According to Gov. McDonnell’s office, 894 calls, emails,
letters, and faxes have been received in support of maintaining the ban on
uranium mining while only 171 have supported uranium mining in Virginia.[1]
For anyone who has been following the issue in Virginia, the
results are not surprising. Virginians throughout the commonwealth have CLEARLY
stated their support for the ban on uranium mining.
Yet, the issue persists in no small part due to one company,
Virginia Uranium Inc. (VUI)[2],
the self-proclaimed arbiter of Virginia’s energy future. With the help of
puppet legislators, VUI has been able to put the legislature under its thumb
and almost lift the ban on uranium mining.
But as I, and many others have argued, economic benefits and
energy independence (benefits that VUI claims uranium mining will bring to
Virginia) are not goals that can be or should be strived for at any cost.
Yes,
job creation and economic benefits along with energy independence would be
great, but at what cost, and who would really win and who would really be
taking the short end of the stick, so to speak?
When any company fights as hard as VUI has, and is, to win
on an issue, there is obviously a mega-payoff somewhere in the future. While
this is in and of itself not problematic, it becomes a problem when billions of
dollars are on the line: it tends to blind ones judgment!
So for all of the lamentations by members of the General
Assembly and VUI about how concerned citizens of Virginia who oppose uranium
mining are “not being reasonable,” the sad irony is that greed has blinded many
of the proponents of uranium mining within VUI and the General Assembly to the
potential and significant consequences of this process.[3]
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