While most of the talk about uranium mining in Virginia focuses on Pittsylvania County in Virginia’s southern piedmont — home to the richest deposit of uranium in North America — don’t forget about the northern piedmont. Madison and Orange counties also contain substantial uranium deposits, although not on the same scale, and could be impacted by any regulatory precedents established for Pittsylvania.
The Charlottesville Daily Progress has taken note of the deposits in a recent editorial, observing that the ratio of benefits to drawbacks will be quite different up north than down in Pittsylvania, where communities are still looking to reinvent their mill-town economies after the devastation of their manufacturing base.
Even in Pittsylvania County, environmental concerns are surfacing. The prospect of mining has drawn the attention of the Southern Environmental Law Council and the editorial writers of the Roanoke Times. Environmental sensitivities are far more acute in the northern piedmont, where players like the Piedmont Environmental Council have demonstrated a grassroots prowess in the battle against Dominion and its high-voltage transmission line that could be more than a match for the out-of-state uranium industry. (Note: The PEC sponsors Bacon’s Rebellion.)
Economic opportunities like this don’t come along very often for South/Central Virginia. The elements exist to build a world-class nuclear power cluster around uranium mining/processing and nuclear services along the U.S. 29 corridor. Such a sector would create economically sustainable, value-added, high-paying jobs for a part of the state that desperately needs it.
If things aren’t handled properly, the environmental debate could trigger a public policy melt-down the likes of which Virginia has never seen before. The warning lights are flashing. The Kaine administration needs to make it a high priority now to bring all of the safety and environmental issues into the open, assemble all parties around the table, and start working on a consensus that will both support the development of a wealth-creating nuclear cluster in Southside and protect the environment from radioactive leakage.