[NukeNet] Halifax County fights back, vs. Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon.

[Dolph Honicker]

In response to the story on "Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon," the second posted story below,  read how one Virginia county is fighting back.  If they can, so can everyone.  It should be a movement to take back our country, just as "Cool Cities" is America's cities taking the lead in fighting global warming while our federal government drags it's feet.    Read on:
 
 

(Halifax is the county to the immediate east of Pittsylvania County, home of the proposed mining site. This story appears online at The Gazette Virginian, a newspaper in Halifax County.)
Halifax Approves Chemical Trespass Ordinance
To applause last night, Halifax Town Council unanimously approved a Corporate Mining and Chemical and Radioactive Bodily Trespass ordinance.Although Attorney George Bagwell questioned enforcement provisions of the ordinance, the town became the first governing body in the state to adopt the 'chemical trespass ordinance,' one proponents say is designed to help protect its citizens.Bagwell mentioned the Dillon Rule and pointed out municipalities only have those powers delegated to them by the state. He warned of legal challenges but said he could perfect the document.Action followed a public hearing that drew over a dozen speakers all favoring the ordinance and opposing uranium mining.Town Manager Carl Espy told council he also received a dozen emails supporting adoption of the ordinance.Halifax Councilman and Southside Concerned Citizens Chairman Jack Dunavant offered the motion urging council to pass the ordinance "in the name of health, safety and welfare of our people."He advised council to pass the ordinance saying they could explore any needed revisions in the future."This is an historic vote," Dunavant said following unanimous council approval. "The people have finally agreed to protect their health and the environment from corporate assault. It's time the Constitution was evoked to give the power to the people to protect their own destiny and end this era of corporate greed and pollution."A proposed uranium mining and milling operation near Chatham triggered council's adoption of the ordinance.Through the ordinance, corporations and governing officials permitting those corporations will be held liable to the people of Halifax for chemical trespass.Southside Concerned Citizens, which opposes Virginia Uranium Inc.'s (VUI) mining proposal, cites concerns about air quality and surface and groundwater pollution.SCC first battled the Coles Hill mining proposal during the 1980s, with the Virginia legislature passing a moratorium on uranium mining in 1982.The two large uranium ore deposits with an estimated $10 billion value are located approximately six miles from Chatham on land owned by the Coles and Bowen families.The company is seeking a uranium study, and legislation creating a commission to lead the study is currently working its way through a series of committees in the General Assembly Similar chemical trespass ordinances have been enacted in Pennsylvania to stop a variety of corporate actions, including the spreading of sewage sludge, according to Shireen Parsons, community organizer for the nonprofit Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).During a forum held at Halifax County High School last month, Ben Price, project director with CELDF, told the crowd the action "empowers the community" and "is a first shot across the bow to let them know the people have the right to govern." Consent of the governed and the community's responsibility for its future were at the heart of Price's call to action at the SCC-sponsored forum.Parsons, at the same forum, described the hazards of uranium byproducts and the failure of federal and state regulatory agencies to protect human health and the environment. She also challenged VUI's economic benefits forecast.
 


To: saveitnowglades at yahoogroups.comFrom: marshmaid at hughes.netDate: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 11:13:06 -0500Subject: [no-new-nukes-yall] uranium mining near Grand Canyon




February 7, 2008Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyonhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/washington/07canyon.html?_r=1&oref=sloginBy FELICITY BARRINGERWith minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, theForest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining companyto explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, lessthan three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim.If the exploration finds rich uranium deposits, it could lead to thefirst mines near the canyon since the price of uranium ore plummetednearly two decades ago. A sharp increase in uranium prices over the pastthree years has led individuals to stake thousands of mining claims inthe Southwest, including more than 1,000 in the Kaibab National Forest,near the Grand Canyon.To drill exploratory wells on the claims in the Kaibab forest requiresForest Service approval. Vane Minerals, the British company, receivedsuch approval for seven sites in December.The Forest Service granted the approvals without a full-dressenvironmental assessment, ruling that the canyon could be “categoricallyexcluded” from such a review because exploration would last less than ayear and might not lead to mining activity.On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors in Coconino County, Ariz., votedunanimously to try to block any potential uranium mines. It asked thatthe federal government withdraw large sections of land immediately northand south of the national park from mineral leasing.“We have a legacy, which isn’t too good, from the uranium mining in thepast,” said Deb Hill, chairwoman of the Coconino board.Knowledge of the cancers suffered by former uranium workers and theirfamilies on a nearby Navajo reservation, worries about uranium-ladentrucks and trains on roads and concern about contamination of theaquifers and streams in arid northern Arizona were also factors in thevote, Ms. Hill said.The Forest Service made its decision after limited public notice tolocal officials, environmental groups and tribal governments. There wasno public hearing.Bill Hedden, the executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust, said theapprovals were the first indications that a new generation of uraniummines might spring up on the Colorado Plateau near the canyon, an areapeppered with uranium-rich geological formations called breccia pipes.Matthew Idiens, the director of corporate development for Vane, said atleast seven mines had been located not far from the park in pastdecades, yielding an average of 3.4 million pounds a mine. Theexploratory activity his company plans, Mr. Idiens added, “is somewhatlimited — taking in a truck, doing a bit of drilling, but that’s it.”The breccia pipes, he said, “cover a very small area.”“You put a shaft next to them when you mine them,” he said, “and youtake the uranium out and put everything else back in.”“After four or five years, you reclaim it, put it back the way it was,and no one would ever know you were there,” Mr. Idiens said. “Weobviously understand it’s scenic and beautiful there, and we respectthat enormously.”Barbara McCurry, the Kaibab National Forest’s spokeswoman on this issue,said her agency had little choice but to allow the drilling under the1872 mining law that governs hard-rock mining claims. “The exploratorydrilling is pretty minimal,” Ms. McCurry said, adding, “Our obligationis to make sure that any impacts are mitigated.”The Environmental Working Group in Washington has been tracking the newwave of uranium mining claims sweeping across the Four Corners region ofthe Southwest and is issuing a report on the claims and their possibleeffects, Dusty Horwitt, the author of the report, said the Forest Service’sactions confirmed that House-approved amendments to the 1872 law onmining activity should be approved by the Senate. Congress, Mr. Horwittsaid, should give federal land managers the right to balance the desiresof mining companies with other values like the protection of nationalparks and water supplies. “If uranium mining operations are about to start on the edge of theGrand Canyon and federal officials say there’s nothing we can do, thetime is now to reform the 1872 mining law,” Mr. Horwitt said.Mr. Hedden, of the Grand Canyon Trust, pointed out that several Indiantribes in the Four Corners area, including the Navajo, the Hopi and theHavasupai, had voted to ban uranium mining on their land.Ms. McCurry, of Kaibab National Forest, pointed out that, if Vane founda cluster of uranium deposits and sought a permit to mine, the decisionwould require a full environmental analysis and an environmental impactstatement.Rhonda Roff, President Save It Now, Glades! PO Box 1953 Clewiston, FL  33440 863.983.4639 marshmaid at hughes.net www.saveitnowglades.org  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his jobdepends on his not understanding it."Upton Sinclair__._,_.___ 
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