Uranium could be a 'marquee issue' in the General Assembly

Would a Virginia uranium mine be a safe source of much-needed jobs or the start of a dangerous dump that lasts thousands of years?

The General Assembly will weigh those scenarios and others if it decides next session whether to lift a state ban on mining uranium, a radioactive metal used to fuel nuclear power plants.

"I think this is one of the marquee issues" in the legislative session that starts Jan. 11, said Del. R. Lee Ware Jr., R-Powhatan. He is chairman of a legislative panel that has studied uranium mining.

A $1.4 million report released Monday said a Virginia mine could pose serious risks for people and the environment.

Those risks could be lessened — but not eliminated — through the use of modern mining techniques, according to the 302-page, 14-month report from the National Academy of Sciences, a respected nonprofit institution.

There has been talk of pushing the issue off to the 2013 General Assembly, but Ware said he expects to see a vote this session on lifting the 30-year-old mining ban.

After the report came out Monday, Ware said it "raises significant questions ... about the wisdom of lifting the moratorium." But he said Wednesday that he wants to read the report in more detail before reaching a position.

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, has not made up his mind on whether to lift the ban.

The timetable on taking up uranium mining "remains to be seen," he said, adding: "I think it should be delayed until we get the answers."

Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, said he thinks the legislature could take up the issue in the coming session. Even if the moratorium is lifted, uranium mining is still years away, he noted. One question for Virginia is what to do first — lift the moratorium, or devise the regulatory apparatus.

"I think rather than just continue without a point, I'd rather the debate (focus on) what the regulatory structure should look like," he said.

Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, who wants to keep the ban, expects proponents to push to lift the moratorium in the upcoming session.

Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to mine and mill uranium from what it believes is a 59,500-ton deposit, worth about $7 billion, in Pittsylvania County about 145 miles southwest of Richmond.

Without proper controls, uranium mining can expose workers to harmful radiation, and the public can be at risk from radiation in air pollution and contaminated water supplies, the report said. Health risks include cancer.

Some observers took the study panel's report as a setback for the mine plan.

Not so, said Patrick Wales, Virginia Uranium's project manager. While the report lays out possible problems, Wales pointed out that, in the wording of the report, "such impacts have mostly been observed at mining facilities that operated at standards of practice that are generally not acceptable today."

The report shows how tough regulations and modern mining practices can address most issues, Wales said.

One of the biggest concerns involves the storage of an estimated 29 million tons of waste the operation would create.

The rocky waste, or tailings, would be held in six 40-acre cells, like landfills, on the 3,500-acre Virginia Uranium site, Wales said. An acre is nearly the size of a football field.

Regulators have long experience in dealing with pollution from conventional trash dumps. "Radiation is different," said Peter L. deFur, a Richmond-area environmental consultant and Virginia Commonwealth University biologist who was on the study panel.

If radiation escaped the waste-holding site, "it's not entirely clear that we know exactly how to deal with that," deFur said.

Among other concerns, uranium is typically mined in the U.S. in arid places in the West. In Virginia, underground water is near the surface, putting it within close reach of radioactive pollution, deFur said.

The panel was not asked to recommend whether the mining ban should be lifted, and deFur declined to give his opinion.

The waste would create a stigma for economically troubled Southside Virginia, said Mary Rafferty, grass-roots organizing manager of the Sierra Club's Virginia chapter.

"We're looking to rebuild Southside," she said. "Putting a radioactive waste dump right in the middle of Southside is not a really good way to attract new jobs. ... I see (the report) as a real caution light for our public officials."

A study by Chmura Economics & Analytics, a forecasting firm, said last month that a mine could support 1,000 jobs a year and generate nearly $5 billion in revenue for Virginia businesses over 35 years. But serious pollution problems could create losses that far outweigh benefits, the report said.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that Virginians are split over uranium mining. Forty-three percent support it for its economic benefits, while 41 percent oppose it because of its risks. Republicans overwhelming support mining, while Democrats strongly oppose it.

Ultimately, the question becomes: Is it possible to engineer, build and regulate a Virginia uranium mine in a way that protects people and the environment?

"Absolutely!" said Virginia Uranium's Wales. "All of our technical work leads us to that conclusion, and if we thought otherwise we would not be pursuing it. We are committed to building the safest uranium mine in the world."

Asked the same question, deFur, the study panel member, said: "I don't know. I'm not being cagey. I don't know."