Group: Uranium plan threatens Roanoke River

The Roanoke River, which supplies drinking water to Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk among other communities, was named by an environmental group Tuesday as one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the country because of threats from proposed uranium mining nearby.

State and local opponents of plans to tap a huge deposit in Pittsylvania County seized on the announcement as more evidence that a Virginia ban on uranium mining, in effect since 1982, should be retained.

The city of Virginia Beach shares this sentiment, especially after completing a study that found radioactive wastes could make their way downstream some 100 miles and perhaps taint water bound for thousands of taps in Hampton Roads.

"The lesson here is that things do not always go according to plan, and we should not be playing high-stakes roulette with a waterway that serves local growers, local anglers and a vibrant tourist economy from Virginia Beach to the Outer Banks," said Cale Jaffe, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville.

Also on the endangered list, published annually by the group American Rivers, is the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, the largest freshwater contributor to the Chesapeake Bay.

Group officials said the environmental risk from hydraulic fracturing - a drilling technique for natural gas known as "fracking" - is why they chose the Susquehanna to head their list this year.

Other waterways making the roster include the Chicago River in Illinois, due to threats from sewage pollution; Bristol Bay in Alaska, due to copper and gold mining; and the Black Warrior River in Alabama, due to coal mining.

Virginia Uranium, the company that wants to mine the radioactive resource for use in nuclear power plants, dismissed the Roanoke River listing as unscientific and biased.

"These are the same groups that have stated publicly that they have no interest in even studying uranium mining in Virginia," said Patrick Wales, the company's project manager, based in Chatham, Va. "They're making judgments before all these studies are completed."

The National Academy of Sciences is in the midst of a state-requested study of the potential risks of mining, with results expected in December. Given that timeline, the state General Assembly could vote next year on whether to lift the uranium ban.

The deposit beneath Coles Hill, a historic farm outside Chatham, is considered the largest undeveloped source in the United States. It is valued at more than $8 billion, and Virginia Uranium says allowing extraction could create 300 to 500 jobs in Pittsylvania County.

But civic groups and environmentalists say the proposed operation is dangerous and shortsighted because of the potential for uranium wastes, known as tailings, to contaminate the nearby Banister River, which feeds into the Dan and Roanoke rivers downstream and then to Lake Gaston, where Hampton Roads gets much of its water.

They also worry about workers and nearby residents getting sick from radiation and how mining would change the bucolic, agricultural nature of Pittsylvania County and all of Southside Virginia.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com