But has Japan’s nuclear disaster shifted public opinion away from nuclear energy in the South? Virginia’s state legislature will soon find out. Uranium mining has been banned in Virginia for 30 years, but the state legislature is expected to decide whether or not to lift this ban in favor of mining projects that could potentially help stimulate the economy. The first such project is being planned by Virginia Uranium Inc., a private company hoping to mine and mill the Coles Hill uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County, just north of Danville. The deposit holds an estimated 120 million pounds of uranium valued at around $10 billion, making it the largest in the U.S.
“We feel that in the next several months there will be a really strong push to lift the ban,” said Peter Raabe, a conservation director for American Rivers. “The cost of uranium has skyrocketed…That’s why this year it was so important for us to list the Roanoke River.”
The Roanoke River is listed on the country’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2011 because of the proposed uranium mine, which could poison the beloved paddling, fishing, and hiking opportunities in the Roanoke River’s watershed.
“The uranium mining would generate millions of tons of toxic, cancer-causing waste,” says Raabe. “It’s a radioactive legacy that would last for generations.”
Even as Germany prepares to shut down all of its nuclear plants (and as Japan, Italy, and Switzerland all scale back their nuclear programs), the Southeastern U.S. is moving forward with plans to build five new nuclear reactors by 2020. These would be the first new nuclear plants in the United States since the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.
Yet the economic viability of new plants is up for debate. New reactors were already going to be expensive, but heightened regulation stemming from the nuclear crisis in Japan is forcing costs up even more. New plants could require anywhere from $18 billion to $54 billion in federal subsidies – subsidies that renewable energy companies and environmentalists say should be going to the solar and wind industries instead. A study by Duke University last year found that solar power is already cheaper than nuclear power in North Carolina. Now, even GE is projecting that solar could be cheaper than nuclear and fossil fuels in three to five years. Add to that a recent UN report finding that 80 percent of the entire world’s energy could come from renewable sources in 40 years if governments implement more supportive policies, and it’s not surprising that many are beginning to question the Southeast’s commitment to the nuclear industry.
The Southeast is already home to 104 nuclear plants; Charlotte, N.C., has eight nuclear power facilities within 40 miles of downtown. Aiken, S.C. has volunteered to be the country’s nuclear fuel reprocessing site. If Virginia opens its doors to uranium mining in 2012, even more nuclear plants—and nuclear waste—could be headed this way.
Virginia Uranium Inc. estimates that the Coles Hill project in the Roanoke River Basin could create 325 new jobs if uranium mining becomes legal in Virginia. About one-third of employees would work in the mine and the other two-thirds would work in the mill, says project manager Patrick Wales. Mining is the process of removing the ore and waste rock from the underground mine, while milling is the process of extracting the uranium from the ore. “90 percent of those employees come from skill sets we have in Southside, Virginia,” Wales said. “Only about 10 percent could come from existing operations elsewhere.”
That’s not insignificant for Pittsylvania County, whose population is just over 60,000 and whose unemployment rate is just under 9 percent. The salaries for these jobs range from $39,000 to $163,000.
Mining and milling jobs, though, come with occupational risk. Neal Merrifield of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration explains that uranium miners face many of the same risks that other miners do (including exposure to silica, diesel exhaust, and noise), but with the added danger of radiation exposure. “Radon can become inhaled and deposited in the lung where it can irradiate living tissue and pose a lung cancer risk. In some mines, there can be multiple lung cancer risks: diesel particulate matter, radiation, and silica.”
In the southwestern U.S., decades of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation resulted in drastically increased rates of lung cancer and respiratory illness. Merrifield says that safe mining is achievable. “The key,” he emphasizes, “is to identify hazards, assess exposures, and implement effective engineering and administrative controls to reduce exposures.”
Among outdoor enthusiasts, local farmers, and environmental advocates alike, the greatest concern about the Coles Hill project is the mining’s nuclear waste—and the impact of that waste on water resources. Every 1,000 pounds of ore mined yields only about one pound of usable uranium compound. The other 999 pounds make up waste or “tailings” that retain 85 percent of the original radioactivity for hundreds of thousands of years. This is according to data from the city of Virginia Beach, which commissioned a study examining the impact of nuclear waste from Coles Hill on the region’s drinking water supply.
Virginia Uranium plans to dispose of its nuclear waste in two ways: first, by dumping it into landfill-like containment structures, and second, by dumping it back into the mine shafts. Virginia Beach’s study found that the containment structures would be particularly vulnerable in cases of severe weather leading to flooding. If the structures failed, the city found, radioactive material could flow into the Kerr Reservoir and Lake Gaston, contaminating the water supply for Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Chesapeake. Such an accident could force officials to shut off public water for up to two years.
While Virginia Beach is looking at the local water supply, outdoor enthusiasts and environmental advocates say that communities and economies all along the Roanoke River could be impacted. Cale Jaffe, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, stresses that the river flows all the way from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. “There is a very diverse economy throughout the watershed,” Jaffe said. “There is a very robust tourism economy in the East. There is agriculture all along the watershed.” Pittsylvania County alone, for instance, is home to over 1,300 active farms. Four of Virginia’s biggest dairy farms sit just 15 miles away from the Coles Hill site. Jaffe says if any farmers are affected by groundwater contamination, it is not clear whether or how they might be compensated.
The Roanoke is also a popular destination for paddlers and anglers, with many greenways and blueways throughout its watershed. Camping platforms line the river from Halifax to Albemarle Sound. “I don’t want to paddle a radioactive river,” says Gene Nicholson, a canoeist who takes weekend trips down the Roanoke each year.
One of the main arguments in favor of uranium mining is that it would promote energy independence in Virginia and in the United States. But there is no guarantee that uranium produced in Virginia would become energy in Virginia—or even in the United States.
“Uranium is a globally traded commodity,” Jaffe points out. “Once it leaves here, it enters that larger global market.”
Nuclear industry advocates still frame Virginia uranium mining as an energy issue, though. In an op-ed for the Danville Register & Bee, local retired nuclear engineer Randy Randol wrote, “Virginia has to do its fair share to produce what we consume…The Coles Hill uranium deposit will be a significant fuel supply source for nuclear power in Virginia, providing 75 years of fuel for our current plants.”
But Virginia Uranium Inc. says that it only has so much control over where its uranium will end up. “Even if we were going to make the statement that we were only going to sell to domestic utilities, those utilities can do with that material whatever they see fit,” Wales said.
The company does not yet know which utilities it will work with if a ban on mining is lifted.
One reason for banning mining back in 1982 was the state’s wet climate. Virginia’s heavy rainfall will be a major obstacle to safe disposal of radioactive waste. “The places where uranium mining has been dominant—Arizona, New Mexico—are arid places where the rate of evaporation greatly exceeds the rate of precipitation. Virginia is the exact opposite.” An extreme weather event like a tornado, a flood, or a hurricane could result in a catastrophic nuclear accident. “The question is, are you comfortable living with those risks in perpetuity?”
Virginia Uranium points out, however, that there have been examples of uranium production in areas of the U.S. that are prone to severe weather. Uranium recovery plants in both Florida and Louisiana have produced uranium as a byproduct of phosphate. Since those operations were not dealing solely with uranium, Jaffe counters, “It’s a completely different scale. They are not even comparable.”
And even arid regions have experienced health and environmental hazards from uranium mining. In 1979, one of the world’s worst radioactive accidents occurred when New Mexico’s Church Rock Uranium mine collapsed, spilling 90 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste and 1,100 tons of solid mill waste into the Puerco River. The amount of radiation released was on par with the amount released during the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania.
Piedmont Environmental Council president Chris Miller says that nuclear companies may intend to do better in the future, but that doesn’t mean they are willing to put forward the resources necessary to adequately plan for disasters. “It’s an engineering and cost factor,” he says. “In Japan, we found out that the [Fukushima Daiichi] nuclear plant was designed for smaller earthquake and tsunami incidents. They made a decision to save money by not engineering for the worst case scenario.”
Coles Hill is Virginia Uranium’s only planned mining project, says Wales. If a statewide ban is lifted, though, other companies are bound to seek permission for uranium exploration throughout Virginia.
That means mining could potentially take place within national forests and other public lands. A recent report by the Pew Environment Group says that companies have “carte blanche” to mine in public lands without having to pay royalties because of an 1872 law. Currently, for example, mining companies are trying to expand their access to land near the Grand Canyon, prompting protest from conservation groups and celebrity activists including Robert Redford and Edward Norton.
Mining claims could also potentially be staked not just in rural areas but also in urban and suburban communities.
In the 1980s, dairy farmer Bill Speiden was approached by the Marline Uranium Corp. about his 1,100 acres in Orange County. “They felt they had a real hot spot here,” he said. Speiden and his wife ultimately declined Marline’s offer, skeptical that uranium mining could be done safely in Virginia. At the time, they say, the company was interested in exploring sites believed to be radioactive throughout Northern Virginia as well.
In other words, Speiden insists, residents in densely populated parts of Virginia should pay attention to the uranium mining debate – regardless of which side they find themselves on.
Environmental advocates and outdoor enthusiasts worry that the Virginia state legislature could vote on whether or not to lift a ban on uranium mining without allowing time for a public comment period. “You can’t have studies come back in December,” says environmental lawyer Jaffe, “and have legislation introduced before there’s a public discussion on whether legislation should be introduced.”
Virginia Uranium, on the other hand, contends that the public has been involved all along, and will continue to be involved.
“What oftentimes gets overlooked is that every step of the way, regardless of what path is taken, [this process] is done with complete transparency, with the complete involvement of the community,” says project manager Wales.
Lifting the 30-year moratorium on uranium mining could create jobs not just at the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County, but potentially all over Virginia. Virginia lawmakers will have to determine whether the risks to public health, the environment, tourism, and the economy itself can be managed well enough to make the benefits worth it.
Because, as Wales says, at the end of the day, “We’re all bound by what path the Virginia legislature takes.”
Although the U.S. media’s interest seems to have waned, Japan continues to be crippled by a nuclear crisis brought on by a massive earthquake and tsunami this spring. The March disasters hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing radiation leaks that the country was not prepared for. Now, the UN atomic safety inspectors say Japan underestimated the risk of natural disasters to its nuclear facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency has released a report finding that ties between government regulators and the nuclear industry resulted in weak oversight and poor planning.
Since there has been renewed interest in nuclear energy, especially in the South, pollsters have surveyed Americans to find out how they feel about the nuclear industry. Here are some of the major findings:
Do Americans support the building of new nuclear plants? CNN, March 2011 46% support new nuclear power plants. 53% oppose new nuclear power plants.
Do Americans support federal subsidies for the building of new nuclear plants? Wall Street Journal/NBC, February 2011 57% opposed subsidies. 40% supported subsidies.
Are Americans concerned about the management of radioactive waste? Angus Reid Public Opinion, March 2011 81% said they were concerned. 51% said they were very concerned. 16% said they were less concerned. 4% said they were not at all concerned.
Do communities living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant feel prepared for a nuclear emergency? CNN, March 2011 18% said they have disaster kits at home. 82% said they do not have disaster kits.
CNN, March 2011 38% are familiar with evacuation routes. 62% are not familiar with evacuation routes.
Is the U.S. government prepared for a nuclear emergency?
Associated Press, March 2011
27% the government is prepared
41% the government may not be prepared.
32% the government is not prepared.