BY ROBIN KNEPPER
When a uranium-mining company was signing leases with many Orange County property owners in the late 1970s, Bill and Sandra Speiden said no.
"They said I owned the most radioactive spot in Virginia on my property," Speiden said. "I don't know if that contributed to the prostate cancer I had later in life."
The Speidens declined Marline Uranium Corp.'s offer of a $12,000 sign-up bonus and the $1 a year (later $3 a year) lease on their 1,100-acre dairy farm in the Somerset area of southwestern Orange County.
Instead, they went traveling in the western United States and investigated uranium mining in those semi-arid and sparsely populated regions.
They decided it wasn't safe for the Virginia Piedmont, which was quite different geographically. They and others believed the rainier Virginia climate could cause tailing ponds to overflow into nearby waterways, contaminating drinking-water supplies downstream.
"Uranium mining had never been done in an area like ours with this much rainfall and population density," Speiden said.
In reaction to the threat to the environment and their dairy farm, Sandra Speiden headed up a committee of the Piedmont Environmental Council that eventually grew into a consortium of 260 organizations and localities that fought to prohibit uranium exploration and mining in Virginia.
Those efforts resulted in the state placing a moratorium on uranium mining in 1983.
Now, with oil and uranium prices soaring, the Governor's 2007 Virginia Energy Plan opens the door for uranium mining by acknowledging the importance of nuclear power as a part of the commonwealth's strategy for meeting its energy needs.
But Speiden--and Orange County officials--are standing firm.
Both the county Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission, of which Speiden is a longtime member, voted unanimously last month to support the state's moratorium on uranium mining. The Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District and the Orange County Farm Bureau have done the same.
The resolution they approved noted that in the early 1980s, supervisors "recognized the threat to the county water supply and its agriculture products via the possible mining and milling [processing] of uranium in the county." It adds that "several thousand acres in Orange and other counties in Virginia had been leased for the exploration of uranium" and that "the State Legislature passed a moratorium on the mining and milling of uranium in Virginia until the industry could prove that it could perform such activities safely."
The Virginia Energy Plan and the rising price of yellow cake (processed uranium ore) are reviving the long-dormant interest in uranium mining in Virginia.
Exploratory drilling for uranium is set to begin soon in Pittsylvania County in southern Virginia. A Nov. 28 Associated Press report on the issue said Pittsylvania County sits atop the largest uranium deposit in the United States.
A similar set of circumstances to the ones that existed in the 1970s and '80s are back in play today: The price of yellow cake is up significantly; the state is looking favorably at nuclear energy and the possibility of uranium mining to support it; and a uranium company is all set to try again.
Norman Reynolds was once the president of Marline Uranium Corp., which pursued leases in Virginia. Today, he is chief executive officer of Virginia Uranium Inc., a company that has acquired 2,940 acres of mineral rights and 2,296 acres of surface rights that together comprise the Coles Hill property in Pittsylvania.
Marline explored the same property 25 years ago before the moratorium went into effect.
In its prospectus, the company said it intends to lobby the Virginia General Assembly about "potential uranium legislation."
It is asking the General Assembly to form a study commission to make recommendations on the feasibility of mining and milling in Pittsylvania in a way that will have no adverse effects on that area or other parts of the commonwealth.
If that goal is met, the resolution goes on to say, Virginia Uranium would like to see regulatory procedures put in place that would protect the state's natural resources.
"Legislative studies are pretty perfunctory," said Speiden. "But if it were a scientific study, that would be fine. But that's a long drawn-out process.
"We really need to be sure that uranium mining is not going to damage our water, air or human health."
Robin Knepper: 540/972-5701| Decades ago air sampling suggested there were massive amounts of uranium and other radioactive minerals from southern through central Virginia. So when the price of uranium got high in the late 1970s, the search for the radioactive ore began.
Large landowners in the southwestern part of Orange County soon were approached by Marline Uranium Corp. with offers of leases so the company could look for uranium beneath their cornfields and pastures. But three factors came together that soon ended the push for uranium mining in Orange. PRICES FALL, NUCLEAR POWER FEARS RISE Yellow cake, the processed uranium ore, was selling for $43.40 a pound in May 1978 when the leasing effort started. By March 1982, the price was down to $23 a pound. The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had happened in 1979, bringing plant construction to a virtual halt for many years. POLLUTION CONCERNS The state moratorium on uranium mining was set to expire on July 1, 1983. That deadline had activated citizens and officials in many central and Northern Virginia localities that were threatened by the pollution and contamination likely to come from radioactive material unleashed by the exploration, mining and milling of uranium. PITTSYLVANIA EMERGES Marline Uranium Corp. found even larger deposit of uranium, and more agreeable attitudes, in Pittsylvania County.In 1982, Marline canceled the 40 leases it had with landowners in Orange, Culpeper, Madison and Fauquier counties, closed its office in Culpeper and headed to Chatham, Va. But no uranium mining was ever done. The price of uranium dropped, the Marline Corp. disappeared and the state moratorium was renewed. |