Hundreds show up for uranium mining study hearing

By Ray Reed

Published: January 6, 2009

CHATHAM — About 500 people showed up Tuesday night to advise a state panel about how Virginia should study uranium mining, and several speakers accused the panel members of accepting campaign money from the company that wants to mine a nearby ore deposit.

Other speakers urged the panel to make sure scientists in the study take a close look at mining’s impact on water and air quality, the health of nearby residents and the economic benefits versus negatives of having a mine in Pittsylvania County.

Virginia Tech’s role in the study also came under attack, with several speakers saying the university has a conflict of interest because it is reviving a nuclear-engineering program whose graduates could get jobs if the study led to mining.

Jack Dunavant, head of Southside Concerned Citizens, said the commission members should recuse themselves from the study because Virginia Uranium Inc. is listed as a donor to several General Assembly members on the vpap.org Web site.

Dunavant said mining should not be tolerated and “if Richmond tries to shove this down our throat we will fight to the bitter end, to the last man standing.”

Shireen Parsons, who described herself as a “community organizer” from Christiansburg, was easily the loudest and most forceful speaker of the night.

Parsons compared the study to mountaintop-removal coal mining, said it was being “criminally managed,” was an “illegitimate public process” and “is a travesty and a mockery.”

Parsons concluded by saying each of the committee members had received “30 pieces of silver.”

Del. Watkins Abbitt, I-Appomattox, responded that “I haven’t taken a penny from Virginia Uranium and it doesn’t help anybody’s cause to put out false information.”

When the Virginia House of Delegates’ Rules committee killed a bill last March that would have authorized the uranium study, Abbitt played a key role in its defeat, saying that little had changed in mining methods since Virginia adopted a uranium moratorium in the mid-1980s.

The study was revived last fall by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, which appointed a study panel that includes Del. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, as its chairman.

The commission directed the committee to decide what aspects of mining should be included in the study, and urged that the study itself be done by the National Academy of Sciences members from elsewhere to keep it professional and unbiased.

Members of the committee who attended the meeting, in addition to Ware and Abbitt, were Del. Charles Carrico, R-Grayson County, state Sen. John Watkins, R-Richmond, and Harry Dean Childress, a geology professor at Virginia Tech.

Five other members of the panel did not appear for the meeting, which was held on a rainy night.

Responding to a flier that was handed out at the meeting, Carrico said:

“There are accusations that I received $6,500. That is a blatant lie,” Carrico said.

“I take offense,” Carrico said. “There are a lot of distorted truths being handed out. The accusations you are making are untrue,” Carrico said.

Ware, too, said he didn’t appreciate the accusations.

Watkins, who is listed on vpap.org as receiving a $1,000 campaign contribution from Virginia Uranium, didn’t speak up.

Other speakers said the study should start with baseline scientific studies of existing water and air quality, along with quality-of-life issues.

Gary Fountain, head of the Chatham Hall boarding school for girls, said the mere presence of a uranium mine in the community would make it harder for the school to compete in a worldwide market for students.

When Gregg Vickerey, a member of Southside Concerned Citizens, asked crowd members who opposed mining to stand, at least half of them rose to their feet.

Steve Worley, a local resident, asked the commission members, “If this uranium mine was going to be one or two miles from your home, what would your position be?”

Ware responded, saying he’d thought about Worley’s premise and it was one of the reasons he accepted the chairmanship of the commission.

Carrico, whose district touches Virginia’s coal-mining region, said he, too, had considered the issue’s impact on nearby homes.