafts from Recycled Materials

A great way to teach your children about recycling is to make crafts out of recycled material. One great craft is creating “fossils” out of used coffee grounds. This craft will teach your children about recycling as well as give you an opportunity to talk about dinosaurs.

To create coffee ground fossils you need to mix coffee grounds, flour, salt, and a little old coffee. Once the mixture is a doughy consistency you knead it and then flatten it onto a sheet of wax paper. Next, you cut out pieces of the dough and then cut shapes and images into the dough to create the fossil. Finally you allow the fossils to dry overnight, or you can bake them if you don’t want to wait.

Another great recyclable craft s to build little bugs out of recycled egg cartons, pipe cleaners, and google eyes. Just cut out the cup portion of the egg carton before you begin the craft. Give each child an egg coup and allow them to add google eyes and pipe cleaners any way they want to create their own unique bugs. By using a little felt and recycled jars, you can create adorable animal jars. Just help your children glue the felt to the top of the jar so that you create an animal face. You can reuse milk jugs, detergent bottles, and cereal boxes as well. Just clean out the container in advance and then allow your children to decorate the containers any way they want. If you cut the tops off you can create all sorts of things with the recycle containers. All it take is a little imagination. Earth Day Quiz Show

There are numerous online Earth day games that will teach children about picking up trash and recycling. One fun game that you can play with your children is the Earth Day Quiz show. You can be as elaborate with your game show as you want. The basic things you need for the quiz show are cards with questions about Earth Day on them (as well as the answers) and prizes for the winner. Be sure to include difficult and easier questions.

The more into the quiz game you are, the more fun your children will have with it. Another game you can play is the Earth Day Scavenger hunt. To play this game, create clues that leas your children to different Earth Friendly objects or areas around your home.

 An example for this is…” go to the container that is big and blue that reuses cans used by me and you”. Once your children find the recycling bin that this clue leads to, they will find the next clue and continue on in the scavenger hunt.

http://earthday2012.net/earth-day-activities-for-kids

Dairy energy could be a state model

By: Tara Bozick | GoDanRiver
Published: April 03, 2012 Updated: April 03, 2012 - 9:10 PM

Kent and Haymore, both Pittsylvania County natives, helped ensure the anaerobic digester project at the VanDerHyde Dairy, or Dairy Energy Inc., came to fruition. The digester recovers and processes the methane given off by the dairy’s cows to produce electricity, bedding and liquid fertilizer.

State officials are working on ways to transform agricultural wastes into power sources for Virginia as part of McDonnell’s “all of the above approach” for energy production, including renewable and traditional resources.

http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/apr/03/dairy-energy-could-be-state-model-ar-1816563/

Uranium mine could be ‘pig in a poke’

Comments:  What does "pig in a poke" mean:An object offered in a manner that conceals its true value, especially its lack of value.

Posted: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 9:27 am

A reader recently suggested that our county might benefit from the potential taxes purported to be paid by Virginia Uranium for the privilege of mining uranium.
At first glance this might seem a financial advantage to the area.

However, on closer scrutiny the situation does not appear quite so clear.

Pittsylvania County already has one of the lowest land values in Virginia.

One needs only to look at the number of properties in proximity to the proposed mine that are currently for sale, the asking prices (which have often been decreased), and the number of days such properties have been on the market, to realize the severely negative impact even a proposed mine has on their values.

Per the 2012 budget, Pittsylvania County expects about $18.5 million in real estate taxes and mobile home fees.

If one accepts a modest 10 percent reduction in property values (many properties near the mine appear to have been affected by much more than that), the negative effect of a uranium mine on the county’s property tax base would be almost $2 million a year.

Add to that the potential increase in county services needed to support the mine, let alone the deterrent effect a uranium mine might have on attracting other business to the area and any potential tax benefit appears to vanish.

Let’s be careful citizens of Pittsylvania County, lest we be sold a pig in a poke.

Robert Durr, M.D.
Long Island

Earth Day Events

3rd Annual Earth Day Celebration :  Town of Halifax, VA

The Town of Halifax and Halifax County Improvement Council will hold the 3rd Annual Earth Day Celebration on Saturday, April 21st at the Halifax Marketplace, 209 South Main Street. Vendors with the Halifax Farmers Market will be set up from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.

The celebration activities will kick off at 11:00 a.m. with free entertainment, informational displays and working demonstrations open to the public continuing until 4:00 p.m., rain or shine. 

The Halifax Earth Day Celebration continues to grow support within the Halifax County community.  Earth Day was set aside over 40 years ago to focus on the troubles found within our environment, both near and far. Just one day is not enough. Responsible living and balanced consumption should be an everyday practice for all of us, and we want to work together to help educate the public in fun and exciting ways to provide a healthy place to live for generations to come. Graced with an abundance of natural resources and tranquil beauty found throughout Halifax County and Southern Virginia, the historic Town of Halifax is a "natural" fit to host a celebration of our shared yet diverse rural heritage built over centuries in concert with this wonderful land which surrounds us and sustains us.

Earth Day Celebration
April 21, 2012

Earth Day
April 22, 2012

http://www.townofhalifax.com/

Welcome To Earthday Roanoke 2012 !

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Admin.

April 21, 2012
Earth Day Roanoke

A FREE FESTIVAL CELEBRATING OUR EARTH

10 AM - 4 PM 
We’re taking it to the street, April 21, 10 AM - 4 PM between Viva La Cupcake, Rke Natural Foods Co-op up to Reeds Furniture and Surf & Turf Restaurant.

Grandin Road closed Memorial Ave. to Westover Ave.
View Map

***No admission fee; ride your bike, take a bus, walk or park in the neighborhood*** parking also available in parking lots Presbyterian Church 

http://earthdayroanoke.com/

Alexandria Earth Day 2012

Welcome

Mark your calendar for ! This year's celebration will be held at Ben Brenman Park (4800 Brenman Park Dr.) on Saturday, April 21, 2012, from 10 am to 2 pm.
In the event of inclement weather, the event will be moved to Samuel W. Tucker Elementary school, 435 Ferdinand Day Drive
This year's theme is Eco-City Alexandria! The event will include green building learning sessions, educational exhibits, demonstrations, hands-on activities for children, a tree sale, and the 2nd annual Trashion Fashion Show.
http://www.alexearthday.org/

Earth Day 2012 in Richmond

Earth Day is being celebrated next Saturday, April 21, 2012 in Richmond. An annual event, this year's festival is centered around Old Manchester at the Mayo Bridge, and includes activities for the whole family to enjoy, from 12 noon to 7p.m.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Earth Day 2012 in Richmond - Richmond Community Issues | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/community-issues-in-richmond/earth-day-2012-richmond#ixzz1sFLK5p95

Uranium mining: Battleground Virginia

By By Rose Ellen O’Connor, Natural Resources News Service

SoVaNow.com / November 20, 2011

.

The issue has prompted an expensive lobbying campaign by the company that wants to mine a huge deposit known as Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County and an intense fight by environmentalists who want to stop it. The battle has pitted neighbor against neighbor in the county, in south central Virginia, an area known as Southside.

Bill Speiden, a legislative director for the Orange County Farm Bureau, ran a dairy farm on his land for forty years. He was approached in 1979 by the now defunct Marline Uranium Corp., the Canadian company that lobbied the General Assembly for uranium mining approval in the early to mid 1980s. Marline was primarily interested in Coles Hill but explored uranium deposits throughout the state.

Speiden says the company offered him and his wife a signing bonus and royalties on the uranium his land produced. When he did not say yes, Marline offered him a partnership in the company, he says. He did not understand the intense interest until he saw a map of uranium hot spots in Northern Virginia. Each was marked with one to four bars.

“There was only one four-bar radioactive hot spot in Northern Virginia and that was on my land,” Speiden says. “That explained why they were putting pressure on.”

Speiden says he found the money tempting and he and his wife took a trip to Colorado and Utah, hoping to find some success stories. They talked to ranchers and mill and mine supervisors from a half dozen western states.

“We found a litany of environmental disasters,” he says.

Speiden says they heard about ranchers throughout the West whose water wells had been contaminated and cattle poisoned by radioactive mine waste. Some of the cows lost their hair.

He says he is unimpressed by assurances that the proposed mine is being designed with the latest technology and that stricter regulation will protect Pittsylvania County residents. Newspapers out West touted a “new era in dam design” when describing facilities at United Nuclear Corp.’s uranium mine in Church Rock, New Mexico, he says.

But in July 1979, the dam collapsed, spilling 90 million gallons of liquid radioactive toxin and 1,100 tons of uranium waste into the Puerco River. Foul smelling poisonous yellow water gushed 50 miles downstream, crossing Navaho ranches and farmland and spreading 50 miles into Arizona.

“It would be nice to become a millionaire off of the deal,” Speiden says, “but I couldn’t in good conscience risk my neighbors’ downstream water supply and clean air.”



The big money behind local group

Virginia Uranium executives argue that the company is owned by locals who care deeply about their community and would never risk polluting it.

But behind Virginia Uranium Inc. is a complex web of Canadian corporations, including an executive from the former Canadian company that failed in the 1980s to win approval for uranium mining, according to public and private documents reviewed by Natural Resources News Service. Corporate executives are expecting to win the battle in Virginia this time, transcripts and other records show.
Read more:
http://www.thenewsrecord.com/index.php?/news/article/uranium_mining_battleground_virginia/

Halifax County the new 'ground zero' for uranium mining?

Written by Paula I. Bryant

07:44 am 04/18/12

Andrew Lester, president of the Roanoke River Basin Association, tells supervisors and council members how the Banister River would be contaminated forever if some sort of catastrophic event caused a failure in one of eight proposed uranium tailings containment cells at Coles Hill in neighboring Pittsylvania County. (Doug Ford/Gazette-Virginian)

Andrew Lester, president of the Roanoke River Basin Association, showed how the Banister River would be contaminated forever if excess rains, earthquake, tornado or other catastrophe caused a failure in one of eight proposed uranium tailings containment cells at Coles Hill in neighboring Pittsylvania County.

During a joint meeting in Halifax Monday night, Lester gave a presentation on Virginia Beach’s Uranium Mining Phase II Study, telling Halifax County Board of Supervisors and the South Boston and Halifax town councils uranium mining does not come with an operations manual, “and that scares me to death.”

Lester’s presentation was a follow-up on the initial finds from Virginia Beach’s Study presented to the three governing bodies last October on the Impacts of Uranium Mining and Milling on the Banister River and Dan River in Halifax County along with the entire Roanoke River Basin downstream of the proposed uranium mining and milling operation at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County.

Jack Dunavant, chairman of We the People of Virginia, introduced Lester who presented the half-hour program on the study that pronounces dangers uranium mining poses to the Banister River, Kerr Lake and Lake Gaston.

“We catch the brunt of it,” Dunavant said, describing what could happen to the Banister River and surrounding areas downstream from the proposed uranium mining site should any tailings containment failure occur.

“We’ve known this for years, but we’ve never had any real proof. Well, you will see real proof tonight,” Dunavant said of the $500,000 computer model study done for Virginia Beach.

“It’s quite graphic. It’s something that proves the point that we’re ground zero,” Dunavant said.

Virginia Uranium Inc. plans to mine and mill approximately 63 million tons of uranium from the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County if Virginia lifts the moratorium on uranium mining.

Lester said the problem with uranium mining lies in the refining activities that yields large amounts of radioactive tailings - - a fine, powdery substance that can be blown or washed into nearby rivers and streams contaminating water supplies.

He explained that once deep-shaft mining begins at Coles Hill of the 63 million tons of uranium, 29 to 30 million tons of tailings waste would be the by-product resulting in mountains of powdery waste Virginia Uranium Inc. plans to contain in eight 40-acre cells.

“They crush the ore and mill it, and what’s left over is liquid and solid waste,” he added. “Only a small percent of what they get out will they keep. The rest they will pile up.”

According to Lester, the study proposes if one of the eight underground cells were to rupture, then one-third of one-eighth, or 1/24th of the tailings material would be lost in a normal storm event, like a hurricane or a man-made mistake.

The result would be contamination of water supplies, the study maintains.

“This is the kind of fight that goes way beyond political ideas,” Lester told supervisors and council members. “We all see it as a common danger to our river and to our region. And most of us are not going to stand by and be sold down the river for a few pieces of silver.”

Lester explained Virginia Beach paid for the study because it draws 65 million gallons of water a day from Lake Gaston and would be affected should some sort of disaster occur at the proposed uranium mine in Pittsylvania County.

Read more:

http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/5395-halifax-county-the-new-ground-zero-for-uranium-mining

Even NAS Braniacs Have Unanswered Questions about Uranium Mining

by James A. Bacon
The National Academy of Sciences report on uranium mining in Virginia covers a lot of ground, as anyone who peruses the 290-page document can attest. But the panel of co-authors attending a public presentation of the report in downtown Richmond last night conceded that there was a lot that they didn’t know — often because their study mandate did not include evaluating specific mining sites.

Paul A. Locke, chairman of the NAS study committee

As it happens, while uranium has been detected in some 55 spots around the state (as shown on the map above), only one site, the Coles Hill Farm in Pittsylvania County, has potential for commercial grade production, said Paul A. Locke, chairman of the committee and a Johns Hopkins University professor of public health. Members of the audience asked numerous questions about the feasibility of mining uranium at Coles Hill in a environmentally safe manner, but committee members could answer only with vague generalities, if at all.

Lisa Guthrie, executive director, Virginia League of Conservation Voters

Among the questions outside the scope of the NAS study:

• Will there be a large up-front cost to establish a regulatory regime for uranium mining, considering that Virginia has no existing regulatory apparatus and no existing uranium-mining industry from which to generate licensing revenue?
• Given the fact that uranium tailings remain radioactive for thousands of years, long after the mining company will cease to exist, what mechanisms exist to monitor and ensure environmental compliance of an impoundment site over the long term?
• How much radiation is likely to leak in the event of an extreme event such as an earthquake or massive flood — an amount equivalent to the radiation from a radium watch… or a Chernobyl disaster?

Further, neither Locke or other board members could point to specific Best Practices that should be implemented for uranium mining and processing at Coles Hill. Speaking generally, they said that technological and regulatory advances over the past two or three decades have vastly improved the safety and environmental health of uranium mining. No other uranium mine in the world exactly matches the Pittsylvania site in terms of geology, climate and surrounding population, but a mix-and-match approach, picking Best Practices on the basis of specific characteristics, should be feasible.

Read more:
http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/03/even-nas-braniacs-have-unanswered-questions-about-uranium-mining.html

Virginia Mining Wars

Posted by Lucas W Hixson on April 1, 2012

Virginia Uranium Inc. is pushing to lift a 30-year ban on uranium mining in Virginia so it can mine and mill the radioactive metal in Southside where the waste would remain toxic for centuries.

Citizens statewide are concerned about the dangers of uranium mining to drinking water, air quality, farm products, fishing, and tourism.

In an effort to remove the ban, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell commissioned a “study group”, made up of state officials and paid experts, tasked at looking at the safety of mining in Pittsylvania and at possible mining regulations.

The public response to this has been a strong rebuttal of what is seen as obfuscation by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s study group. Most studies and reports (some of which were requested by Virginia Uranium itself) state the essential need for transparency in deliberations on the subject of uranium mining, and most experts agree that such important decisions should be made “founded on principles of openness.”

. At present, this does not seem to be an important factor in the Governors decision-making process.
McDonnell’s group is holding four public meetings but says other meetings would be closed. The group is making some documents public but keeping others confidential until they are released in a final report.

Since 1981 uranium prices and quantities in the US are reported by the Department of Energy. The import price dropped from 32.90 US$/lb-U3O8 in 1981 down to 12.55 in 1990 and to below 10 US$/lb-U3O8in the year 2000. Prices paid for uranium during the 1970s were higher, 43 US$/lb-U3O8 is reported as the selling price for Australian uranium in 1978 by the Nuclear Information Centre.

According to a report released this month by Environment Virginia, Virginia is second-worst in the nation for toxic chemicals dumped into its waterways.[1] Industrial facilities dumped 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals into more than 1,400 American waterways in all 50 states in 2010, according to the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory.

A National Academy of Sciences panel released a $1.4 million report in December saying Virginia faced “steep hurdles” in protecting people and the environment if the state were to allow uranium mining. The panel is now holding public briefings to explain the report to people and answer questions. One of those briefings drew about 40 people to the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Richmond on Friday night.

“What the governor is doing seems inconsistent with the recommendations of (the academy panel’s) report,” Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, said after his presentation.
Good stewardship means taking action to ensure that the natural, cultural and historic resources treasured by Virginians are available for future generations to enjoy. Protecting land also helps meet important goals for water quality, wildlife habitat, recreation, and overall quality of life.

Uranium ore emits radon gas. The health effects of high exposure to radon is a particular problem in the mining of uranium; significant excess lung cancer deaths have been identified in epidemiological studies of uranium miners employed in the 1940s and 1950s.

In studies of uranium miners, workers exposed to radon levels of 50 to 150 picocuries of radon per liter of air (2000–6000 Bq/m3) for about 10 years have shown an increased frequency of lung cancer.[5]

Read more:
http://enformable.com/2012/04/virginia-mining-wars/

[1] (Virginia E. , 2012)

[2] (Virginia S. o., Water Quality, 2012)

[3] (Virginia S. o., Land Preservation, 2012)

[4] (Virginia S. o., Air Quality Summary, 2012)

[5] (Registry, 1990)

Bibliography

Registry, A. f. (1990, December). Toxological profile for radon. Retrieved from U.S. Public Health Service, In collaboration with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.bvsde.paho.org/bvstox/i/fulltext/toxprofiles/radon.pdf
Virginia, E. (2012, March 22). Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act. Retrieved from http://www.environmentvirginia.org/sites/environment/files/reports/Wasting%20Our%20Waterways%20vVA.pdf
Virginia, S. o. (2012). Air Quality Summary. Retrieved from Virginia Performs – State of Virginia: http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/naturalResources/airQuality.php
Virginia, S. o. (2012). Land Preservation. Retrieved from Virginia Performs: http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/naturalResources/landPreservation.php
Virginia, S. o. (2012). Water Quality. Retrieved from Virginia Performs – State of Virginia: http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/naturalResources/waterQuality.php

Virginia Policy Review will hold its First Annual Policy Forum: Uranium Mining Panel

RSVP HERE: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHd6dHgxMERhTzF4ZlJwOG14Y0ljbWc6MQ

Virginia Policy Review will hold its Energy Policy Forum on April 20th, 2012 in the Great Hall of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. This event is open to students and the public.

9 a.m. Registration

Assessing the Landscape: Energy in America

9:30 a.m. Energy Policy: One Grand Challenge
Linda Stuntz- Former Deputy Secretary, U. S. Department of Energy

Policy Perspectives: Energy Issues at the Local, State, and Federal Levels

10:30 a.m. Point, Counterpoint: Uranium Mining in VirginiaCale Jaffe- Senior Attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center
Patrick Wales- Project Manager, Virginia Uranium

Noon/Lunch Nuclear Energy in America: A Prospective from a Practitioner & Policy Maker
Chad Boyer- American Nuclear Society Congressional Fellow

Looking Ahead: Energy Alternatives and Innovation

1:15 p.m. Taxonomy and Policy of Unconventional Oil
Deborah Gordon- Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

2:30 p.m. Global Trends in Renewable Energy Innovation
Mike Lenox- Director, Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business



If you have questions, please email us at: virginiapolicyreview@gmail.com
For press inquiries, please contact Borna Kazerooni, Editor-in-Chief of VPR, at: Borna Kazerooni bk4z@virginia.edu
.

http://virginiapolicyreview.com/events/

Uranium’s Minefields

 

Governor McDonnell is under a harsh spotlight as he considers whether to support lifting a near three-decades-long moratorium on uranium mining.

by Peter Galuszka


For the 50 or so people sitting in the quaint Pepsi-Cola building March 20 in Danville's tobacco warehouse district, the information seems to spawn more frustration than clarity. They've gathered to hear two economic impact reports regarding controversial plans by Virginia Uranium to mine an ore deposit a dozen miles to the north in Chatham.

"The bottom line is that we don't know what will happen in the future," says Katherine Heller, a senior economist at RTI International. The consulting company from Research Triangle Park, N.C., was hired by regional agencies to estimate what happens if Virginia Uranium, owned by local and Canadian investors, proceeds with its plans for a uranium mining and milling complex.

Uranium mining is the hottest environmental issue facing Virginia. Mining the Coles Hill farm deposit could yield $7 billion, not a small chunk of change, for landowners Walter Coles Sr., his son and other investors.

Yet many questions surround it, such as the state's lack of mining regulations, the unusually rainy nature of Southside Virginia (uranium mines are typically in drier regions, such as Colorado or Australia) and the threat of leaks of radioactivity to the Lake Gaston area that provides Virginia Beach with much of its drinking water.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's administration is under a harsh spotlight as he considers whether to support lifting a near three-decades-long moratorium on uranium mining while pushing his agenda of making Virginia the so-called energy capital of the East Coast. His plan relies heavily on nuclear power and fossil fuel, including his so-far fruitless efforts to drill off the Virginia coast for oil.

But those predictions assume the state overcomes big hurdles, as yet another report by the National Academy of Sciences says it must clear. Among the obstacles:

• Virginia has no laws regulating uranium mining or milling ore into useable yellowcake, the highly radioactive material that's eventually used in reactors or to make bombs. McDonnell recommended delaying any decision on lifting the ban on uranium mining in the state until more research could be done. He's set up a group to study the issue.
• According to RTI, the tailings, or leftovers, from the uranium deposit that runs 1,500-foot deep will be stored permanently underground in an area near vital drinking water supplies. Those dump sites will have to be monitored indefinitely, according to Heller, most likely for thousands of years. There are no plans yet to do such monitoring or how to pay for it.

• There also are no plans yet on requiring Virginia Uranium to set aside funds to help localities deal with the costs and loss of businesses and taxes in case there's a spill or some kind of accident. It also isn't clear who will pay for the necessary state regulators and inspectors, especially when the upcoming budget is tight and has yet to be approved.

• There are lingering questions and confusion about how transparent the McDonnell group will be while it studies uranium mining. At first, Cathie J. France, a deputy director of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy who heads the uranium committee, said that her group wouldn't hold public hearings but would accept written comment and set up a Web page. After public criticism, Martin L. Kent, McDonnell's chief of staff, wrote legislators that because of "misunderstanding" there had been a "mischaracterization" of how public comment will be obtained. He says the group will "accept public comment during four open meetings."

• The economic health of the uranium plans depends on highly volatile global uranium pricing. Heller said that RTI based its predictions on what she characterized as a middle-high estimate that could be subject to big and unexpected swings. Uranium prices hit a high of $136 a pound in mid-2007, dropped, and then struggled back to about $65 a pound by February 2011.

The next month, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan pushed them back to the low $50-a-pound range as governments such as Germany's swore off commercial nuclear power.

The bottom line is that the uranium idea seems terribly premature. McDonnell wants his committee to make recommendations about dropping the ban in time for the 2013 General Assembly session. Considering the enormous risks involved, the lack of any regulatory structure and the suspicions of influence peddling that Virginia Uranium has raised, next winter may be way too soon.

Read more:
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/uraniums-minefields/Content?oid=1691414

Halifax County supervisors, councils gather tonight to hear uranium report 4/16

Written by Staff

07:36 am 04/16/12 Andrew Lester, president of the Roanoke River Basin Association, is slated to present the association’s report on Virginia Beach Uranium Mining Phase II Study to the Halifax County Board of Supervisors and the South Boston and Halifax town councils tonight at 6 p.m. when they hold a joint meeting in the second floor conference room of the Mary Bethune Office Complex in Halifax. Lester’s presentation will be a follow-up on the initial findings from Virginia Beach’s Study presented to the three governing bodies last October on the Impacts of Uranium Mining and Milling on the Banister River and Dan River in Halifax County along with the entire Roanoke River Basin downstream of the proposed uranium mining and milling operation at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County, according to Halifax Town Manager Carl Espy. Jack Dunavant, chairman of We the People of Virginia, said the program is expected to last about 20 minutes as supervisors and council members view a DVD program about the dangers uranium mining poses to the Banister River, Kerr Lake and Lake Gaston. http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/5376-county-supervisors-councils-gather-tonight-to-hear-uranium-report

Research calculates uranium mining hazards

 

The report cites "potential adverse human health risks" if the ban on mining is lifted.

By Laurence Hammack981-3239

If Virginia lifts a moratorium on mining uranium, it will face "steep hurdles" in protecting the health of its people and environment, a long-awaited study warns
.
Digging up the radioactive metal and converting it to fuel for nuclear reactors presents "a wide range of potential adverse human health risks," according to the National Academy of Sciences.
While making no firm recommendations, the 302-page report released Monday is expected to play a key role when the General Assembly decides at its upcoming session whether to lift a 30-year ban on uranium mining.

At stake is a 119-million-pound deposit in Pittsylvania County -- believed to be the largest undeveloped uranium source in the United States -- that Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to extract.
While previous studies have cited the rosy economic impact of such an operation, the academy's report offered a more stark assessment of the public health and ecological implications.

Waste materials from the mine could "contaminate the local environment under certain conditions, in particular by seeping into water sources and thereby increasing radionucline concentrations," the report stated.

"This, in turn, can lead to a risk of cancer from drinking water."

The mining leftovers, called tailings, are especially troublesome because they must be stored in containment ponds at the mine site, where they would maintain their radioactivity for many centuries.

"Tailings disposal sites represent potential sources of contamination for thousands of years, and the long-term risks remain poorly defined," stated the report, which came after two years of study by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

While significant improvements have been made in recent years to contain tailings, the report found "limited data" to confirm the long-term effectiveness of those methods.

Repeating a concern often stressed by mining opponents, the report raises the specter of the tailings being spread by heavy rains or an extreme storm -- more likely to occur in Virginia than in the arid Western United States, where most uranium is currently mined. If approved, the Pittsylvania County mine would be the first of its kind on the East Coast.

The report was not all bad news for mining proponents, though.

Some of the public health and environmental risks could be mitigated by using "best practice" approaches from a number of regulatory bodies, it found.

Use of those methods "has the potential to substantially reduce near- to moderate-term environmental effects," the report stated.
But making assurances is complicated by a number of unknowns: the lack of similar mines to draw comparisons from, for example, and the incredibly long life span of the tailings.

"The report did not say you can mitigate all risks," said Paul Locke, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences study committee. "It said you can mitigate some risks."

Pressed by reporters at a teleconference to say whether uranium can be mined safely in Virginia, Locke referred them to a line in the report's conclusion that he called its "Twitter version."
If the ban is lifted, that line stated, "there are steep hurdles to be surmounted before mining and processing could be established in a way that is appropriately protective of the health and safety of workers, the public and the environment."

But with so much information packed into the exhaustive report (even the "non-technical summary" runs for 11 pages) both advocates and opponents of uranium mining found something to like.

Read more:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/302588

Uranium lessons unearthed at Superfund site

Posted: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 9:34 am

Uranium lessons unearthed at Superfund site

By BEN J. DAVENPORTChatham Star Tribune

When I joined the members of the Alliance for Progress for Southern Virginia in calling on the General Assembly in January to study uranium mining and milling further before considering lifting the ban, my plea was grounded in lessons learned from the past – lessons learned the hard way.Everything we did at the First Piedmont Rock Quarry site was in compliance with the local, state and federal regulations of the early 1970s.

What happened was that the science caught up with the practice, and all around the country people realized the practice was harming the environment.

In 1979, the EPA proposed the creation of a Superfund to clean up potentially harmful sites. At that time, it estimated there were between 32,000 and 50,000 sites in the United States.

People over the age of 45 likely remember dumping whatever trash they could not burn in a metal drum somewhere on their family farm or at a community dumping area, not to mention the thousands of un-lined municipal landfills that existed at that time.

North Carolina has identified over 677 old landfill sites alone.

People did not dump at these sites under the cover of night; they were created and used with the blessing of local authorities.

But, in the late 1970s, environmental science showed that there was in fact an environmental impact.
The EPA signed off on each stage of the clean-up process at the Rock Quarry site
.
Throughout the process, we have been in compliance and no fines have been levied against us.
However, over 20 years later, the regulations are still evolving as new research becomes available. The current study by the EPA of the zinc levels at the site is a perfect example.

EPA continues to study the data and, when they decide on a course of action, we will respond as we have always done, in compliance with their directives.

My point is that environmental scientists learn new things every day about how human activities impact our environment.

What was deemed safe even five years ago may not be considered so today.

That’s why it is critical that we take a very cautious approach to uranium mining and milling in Virginia

Read more:
http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_917af818-735a-11e1-9743-0019bb2963f4.html

Uranium mining can't be kept in the dark

April 5, 2012

The Virginian-Pilot shares, "Ranking members of Gov. Bob McDonnell's staff Wednesday invited a group of lobbyists and environmentalists for a uranium mining chat in an effort to dispel notions that Virginia's mining evaluation is occurring outside the public view...

Progressive Point: Mining uranium in Virginia and the potential to contaminate our water supply with radioactive waste is too important to our communities for Gov. McDonnell to keep the approval process from the public.

Transparency is essential for ensuring the public is aware, involved, and trusts their elected representatives.
Mining a dangerous substance in our backyards and around our drinking water poses serious risks--a spill at the site could contaminate our tap water and make it undrinkable for millions of Virginia families.

Virginians have a right to participate in the decision making process. Rather than have this discussions in daylight, Bob McDonnell is trying to sneak past us with no public input

Get the Facts:
In response to anti-transparency criticism, Gov. McDonnell announced a meeting on the issue but gave less than 24 hours notice. (Washington Post, April 4, 2012)

Virginia Uranium, the company seeing to mine uranium in Virginia, has hired over a dozen lobbyists from five different firms and has donated over $150,000 to political campaigns in the last 4 years. (VPAP)

"The Uranium Working Group's work plan presented at a March 7 meeting of the Uranium Mining Subcommittee drew instant, sharp criticism for its lack of transparency, which was deemed particularly reprehensible in light of the report by the National Academy of Sciences, which told us that international best practices are 'founded on principles of openness, transparency, and public involvement in oversight and decision-making.'" (GoDanRiver.com, April 1, 2012)

Read more:
http://www.progressva.org/progressivepoint/uranium_mining_cant_be_kept_in_the_dark.html

UVa to host debate on uranium mining

By: Daily Progress Staff Reports | Daily Progress Published: April 11, 2012 Updated: April 11, 2012 - 4:28 PM

The University of Virginia’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy will host a debate and discussion panel on uranium mining in Virginia on April 20.

The debate will feature Cale Jaffe, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, and Patrick Wales, a project manager for Virginia Uranium.

The debate will be part of the school’s larger Energy Policy Forum. T

he uranium discussion will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Great Hall of the Batten School.

The event is free and open to the public.

More information is available on the events page of the Batten School’s website at batten.virginia.edu


http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/apr/11/uva-host-debate-uranium-mining-ar-1835368/

Is uranium mining safe in Virginia?

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

By Katie Whitehead

Whitehead is a native and resident of Pittsylvania County.


Can uranium be mined safely in Virginia? The National Academy of Sciences study said that extensive and painstaking efforts would be required to reduce the risks of mining. It is up to Virginia's new Uranium Working Group to launch those efforts. The group's task is to provide a basis for defining the risks and deciding whether they can be reduced enough to be acceptable. But there is a catch.

The Uranium Working Group is charged with studying whether to proceed with uranium development -- while proceeding. It is taking the next step in development, drafting a regulatory framework, which arguably biases it toward recommending that the state keep going.

Actually defining the risks will require detailed and specific information about any site where mining is proposed -- its geology and hydrology, its proximity to people and farms, its vulnerability to natural events, as well as the characteristics of the ore and the methods to be used to extract and refine it. The Uranium Working Group won't actually do the site-specific studies necessary to evaluate the impacts and risks of a uranium operation at Coles Hill or identify who would bear the risks
.
The group's work plan and requests for bids make it clear the focus is drafting a regulatory framework, not analyzing the potential impacts of normal operations and worst-case scenarios, and not forecasting the risks of operating a uranium mine and mill and storing their waste for thousands of years. Draft regulations won't tell us whether these things can be done safely
.
We seem to be skipping the question of whether to proceed and jumping to how to proceed.
Gov. Bob McDonnell's Jan. 19 news release focused on health and safety and called for an "on-site study of the issue." Calling the NAS study "broadly helpful," the governor went on to note that "in order for an informed decision to be made by state lawmakers, we need more detailed information." On the same day, the governor directed the Uranium Working Group to provide a draft regulatory framework.

Based on the news release, many people expect site-specific studies. Instead, come December, we will likely see recommendations for regulations requiring future studies of impacts and risks, worst-case scenarios and financial liabilities.

The NAS committee made clear that no studies to date have been adequate to assess adverse health effects from hazardous substances associated with uranium mining, processing and waste management

Read more:
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/306662

Learning lessons from water crisis

 

www2.godanriver.com

The water crisis won’t end when the water advisory is lifted: As we write this, we know that the water restrictions could be history by the time most people read this editorial. When that happens, we’ll all want to know — and need to know — more about how this particular...

 

Read more:

http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/mar/28/learning-lessons-water-crisis-ar-1798670/?referer=http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgodanriver.com%2Far%2F1798670%2F&h=1AQFh_F7BAQEPIDECSVrDemwEi4HsuoslX97Br2lV-pj5Tw&shorturl=http://bit.ly/GT3Xvq

Scientific panel ducks question around uranium openness

By: Rex Springston | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 31, 2012 Updated: March 31, 2012 - 12:00 AM

RICHMOND, Va. --
A National Academy of Sciences panel had a lot to say about uranium mining Friday — but not about a McDonnell administration study now under way.

The panel released a $1.4 million report in December saying Virginia faced "steep hurdles" in protecting people and the environment if the state were to allow uranium mining. The report also said modern mining methods could reduce risks.

The panel is now holding public briefings to explain the report to people and answer questions. One of those briefings drew about 40 people to the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Richmond on Friday night.

Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, asked the panel to comment on what Besa called "an expedited process" being used by a second study group, under Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Besa and other critics say McDonnell's study group is not being sufficiently open.

The National Academy of Sciences panel had no comment on McDonnell's group. "We're here to answer questions about (our) report," said Chairman Paul Locke.

The academy panel's report said any move toward uranium mining should be "founded on principles of openness."

Read more:
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2012/mar/31/tdmet02-scientific-panel-ducks-question-around-ura-ar-1807892/

America's Troubled Waters

Virginia’s waterways among most polluted in U.S.,

Thursday, Mar. 22, 2012 by Trevor Baratko
Virginia was listed as the second-worst state for toxic chemicals dumped into its waterways, according to research released today by Environment Virginia, a statewide environmental advocacy group.
More than 18 million pounds of toxic chemicals – including arsenic, mercury and benzene – have been released annually into Virginia’s waterways in recent years, states the study “Wasting our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act.”
“Virginia’s waterways are a polluter’s paradise right now,” said Laura Anderson, field organizer with Environment Virginia.
http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/news/article/virginias_waterways_among_most_polluted_in_u.s._study_finds423/

Region's rivers are some of nation's most polluted

March 23, 2012 12:00 am

By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette /

Forty years ago this week the federal Clean Water Act was passed, setting a goal to make all of America's rivers, streams, lakes and estuaries "fishable and swimmable" by 1983.
But that didn't happen. A report issued Thursday, World Water Day, shows toxic pollution remains a stubbornly persistent environmental and human health problem, and some of the worst waterways flow through Pennsylvania and surrounding states.
In 2010, the report says, 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals fouled 14,000 miles of rivers and streams and more than 220,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries. The toxins total was down only slightly from the previous year.
The report, issued by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, is based on discharge statistics submitted by industries to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory for 2010, the most recent year available
Pennsylvania ranked seventh in the total amount of toxics released into its waters in 2010, with 10.1 million pounds. Indiana was first, followed by Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana. Alabama, Ohio and North Carolina, in descending order, rounded out the top 10.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/environment/regions-rivers-are-some-of-nations-most-polluted-627667/?p=0

America's Waterways received 226 Million Pounds of Toxic Chemicals Published on Mar 22, 2012 - 9:21:03 AM
By: Environment America
WASHINGTON, D.C. March 22, 2012 - Five states -- Indiana, Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, and Georgia -- account for forty percent of the total amount of toxic discharges to U.S. waterways in 2010, according to a new report released today by Environment America. Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act also reports that 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals were discharged into 1,400 waterways across the country.
"America's waterways are a polluter's paradise right now. Polluters dumped 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals into our lakes, rivers and streams in 2010," said Shelley Vinyard, Clean Water Advocate with Environment America. "We must turn the tide of toxic pollution by restoring Clean Water Act protections to our waterways."
The Environment America report documents and analyzes the dangerous levels of pollutants discharged to America's waters by compiling toxic chemical releases reported to the U.S. EPA's Toxics Release Inventory for 2010, the most recent data available.
Major findings of the report include:
    Pollution from just five states—Indiana, Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, and Georgia—accounted for nearly forty percent of the total amount of pollution dumped into our waterways in 2010
Food and beverage manufacturing (slaughterhouses, rendering plants, etc.), primary metals manufactur­ing, chemical plants, and petroleum re­fineries were some of the largest polluters. AK Steel dumped the most toxic pollution—nearly 30 million pounds—into our waterways in 2010.
· In 2010, industries discharged approximately 1.5 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals, like arsenic, chromium, and benzene, into America's waterways. Nevada's Burns Creek received the largest volume of carcinogens in 2010, while neighboring Mill Creek placed third.
http://yubanet.com/usa/America-39-s-Waterways-received-226-Million-Pounds-of-Toxic-Chemicals.php

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