"Excercising futility" or "trying to learn anything at an SCC seminar"

I took the following notes at the SCC's "educational seminar" last Wednesday. I went to learn more about uranium, and I left with more questions than I had arrived with and a big, big headache....

I have been watching the cursor blink for a full minute trying to think of something nice to say. This will be one of many drafts, I’m sure, but I had to give you a recap of the cluster-f*@% that was the SCC “educational seminar” while it is still fresh in my head.

Karen Maute opened the meeting with a monotone laundry list of questions. As she asked things like, “what will the mine and its repercussions cost the taxpayers?” I thought to myself, “does she read?” and “wouldn’t a study answer 99.9% of these questions…. Why are we here??” Sadly, this would be least icky I would feel all night.

Maute introduced Jack Dunavant, who pounded on the podium for a while about our way of life, yadda yadda. (Question: Maute said Dunavant was “life-long resident of Halifax County”—didn’t he live somewhere else for a long while?)

Dunavant (JD, from here on out) explained the history of the SCC and introduced Eloise Nenon (Nenon, for short—“bleeding heart of Jesus” was too long for a nickname). At exactly 6:44 (9 minutes into a presentation that started a little late), he reminded everyone that SCC is 501 c (3) corporation (donations are tax-deductible, wink wink)

JD then proceeded to tell the crowd what “they” (VUI) propose to do (and in the same breath said that VUI didn’t have a plan):
-dig a hole (the size varied and got bigger as the presentation wore on… by the end we were talking about in terms of super walmarts)
- blast an open pit mine ½ to 1-mile wide, releasing the uranium from being “locked in solid bedrock where God put it”
-extract ½ lb uranium for every ton of rock removed from where God put it
-crush the rock into a fine powder and leach out 15% of the radioactive uranium and create tailings with the rest (which I guess he meant would be 85% uranium?)
-He ended that little gem with the half-life of uranium…. Did you know it has a “half-life of 100,000 to Billions of years”? Neither did I.
-Oh, and, of course, it has never been done safely anywhere, ever.

Then he threw out the obligatory rainfall/wind spiel… how the arid western states have had disastrous problems with uranium mining….what would happen in our temperate, moist climate? Then, I swear he said that we were in a densely populated area, not an area “with and Indian every 30 miles.” I was taking notes pretty furiously so I may be mistaken, but I swear that is what I heard. I even wrote it down.

JD then introduced Todd Benson, a replacement speaker. He is with the Piedmont Environmental Council and he is a special fella. He did not give any reason, but he told us that “above-ground tailings disposal would be required.” He was bummed that some people thought that “if you are not for the study, you are for ignorance.” (I suppose referring to virginiauraniumblog.com)

Todd explained that SB 525 was a flawed bill because the study would push conclusions that would satisfy VUI’s agenda and the study was proposed on an unreasonably short time line. Fair enough. Then he said that Virginia gets 42”-44” of rain annually, but he did not cite a source. Not unusual. Todd then blatantly and irresponsibly misused a quote from the VUI presentation about the “shameful legacy” of uranium mining in the US, twisting its use to mean that even the proponents know how awful it is. UGH.

Then, in what would be the first of many aluminum-foil-hat-moments, Todd, as he mentioned a quote about insurance in a VUI prospectus made to Holdco (spelling?), stated that we would all have to get Walter Coles to clarify the difference between Virginia Uranium Limited and Virginia Uranium Incorporated. Todd reminded everyone that, either way, this was a “limited liability corporation,” saying that this meant that the corporation would neither be responsible for environmental damage nor insured against pandemic disaster. I’m not sure that that’s what “LLC” means.

Todd opposes any study because he is “not convinced that anything has changed in the technology or safety of uranium mining in the last 20 years, despite what you may read on blogs about how 20 years ago we didn’t have cell phones” (another reference to virginiauraniumblog.com). Todd said that VUI’s plan (which they sometimes have and sometimes don’t, depending on who is speaking) would exhaust taxpayer funds (BONDS, ANYONE?), and the study would drain the state of time and resources (even though it would be an independent study that is privately funded). He believes that VUI’s “ticket into the General Assembly” should be documented examples of five places where uranium has been mined safely. This is where it starts to get good. For your enjoyment, I have put it in dialogue form:

TODD: Blah, blah, they haven’t given us five examples…

JAMES BEARD (JIMMY): [JIMMY has been twisting in his seat this whole time, and has not identified himself at this point. He calls out from the crowd.] Did you ask them?!

TODD: Actually, I did, and Walter Coles gave the French nuclear industry as an example…

JIMMY: [nodding as if he may actually get TODD to make some sense] Right….

TODD: [scrambling] but that is run by the French government and that’s not the US and we’re not France and blaahahahhahah…..

JIMMY: you got an answer, though?

TODD: Uh, well, that’s all I have.

I swear to God that was it. He SAT DOWN at the table on stage with the rest of the panel of “experts.” I could not believe my eyes. He just stopped his whole presentation and retreated.

JD swoops in to Todd’s rescue and introduces Jeffrey Johnston of Eden, NC from the Dan River Basin Association. JD did a lot of blabbering about JJ’s credentials, but JJ was the first one to step up to the podium and tell everyone that he was not a geology expert… he just happens to own his own business so he can give himself the week off to go to the library and google uranium mining. He proceeded to give the most confusing and exhausting presentation I have ever seen. He kept throwing out numbers and percents and basic chemistry facts. I hate to say anything ugly, because he was the only one who even gave VUI the benefit of the doubt. He wanted to talk about VUI’s mission statement and plan for the land after the mining… he mentioned that VUI’s standard would be fantastic to meet, if they could do it. Then, I think he may have tried to say that VUI’s promise to leave the land the same or better than they found it is an empty one. I think. He was all over the place. He was the only one that spoke that was not a douchebag so I feel bad for reaming him, but he’s just WRONG, ya know?

The high points:

-“the uranium at Coles Hill is safely contained by faults and bedrock and it is not getting out” and it does not affect anything around it as it is (you remember, where God put it)—to which I ask, “if it is contained and not getting out, why does the Geiger counter move when you put it on the ground?” (of course, if you ask Nenon-bleeding-heart-of-Jesus, it has already escaped and continues to escape every day from the drill holes… we might as well start chemo now)

-“imagine a giant landfill” for the tailings, we will have to either “pile them up or put them in a pond” lined with clay but, and I’m not making this up, “where will we get the clay?” hmmmm….

-when the mining is through, they will dump the tailings into the mine and hope for the best

-talked about the Ranger Mine in NW Australia and how they have run out of space for their tailings pond water, so they “dump the water back into the streams.” He acknowledged that the water is treated, but he said that no one can prove that the water treatment is working.

Then, like an enemy pilot flying out of the sun, our dear friend Jimmy asked JJ about phosphates. Jimmy wanted to know why, if uranium is so hard to extract from phosphate in the first place, should we be worried about uranium in the tailings escaping from the phosphate? It became clear to me at this point that Jimmy knows his stuff. Jimmy called out one of JJ’s high points… Jimmy reminded JJ that the uranium in the ground at Coles Hill is contained by phosphates, not by faults.

Picture JJ caught in headlights.

Jimmy then let JJ know that the paper that he had been slaughtering was, in fact, Jimmy’s thesis. JJ had been misinterpreting Jimmy’s thesis, using Jimmy’s graphic, all in Jimmy’s presence.

Picture JJ caught in the headlights of a tractor trailer.

Luckily for JJ, Nenon-bleeding-heart-of-Jesus was moved by the spirit to tell some BS story about Florida in the 1980s. She still hasn’t read anything since the 80s, I suppose…

After NBHOJ’s second monologue, JD got up to introduce Katherine Mull (spelling?), an environmental planner with the DRBA. Karen Maute stopped him short, saying that KM would only be a member of the panel, not a presenter.

Before the Q and A, JD got in his final two cents. He said the whole night that he would give us a list of the pros and cons of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County.

First, the cons:

-rainfall and wind speed of our area (rainfall would cause the radioactive tailings to leech into the soil, and the wind would blow the uranium dust all over—I guess it’s not important that the rainfall would keep the dust down and the wind would aid in evaporation?)

-property values will drop

-“radiation does nothing to sustain life” (except for the sun…)

-the corporations and “shadow corporations” (here we go with our aluminum-hat-wearing conspiracy theory) would import all the mining jobs and leave the site in ruins for the state to take care of forever

-there is no “good side—a few people think they will get rich”

Second, the pros:

-Surprise. No pros.

JD concluded with his Ballad of Bill Spieden, which deserved a golden globe. Here’s a recap:

JD told the story of Bill Spieden:

Bill Spieden owned a dairy up there in Orange, VA back in the 1980s when Marline was prospecting for uranium. Bill and the little woman took a trip to New Mexico and saw that uranium mining was a mess and he “concluded that it could never be done safely and DECLARED that no one would ever mine for uranium on his land.” Bill put his land in a conservancy so that he and his neighbors would never, ever have to be exposed to the horror of uranium mining. (Choking back tears—I’m not kidding) “Bill Spieden is my hero—the kinda guy I’d like to have a neighbor.” (Of course, what he didn't tell you is that Bill Spieden doesn't have the first clue if there is enough uranium on his land to be worth mining or not because he would not allow the scientists to even look for it back in the 1980s)

Then, after JD told us what we could do to stop the mining (chemical trespass ordinances, zoning ordinances), the Q and A period began.

Here’s where shit gets real.

Keep in mind that the audience was supposed to direct their questions to the panel of “experts.” Anne Cockrell would be taking the mic to people who had questions. Oh! And Karen Maute, who “facilitated” the questions, stated that “if we don’t know, we will tell you that we don’t know.”

First audience question: What kind of cancers can we expect if uranium is mined at Coles Hill?

JD’s answer? “Well, the biggest problem is ingesting” the radioactive material. “It’s not a question of if, but when.” He then encouraged the gentleman to “Google uranium mining.” Very educational. (This is the first of what would be many evasive responses. I guess JD didn’t understand that the question was neither “if” nor “when” but “what.”)

Then someone in the audience brought up Chernobyl and thyroid cancer. NBHOJ lit up like a Christmas tree.

Then a qustion from the back: You gave your reasons for opposing the study bill, but I am confused as to why you oppose a study?

Crickets.

Todd chimed in with the predictable BS about how the bill was flawed.

She asked the question again, reminding the panel that she knew their problem with the bill, but she was confused about the study.

Todd is not convinced that anything has changed with regard to the safety of uranium mining in the last 20 years. And then he repeated himself, saying that he is not aware that anything has changed.

JJ however, piped up that he is not opposed to a study. God love him, he just can’t get off that fence.

A few more highlights of the Q & A period:

-NBOHJ had a few choice monologues, although she was seated in the audience and not on the panel. She recounted how she had visited the poor condemned souls mining uranium in Colorado (in the 1980s, of course) and how she saw tailings “blowing in the wind like big clouds of smoke.”

-When Jimmy, the actual expert, was asked why people are so afraid of uranium, he responed that "they don't understand it." Amen, Jimmy.

-If SCC was not crazy about your questions, it was tough to get a mic. One guy kept asking his question (that either offended or stumped the panel) by yelling because no one would bring him mic. When Karen Maute asked him to settle down because the panel could not hear his question, someone FINALLY hollered "give him a mic"

-Henry Hurt rocked the house. He had the last comment and question. Hurt reminded the panel who, you will remember, kept on and on about how the state would have to use taxpayer money to care for the coles hill site perpetually, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires mining companies to put into place massive amounts of bonds to take care of the land perpetually. (Anything else is propaganda and lies).

He also asked JD if the SCC would ever support uranium mining if it is found to be safe. Of course, after dodging the question and flat-out pretending not to hear it, JD avoided it. Way to go, fearless leader.

Finally, Karen Maute closed with yet another request for donations.


My overall impression: those were two hours of my life I will never get back. What a waste. I used to read a lot about those people and how crazy they are, and I thought, at first, that it was an unfair assessment. Now I know that those critics of the SCC were being too nice.... the SCC, as I saw it represented Wednesday, is really, really scary.