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In what is being viewed as a landmark demonstration of public support among the scientific community, the President of the Virginia Health Physics Society officially endorsed efforts to mine uranium in Virginia in an Op Ed in the Chatham Star Tribune. 
The Health Physics Society is an organization of nearly 6,000 scientific professionals from across the country that strives to promote best practices in radiation safety.
Carter Ficklen, the President of the organization’s Virginia chapter is a retired health physicist who worked for more than 10 years at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton and spent the last 18 years of his career at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson Lab in Newport News.
“It is the position of the Virginia Chapter of the Health Physics Society”, Mr. Fecklin writes in the Op Ed, “that uranium mining in the Commonwealth of Virginia can and should be pursued.” “The proposed mining endeavors,” he continued, “can be carried out with minimal impact on the environmental quality of the surrounding areas while simultaneously stimulating the economy of Southside Virginia, filling a vacancy in our country’s energy needs, and reducing the United State’s dependency on foreign sources of energy.”
The largest untapped uranium deposit in the United States, known as the Coles Hill deposit, is located in Southside Virginia’s Pittsylvania County. The deposit, a veritable mother lode of nuclear energy, contains enough uranium to fuel Virginia’s entire nuclear energy demand at current levels for more than 65 years, and America’s for more than 2 years. Yet, a 25-year-old moratorium on uranium mining in the Commonwealth stands in the way of its development.
The General Assembly is waiting for the results of an independent study by the National Academy of Sciences on the public health and environmental impact before determining whether to lift the moratorium and promulgate the necessary regulations and permitting to allow the development to proceed.
A 1984 independent study commissioned by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission determined that the Coles Hill deposit could be mined safely and without serious risks to the environment.
Concerns about the safety of uranium mining are based on “misinformation and misperceptions,” says Mr. Ficklen. In an effort to allay some of those concerns, Mr. Ficklen outlines the stringent regulatory structure that governs mining operations in the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency’s rigorous standards for water quality protect public water sources from contamination, and the tight regulation of mine tailings - the waste rock left over after mining is complete - by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission prevents the infiltration of radiation into the air, water and agriculture surrounding mining operations.
Mr. Ficklen illustrates the significant economic impact the project would entail for the economically distressed Southside region - 300-350 permanent jobs, as much as $300 million in annual economic impact and millions of dollars in local tax revenue each year.
Mr. Ficklen also argues that it is imperative to develop Virginia’s abundant uranium resources in order to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of uranium and to fuel the vast expansion of electricity output that is expected in the coming decades. America currently imports 86% of our uranium from foreign countries, with roughly half purchased from state-run nuclear companies in Russia, Kazakhstan, Namibia and Uzbekistan.
“The global demand for electricity is increasing at a fast pace with the overall world generation of electricity expected to increase by 60 percent between now and 2030,” Ficklen said.
“These increases can be achieved only by the rapid construction of new generating stations, and a significant number of these new stations will be nuclear plants fueled with uranium. To support the growing dependence on nuclear power, the uranium mining industry must significantly increase its annual production and processing of uranium ore.”
Aaron Ruby is a representative of the Virginia Energy Independence Alliance (VEIA), a grassroots coalition of nearly 1,000 Virginians that promotes the development of Virginia’s abundant energy resources as a solution to America’s dependence on foreign energy and as an engine for job creation and economic revitalization across Virginia. In particular, the VEIA promotes harnessing Virginia’s vast nuclear resources - from the Coles Hill uranium deposit in Southside to the expansion of North Anna power station in Central Virginia and nuclear components manufacturing in Newport News - to spread economic development and advance energy independence.
