Opponents of uranium mining in Southside Virginia and the people who want to end a state moratorium on mining the fuel for nuclear power plants have one more difference of opinion: the size of the deposit.
A speaker at a forum Thursday organized by environmentalists said the deposit totals 5.5 million pounds, not the 119 million pounds estimated by Virginia Uranium Inc.
Environmental analyst Paul Robinson said much of the uranium deposit is "too diluted to be reasonably mined" and questioned the need for the uranium the Virginia deposit would produce.
A spokesman for Virginia Uranium stood by its estimate and questioned Robinson's conclusion.
"I have no idea where he got the absurd figures that we don't have 119 million pounds of uranium resource," said Patrick Wales, Virginia Uranium's project manager. "I've never heard that criticism, I have no idea what basis he has for that criticism."
Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1982, but a "nuclear renaissance" has revived interest in tapping the uranium deposit.
The forum was sponsored by the Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center and other groups and attracted about 150 officials and residents from Southside Virginia, state legislators and bureaucrats.
Speakers included scientists and environmentalists, who spoke of the impact on the environment and the economy of mining uranium.
Doug Brugge of Tufts University Department of Public Health and Community Medicine said uranium has been linked to kidney damage and birth defects in animals.
"It's a heavy metal, a chemical toxin, like lead and mercury and cadmium," he said.
Robinson, research director of the Southwest Research and Information Center in New Mexico, spoke of the massive waste created by uranium mining. Opponents fear Virginia's wet climate, unlike the more dry climates where uranium is historically mined, will disperse the millings and waste to public water supplies.
Wales said the forum lacked balance. "It was basically panels of anti-uranium people put on by anti-uranium groups in an effort to create an anti-uranium pep rally," he said.
About a dozen uranium mines are operating in the U.S., primarily in the West. Globally, the largest producers are Africa, Australia, Canada and Eastern European countries.
President Obama is pushing for more nuclear energy and has announced more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to build the first nuclear power plant in nearly three decades.
The National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council is undertaking a study to examine various aspects of uranium mining in Virginia. The study is expected to take 18 months.
Before uranium can be mined in Virginia, the General Assembly would have to lift the 1982 ban.
Virginia Uranium has proposed tapping the deposit located beneath several hundred acres on the 3,000 acres it owns near the North Carolina border. The company has estimated its value at anywhere from $7 billion to $10 billion. A mining operation would generate 300 to 500 jobs, Virginia Uranium estimates.
