Uranium mining puts Roanoke River on endangered list

American Rivers announced today that proposed uranium mining landed the Roanoke (Staunton) River on its annual list of “America’s Most Endangered Rivers.”

The report is not a list of the most polluted rivers, but is a “call to action for rivers at a crossroads, whose fates will be determined in the coming year.”

The possibility that the General Assembly could lift Virginia’s moratorium on uranium mining helped the Roanoke River grab a spot in the top 10 endangered rivers nationwide, said Peter Raabe of American Rivers, a national water conservation organization.

Virginia Uranium Inc. is pushing to lift the ban to mine and mill a uranium deposit on a tributary of the Roanoke River in Pittsylvania County.

American Rivers is calling on the Virginia legislature to uphold the statewide ban to protect the region’s rivers and communities that rely on the Roanoke River Basin for drinking water, according to a news release. The Roanoke flows from the Blue Ridge Mountains to North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

“Virginia’s leaders demonstrated great foresight and moral courage when they banned uranium mining 30 years ago,” Raabe said in a statement. “The question now is whether they will continue to protect our clean water, or allow this mining company to create a poisonous future for the region’s communities.”

Allowing uranium mining puts the health of the region’s rivers and communities at risk because extracting the uranium leaves behind radioactive waste, according to the American Rivers report. The risk of radioactive contamination of the water would be long lasting and far-reaching, as the basin supplies drinking water for Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads and North Carolina cities. Raleigh, N.C., applied to tap 50 million gallons a day from the basin, the report continued.

Andrew Lester, executive director of the Roanoke River Basin Association, said the listing validates water groups’ concerns. Lester, who is against lifting the moratorium, said that nobody could guarantee uranium mining can be done safely, especially when the area is prone to floods and severe weather.

“The important thing is, it spotlights the situation and gets everybody’s attention,” Lester said, adding he would like the public to get more involved in the uranium debate.

Chris Miller, executive director of the Piedmont Environmental Council agreed, adding that Virginia is subject to unusually heavy and concentrated rainfall and that the state’s climate would make it hard to safely contain radioactive material.

For Cale Jaffe, senior attorney at Southern Environmental Law Center, the listing is a wake-up call to the magnitude and importance of the issue, as the Roanoke River supports not only tourist economies downstream but also local small farmers and anglers.

“We have an obligation to keep that economy strong,” Jaffe said.

Jaffe said the lesson from the BP oil disaster is things don’t always go according to plan and that the decision of managing the risk is left with the General Assembly.

“This is a big deal on a national scale,” Jaffe said. “We’ve got an immense responsibility here. We have to be up to the challenge.”

The Roanoke River Basin Association, the Dan River Basin Association and the Southern Environmental Law Center nominated the river as part of American Rivers’ open nomination process across the country. Nominations were then narrowed down substantially using an internal scientific and technical advisory committee, Raabe said.

Patrick Wales, VUI project manager, said the “usual suspects pursuing an anti-jobs agenda” contributed to the listing. Wales said the report mischaracterizes the decision-making process for lifting the moratorium, as legislators also get public and stakeholder input. Additionally, lifting the uranium mining moratorium wouldn’t be the end of discussion, as the state would have to then draft regulations, he added.

Additionally, the legislature in the 1980s agreed the moratorium could be lifted on the condition that specific regulations and safeguards were enacted, Wales said.

“The bottom line is we’ll be required to demonstrate that our operations will have no adverse effect on human health and the environment,” Wales said. “Unless we’re able to meet that standard, uranium mining in Virginia will not be a reality.”

For more information on American Rivers and America’s Most Endangered Rivers list, visit http://americanrivers.org.