The debate over uranium mining in Pittsylvania County just got more complicated Tuesday after Virginia Beach City Council was informed that Virginia’s largest city would be at risk of mining operations 200 miles away.
Director of Public Utilities Thomas Leahy laid out a worst-case scenario: A hurricane or tropical storm could destroy the landfill-like containers that contain the radioactive mining waste, contaminating water supplies downstream as far as Lake Gaston, from which water is piped to Virginia Beach. Norfolk, Chesapeake and occasionally Portsmouth and Suffolk also draw water from the lake, reports Aaron Applegate with the Virginian-Pilot.
Walter Coles, owner of the land that contains one of North America’s largest uranium deposits, wants to lift a state mining moratorium. The impact of such a decision would ripple across the state. For one, lifting a moratorium for Pittsylvania County would have implications for the mining of uranium in Orange County, site of another large deposit. And now the residents of the state’s second largest metropolitan area are given reason to fear mining.
On the other hand, uranium mining could create massive wealth for an economically depressed region of the state and add to the growing industry cluster of nuclear industry-related businesses in Virginia. In any fossil fuel-energy constrained scenario of the future, nuclear power will be a growth industry.
You want a vivid illustration of Ed Risse’s concept of “urban support regions”? You couldn’t ask for a better one. Hampton Roads may be surrounded by water, but it lacks sufficient supplies of fresh water within its own boundaries to supply its population. The region must draw upon its rural hinterlands to slake its thirst. Not only do Norfolk and Chesapeake drain the Roanoke River Basin, the city of Newport News wants to tap the Mattaponi River by means of a reservoir in King William County.
For a great overview of the Lake Gaston pipeline to Virginia Beach, check out this article. (Image credit of Lake Gaston water pumping station: Virginian-Pilot.)