Over a dozen of Virginia’s legislators were coddled by Virginia Uranium Inc. during a three day paid vacation in France (See here)
In between site-seeing missions in Paris, our elected representatives found time to survey AREVA’s facilities, home to what is supposedly a successful example of a uranium mining operation.
What you probably won’t hear about AREVA and its facilities are the less-than-stellar details that are usually withheld from the public eye.
According to a report by CRIIRAD in France (a nonprofit research commission on radioactivity in France), what was once COGEMA (now AREVA) used no radiation limit for scrap metal recycling prior to 1999. This appears to be one of many lapses in safety procedures by AREVA.
The report, called the “Radiological Hazards of Uranium Mining,” also found that “all the French uranium mines where it made radiological surveys, the CRIIRAD laboratory discovered situations of environmental contamination and a lack of proper protection of the inhabitants against health risks due to ionizing radiation.”
If this makes you think twice about uranium mining in southern Virginia, you’re not alone.
Virtually every claim made by Virginia Uranium Inc. (VUI) about the safety of uranium mining has been debunked and until VUI can produce objective and verifiable evidence to prove their claims, it would be no less than an absolutely immoral endeavor to move forward with uranium mining in southern Virginia.
Besides the effects to human and environmental health, the issue is also one of political power. If uranium mining succeeds in Virginia it will be the Republican Party of Virginia that ultimately comes out with a new powerful political ally and campaign contributor, a political ally and campaign contributor whose interests are not in line with those of the rest of Virginia.
Virginians of every political persuasion, therefore, must be on the side of “Keep the Ban.” The consequences of lifting the ban on uranium mining could quite possibly lead to one of the biggest disasters in Virginia’s storied history.
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