Chesapeake Currents|Online, Summer 2009

Uranium and mining industry lobbying to lift a twenty-five year ban on uranium mining persuaded Clean Water Action and allies to mount a counter-effort that will last at least through the 2009 election year, and likely into the 2010 legislative session. Clean Water Actopm involvement stepped up following a Virginia state panel vote for a uranium study after a House of Delegates panel had killed a similar proposal during the 2008 session. The renewed prospect of uranium mining was initially generated by Virginia Energy Plan 2007, a plan on meeting future energy needs developed by the administration of Governor Tim Kaine under a General Assembly mandate.

The Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy voted 12-0 in November, 2008 to move forward on a wide-ranging study on the potential impact of uranium mining in Virginia. Earlier that year, in February, the Virginia Senate passed a proposal to create a 17-member commission to oversee a two-year National Academy of Sciences study of whether uranium could be safely mined on 200 acres in south-central Virginia. After uranium was discovered in an area of Pittsylvania County used for cattle, hay and timber, a proposal to mine the large deposit near Chatham in the early 1980s generated controversy that led to the existing ban, in effect since 1982. Opponents were concerned at the time, and remain so, that radioactive milling waste, a result of processing, would pollute the environment.

Under the Senate proposal, Virginia Uranium, the company most active in attempting to lift the ban, would have picked up the cost of the report, which had been estimated at $1 million or more. Virginia Uranium was clearly betting that the study would somehow imply that the mining could be done "safely", and that the company could use it as the basis for a push to lift the ban.

Following the Senate action, after more than an hour of debate, the House Rules Committee on March 3, 2008 voted down the proposal over concerns about land, air and drinking water contamination. The vote eliminated any chance that the controversial bill could pass during the 2008 session, and provoked the uranium and mining industry to seek a study commissioned by the Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy, which was not subject to legislative approval. These efforts are widely viewed as initial steps towards lifting a ban on uranium mining in Virginia, and a member of the House of Delegates leadership indicated that a review of the ban during the 2009 session was likely. Clean Water Action members, staff and allies generated pressure to keep the ban in place, and no action to lift the ban was taken during the short legislative session in Richmond.

With energy in national headlines, and a renewed push for expansion of nuclear power by the industry, Clean Water Action members will be working to remind candidates for office in 2009 that:

• Uranium has never been mined on the east coast. It is mined in less-populated drier states such as Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.
• Release of radioactive materials from uranium mining could contaminate local waters and the surrounding area, causing cancer and other ill effects in animal and plant life in the region, and downstream all the way to the Chesapeake Bay.
• Efforts to place radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been largely shelved by the Obama Administration, and there is still no long-term solution for the safe storage of radioactive waste.
• The events of 2001 have renewed concerns that not only the risk of accidents, such as the 1979 near-meltdown at Three Mile Island, but also of intentional actions by terrorists make nuclear power an unacceptably unsafe way to meet energy needs.
• Costs and the length of time to expand nuclear make it an ineffective approach for addressing the immediate crisis of climate change.
• Private capital has been unwilling to risk investment in nuclear, requiring billions of dollars in loan guarantees by the federal government to underwrite the nuclear industry. Such commitments undermine efforts to invest in safer and more cost-effective energy production methods.

What you can do

Write a short letter to the Governor and your state representatives to oppose any attempts to lift the ban on uranium mining in Virginia.

In this issue of Chesapeake Currents|Online:

Keep Virginia Uranium Mining Ban
Uranium and mining industry lobbying to lift a twenty-five year ban on uranium mining persuaded Clean Water Action and allies to mount a counter-effort that will last at least through the 2009 election year, and likely into the 2010 legislative session. Clean Water Action involvement stepped up following a Virginia state panel vote for a uranium study after a House of Delegates panel had killed a similar proposal during the 2008 session. The renewed prospect of uranium mining was initially generated by Virginia Energy Plan 2007, a plan on meeting future energy needs developed by the administration of Governor Tim Kaine under a General Assembly mandate.

Climate Crisis Bill Passes Maryland Legislature
The warming up of the planet poses tremendous challenges for the entire world. For America's Atlantic coast, rising sea levels will dramatically affect shorelines, with increasing flooding, droughts and severe storms having devastating consequences for water quality, quantity and residents of the region. Maryland's 3100 miles of coastline make it the fourth most vulnerable state to the coastal effects of climate change.

Incinerator Battle Heats Up
In Western Maryland, the Frederick County Board of Commissioners is considering building a solid waste incinerator, and hoping to do so in partnership with Carroll County. During the past few years, over 3,000 Clean Water Action members, staff and allies have been working to persuade the Board to scrap the idea, or at least institute a 5 year moratorium on its construction to study alternative solutions like a Resource Recovery Park for waste diversion and recycling.

For California Woman, Protecting A River Can Cost You A Job
Heather Wylie traded her job for a river. And, given the choice, she'd do it again.

During the summer of 2008, Wylie joined a handful of protestors for a canoe and kayak trip down the LA River, earning the wrath of her employers and the attention of a nation. Why? At the time, Wylie was a biologist with the US Army Corps of Engineers. The agency had just declared the LA River as not navigable--a designation that put the watershed at risk and would have set a.dangerous precedent. Wylie and her compatriots were making their voyage to prove the Army Corps wrong. If their fleet could make the journey, they reasoned, then the LA River must be in-fact navigable, a critical first step in retaining Clean Water Act safeguards for the LA River system.

Restoring the Clean Water Act Must Top Congress' Agenda
Restoring the ability of the Clean Water Act to protect water resources must top Congress' water agenda. Supreme Court and agency decisions put at risk Clean Water Act protections for headwater, intermittent and ephemeral streams that supply drinking water systems that serve more than 110 million Americans. In total, 59 percent of the nation's waterways and millions of acres of wetlands are currently at risk.

What You Won't See In Those 'Clean Coal' Ads: Dirty Air, A Wall of Sludge, Poisoned Rivers
Surely you've seen the ads. They are scattered around the internet and splashed across our newspapers and magazines. Their commercials interrupt our favorite television shows and invade our local radio station's airspace. Yes, the ads are everywhere. But that doesn't make them true.

No PR campaign, no matter how well executed, can make coal clean. It's simply not possible.

Advocates for "clean" coal argue that technology exists-almost-that will allow coal-fired power plants to capture their carbon emissions and store the climate-changing gas deep under ground. Technically, this is true. Realistically, this would be extremely expensive, and wouldn't even begin to address most of the impacts felt by water. From mines to power plants, the process of wresting energy from coal is dirty and unhealthy for our waters, our communities and ourselves.

How Safe is Your Bath Tub?
Children's bubble baths should be clean, safe and fun. But No More Toxic Tub, a report published in March 2009 by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in partnership with Clean Water Action and other organizations, found contaminants and other hazardous ingredients in numerous popular shampoos, soaps and body care products marketed to babies and children.

Get this issue of Chesapeake Currents as a PDF (pdf, 490 kb)

You will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader properly installed to view PDF documents. You can get it free from Adobe.