NAS hears water concerns, Va.'s regulations

RICHMOND — Two topics continue to arise in the discussion and study of uranium mining in Virginia: water and regulations.

Stakeholders conveyed their water concerns and state department heads explained the state’s mining and environmental regulations to the National Academy of Sciences committee examining uranium mining in Virginia in downtown Richmond on Monday.

NAS won’t recommend whether to allow uranium mining in its study due in December. The decision to lift the decades-old moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia would fall to the General Assembly. Virginia Uranium Inc. would like to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium deposit at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County.

Virginia Beach passed a resolution in 2008 opposing uranium mining until evidence showed radioactive contamination wouldn’t travel downstream.

In the event of a worst-case storm and uranium tailings release, public drinking water supplies for Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake — and in the future, Suffolk — would be impacted by dissolved radioactive contamination, Tom Leahy, director of public utilities for Virginia Beach, told the committee.

Virginia Beach’s own $437,000 study showed if such a tailings release occurred, it could take between two months to two years to completely flush dissolved radioactive contaminants from Lake Gaston, which supplies Virginia Beach’s drinking water. While the study didn’t model Lake Gaston, it modeled the region’s rivers and Kerr Reservoir, where 93 percent of Gaston’s flow comes from.

The city plans to model Gaston in another $165,000 study due by this summer.

Communities and the environment upstream of Kerr Dam would be affected longer by the particulate — or undissolved — contamination that would fall to the river and lake beds, Leahy said.

Leahy made it clear that the study did not model the likelihood of such a release and said that if regulators and industry did their jobs, such a catastrophic event shouldn’t occur as tailings facilities are supposed to withstand extreme weather.

Thomas A. Pakurar, president of Hands Across the Lake — a community organization in Chesterfield County that’s working to protect the county’s sources of drinking water — said every discharge to the surface water and air from the site should be measured and determined if they’re to standards before being released to the environment.

“What are we going to breathe? What are we going to drink?” asked Pakurar, who has industrial experience in process improvement for goals of zero contamination.

Pakurar also pointed out VUI is the funding source for the $1.4 million NAS study and asked for full disclosure from the committee because Virginians would read the committee’s report with interest. He asked that committee member Henry Schnell of Areva NC be restricted in his participation for a possible conflict of interest.

NAS vets its committee members for conflict of interest and strives to achieve a balance of perspectives, said spokeswoman Jennifer Walsh.

The study committee also spent three hours hearing from and questioning the state heads of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Division of Radiological Health in the Department of Health.

Conrad Spangler, director of DMME, reminded the committee the governor had not taken a position on lifting the moratorium.

While uranium mining would be a new industry to Virginia, the expertise and mining regulation experience within the department is extensive, so the department would have a “good start” in implementing new rules and a program for uranium, Spangler told the committee.

The department monitors 450 mineral mine sites in the state with 13 inspectors and can close down mines and has issued closure orders in the past, he added. Sixty percent of DMME’s 233 employees are in enforcement and inspection.

Overall injuries in Virginia are at or below national averages, he added.

The department also started a uranium exploration program in 2007 based on a statute enacted in 1982. That required collaboration with other state agencies and Virginia made sure it would compare favorably in that program with other states.

David Paylor of DEQ said he could point to a number of cases where Virginia went beyond federal minimum requirements, like with wetlands and agriculture.

Paylor acknowledged all agencies wish they had more employees and resources and said that even in tough budget times, the department prioritizes to ensure the work of protecting the public health and environment gets done.

There are probably sufficient resources to permit, inspect and enforce a uranium mining operation, Paylor said, but if other responsibilities are tacked on because of the unique nature of uranium, the department may need additional resources.

Paylor said the creek near the Coles Hill site is classified as “Tier 2” or exceeds water quality standards, so the department would use more stringent permitting on that.

In response to questions about water wells, Paylor said, “It would be a mistake to leave you with the impression that we have broad and wide monitoring of groundwater.” DEQ would regulate as it finds cases of groundwater contamination.

Les Foldesi told the committee Virginia became an agreement state with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2009 for radioactive materials. The NRC would regulate the uranium mill and tailings unless Virginia amended its agreement to enable the state to regulate the mill. That could take a couple years, he said.

Patrick Wales, project manager for VUI, criticized Virginia Beach’s study for not modeling for likelihood of a release and for not including Gaston. He also said the site’s tailings impoundments would not be ponds with dams.

“I think what was demonstrated today is there is a robust environmental regulatory regime in Virginia. There is a lot of cooperation and there are stringent guidelines and standards,” Wales said. “I don’t think anyone would expect anything less as would pertain to developing a regulatory structure for uranium mining.”

Comment on the study

The public may comment on two more provisional additions to the National Academy of Sciences uranium study committee.

A 20-day comment period has been opened as NAS added Dr. Paul D. Blanc, an expert in occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California in San Francisco, and hydrologist Keith N. Eshleman of the Appalachian Laboratory at the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland.

For more information, visit www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/ and search project title “Uranium Mining in Virginia.”