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SCC steps up protest as ore sampling starts
Uranium foes take case to Pittsylvania supervisors
Opponents of the proposed Coles Hill uranium mine in Chatham appeared
before the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Tuesday night to
argue that violations of the county waste ordinance already have taken
place at the site.
The meeting came on the same day Virginia Uranium, Inc. extracted the
first core samples from the Coles Hill ore deposit near Chatham.
Virginia Uranium and its founder, Walter Coles of Chatham, obtained
permission from the state to conduct exploratory drilling to determine
the size of the uranium deposit, estimated to be worth up to $10
billion.
On Tuesday night, members of Southside Concerned Citizens urged
Pittsylvania supervisors to pass a resolution opposing uranium mining
in Chatham.
SCC Chairman Jack Dunavant noted that the Orange County Board of
Supervisors and Halifax Town Council have passed formal resolutions
opposing the lifting of Virginia’s moratorium on mining and asked the
Pittsylvania board to follow suit. Dunavant is a member of Halifax Town
Council.
“The new technology we’ve been told about just does not exist,”
Duvanant told the Pittsylvania supervisors, according to a report in
Wednesday’s Danville Register & Bee. “They’re talking about open pit
mining again. There are some twists here and there, but you still have
the dust problems.
SCC Karen Maute, a Pittsylvania resident, argued that Virginia Uranium,
with its exploratory drilling, already has committed numerous
violations of the county’s waste ordinance. In a statement Maute
outlined the alleged violations:
• “The county ordinance defines ‘disposal’ as ‘placing any solid waste
… into or on land or water so that said waste may enter the environment
(i.e. air, soil, surface water or ground-water),’” according to the SCC
statement. Virginia Uranium’s “current storage method of placing ore
samples in a tin shed seems to meet the criteria specified.”
• The ordinance “requires anyone disposing of ‘commercial
waste…hazardous waste…low-level radioactive waste…nuclear waste…solid
waste…toxic waste…etc.’ to first obtain approval of the board of
supervisors,” said the statement. “This has not been done.”
• Section 3.2 requires a public hearing on the project; none has been
held, Maute argued.
• “Page 18 [of the ordinance] requires that any drill cuttings whose
radioactive readings are in excess of the immediate background surface
readings must be removed from the site for appropriate disposal or
storage, or, buried no less than 3 feet below ground surface to insure
that the radiation readings are the same or no less than background
surface readings,” according to the SCC statement. “Since VUI expects
the cuttings to be above surface level readings, this puts their
on-site storage of cutting material in violation of the Waste
Ordinance.”
Dunavant indicated afterwards that members of the Pittsylvania board,
the county administrator, and other personnel will be provided with
printed copies of the complaint. “We expect that the county elected
and appointed officials will exercise due diligence and perform their
duties as per the county’s own regulations,” said Dunavant. SCC is not
planning to press legal action at this time, the group indicated.
The Pittsylvania supervisors did not act on the requests at their
meeting Tuesday.
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Comments available from Jack Dunavant 434-473-6648