Uranium study committee assesses knowledge gaps

WASHINGTON — Studying the various issues enveloping uranium mining in Virginia won’t be easy.

During Wednesday’s meeting of the provisional committee chosen by the National Academy of Sciences to study uranium mining in Virginia, one message resounded: a lot of work lies ahead.

Meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Keck Center in Washington served as information-gathering sessions so the committee could begin carrying out its charge — to offer independent scientific advice that state leaders could use to decide whether uranium mining could be done safely and responsibly in Virginia.

While the study is statewide in scope, Virginia’s geologic features vary. Additionally, not much has been studied in the way of the state’s water.

On top of that, each hypothetical mining or milling site would feature different characteristics and would need site-specific studies.

“You’re all starting from scratch pretty much,” David Nelms, groundwater specialist with the USGS Virginia Water Science Center, told the committee. Few hydrogeology studies were conducted in Virginia, he said.

“Geology is very important,” he said. “Everybody has talked about how complex it is in Virginia. Well, add hydro to geology and it makes it even more complicated.”

If leaders are trying to prevent adverse environmental effects from uranium mining or milling, it’s important to know the delivery system, Nelms said.

Groundwater supplies the majority of stream flow.

James Otton with the U.S. Geological Survey, told committee members that Virginia has various geologic “terranes” because the continent kept breaking up and reassembling itself. The collisions between the blocks of crust resulted in sheared rock.

Most of the uranium occurrences with “resource potential” in Virginia appear in this sheared rock, Otton said. He cited 55 known occurrences of uranium in Virginia, as reported by geologist William Lassetter.

Sheared rock also hosts the 119-million-pound uranium ore body at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County — the “elephant deposit” in Virginia, Otton said. Virginia Uranium Inc. proposes to mine and mill that uranium deposit.

Yet, geologists don’t know how the Coles Hill uranium ore body formed, he said. So, they don’t know if Coles Hill is incidentally unique, or if uranium could occur in places with similar conditions.

Robert Seal with the U.S. Geological Survey explained the need for mining impact assessments that would establish baselines for returning water and soil to certain standards. Those would also help anticipate any environmental consequences, like what would be in the waste rock.

Seal analyzed what the Coles Hill waste rock would look like using rock core samples taken during exploration drilling.

Element concentrations that would exceed environmental guidelines are uranium and vanadium, he said. Removal of the uranium would return the soil toward environmental guidelines.

“We’re trying to educate decision makers on potential risks and potential solutions for challenges as they come up,” Seal said.

Norm Reynolds, a director on the board for Virginia Energy Resources (an investor in Virginia Uranium Inc.), offered the company’s data to the committee. Reynolds, a geologist, was on the team that discovered the Coles Hill deposit for Marline Uranium Corp., which abandoned the project during the 1980s.

Patrick Wales, VUI project manager, told the committee that, to his knowledge, Coles Hill is the only economically viable uranium project in Virginia even though the study is statewide in nature.

He said non-uranium projects in Virginia could help fill in data gaps.

“Yes, there is some uncertainty in the hydrogeologic network, however, mining is not new to Virginia,” Wales said.

Cale Jaffe, senior attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, reminded the committee that Virginia had a moratorium on uranium mining and milling since 1982.

Jaffe asked the committee to consider environmental and public health impacts from potential increased activity if Virginia mills uranium mined from other states.