Uranium Study Should Be on the Fast Track

With the United States poised to turn to more nuclear power as an energy source for the future, the decision to at least study the impact of mining a rich uranium ore deposit is a welcome one.

And that’s all it is — a study. But it’s a study that needs to proceed before any ore can be extracted from the ground and used as a fuel source for nuclear power plants.

A unanimous vote by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission last week moved to examine the impact of mining what is believed to be the largest source of uranium in North America. It could be the first step toward ending a 1980s moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia.

The study will center on a deposit in rural Southside Virginia that contains 119 million pounds of uranium ore valued at between $8 billion and $10 billion.

If the study finds it is safe to mine uranium at the site near Chatham, the resulting yellow cake ore would reduce America’s dependence on foreign fuels in two ways. It would add to the 65 million pounds of uranium ore now used domestically each year for nuclear power. The U.S. only produces 4.7 million of those pounds. The balance comes from Canada, Australia and Russia.

Further, the new uranium ore would help reduce in the long run America’s use of foreign oil used by power plants from countries in the Mideast that would like to bury the U.S.

The study will pair the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech with the equally respected National Academy of Sciences. A proposed study supported by Virginia Uranium Inc., the Chatham company that wants to begin mining, failed in the General Assembly earlier this year because some feared it was tilted toward mining.

Del. Terry Kilgore, chairman of the legislative panel that approved the new study, said the commission’s examination would take 18 to 24 months to complete and would include significant public involvement.

He also sought to reassure any critics that safety would be at the center of the study. “We need to leave no stone unturned on this,” Kilgore said. “If it’s not safe, we don’t want to do it,” he said of the mining.

Central Virginia has been keeping its eye on such a study because of the presence of two national and international firms here that have a significant role in the nuclear power industry. The Babcock and Wilcox Company (and three of its operating groups related to nuclear power services) is headquartered in Lynchburg. Areva, with its North American headquarters here, is a giant in the nuclear power industry worldwide.

Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1981, just a couple of years after the accident at Three Mile Island Unit 2, which remains the most serious commercial nuclear power accident in the United States. The nuclear power protests that followed virtually ended the construction of new nuclear power plants in the U.S.

The Southern Environmental Law Center supports the moratorium because it is concerned about uranium mining’s impact on groundwater, livestock and the health of local residents.

Safety is the issue in this study — a study that must be held to determine that mining uranium is not a threat to the health of those who live or would work at or near the uranium mine. Neither the state nor the owners of the mine will ever know about the safety factor until the study is done. The sooner it begins, the better.