The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission’s Uranium Mining Subcommittee meets next week in Richmond to mull a proposed final draft of a study that would determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in the commonwealth.

But even if the draft — which addresses mining’s technical and public-health aspects — gets a thumbs-up, the subcommittee’s job will only be half done.

Its members must decide on the study’s second part, which would analyze the socio-economic aspects of uranium mining. Members disagree on when to proceed with the second part of the study. 

Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1982.

  Subcommittee member Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Russell County, said he opposes conducting the study’s second portion if mining is found to be unsafe.

“If that is a ‘no,’ we don’t have to answer any more questions,” Puckett said Wednesday. “To me, the safety part is more important.” Delegate Bud Phillips, D-Sandy Ridge, agrees, calling the socio-economic aspects “secondary.” The most vital question is whether mining can be done in a manner safe for citizens and the environment, Phillips said Wednesday. Puckett’s and Phillips’s districts are in coal-mining areas. Phillips once worked in the coal-mining industry, like his father.

Subcommittee Chair Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, wants to see the second phase begin quickly.

“My own preference would be for the Uranium Mining Subcommittee … to authorize as soon as possible a study of the socio-economic implications of uranium mining generally, the proposed mining at Coles Hill specifically,” Ware said via e-mail Monday.

During the subcommittee’s meeting in March, Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, said the economic part of the study is important. “I think we have to ensure there is a market for it (uranium)” he said.

Other members expressed concerns similar to Puckett’s and Phillips’s during the subcommittee’s March meeting. Delegate Kristen Amundson, D-Mount Vernon, questioned giving the economic aspects of the issue priority when safety and environmental matters should be the main focus. Delegate Watkins Abbitt, I-Appomattox, said the marketing aspects of uranium mining should be left for the private sector to study and if mining uranium is found to be unsafe, examining its costs and benefits would be a waste of time.

Kudos to Sen. Phillip Puckett, Delegate Bud Phillips and Delegate Watkins Abbitt for putting the safety of their constituents and the environment before economics of uranium mining. As far as Sen. Frank Wagner and Subcommittee Chair Lee Ware, along with Virginia Uranium's spokesperson and geologist, Patrick Wales, I'd like to know why they're so intent on making money first and foremost.

The irony of this story is that most of the anti-uranium mining folks (such as Eloise Nenon and others who make up the group that initiated the original moratorium twenty-five years ago) know that Santoy, a Canadian uranium company, is about to take control of up to thirty percent of Virginia Uranium, the company that owns Coles Hill. Additionally, in another story, the price of uranium has spiked upward in the markets this month - a story that would make Virginia Uranium and Santoy salivate. Finally, if you read on in this story, Patrick Wales either assumes that farmers in the area will drop their occupations to work at a toxic open-pit uranium mine or he assumes that we might believe him when he says they would be willing to be trained.

I'd almost be willing to place odds that Wales and others won't consider the devaluation of property values, the cost of land reparation or the cost of illness that comes with this type of work in their estimates. Ah, but I'll have to retract that bet now, as they may make me pay for reminding them about those costs against profit. Then again, maybe not. It appears that a few economically-minded folks think their readers are somewhat...ignorant? Silly? Naive? Stupid?