To the editor,
Money over life is important depending on whom is affected.
Uranium mining is not safe because if it were, then the project would not be put up for so much scrutiny.
It seems like Pittsylvania County is so hungry for jobs that it is willing to kill its own kind in order to get one. A job isn't worth it after death because you can't bring that job or paycheck with you. It is a shame that the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors is put there in order to protect the moral, health, safety and general welfare of its constituents, but is constantly making decisions that do not support even the minimum bar of any government responsibility. Public officials will have to look at the damage and deaths that their decisions have caused and seek forgiveness from those families.
Pittsylvania County has prior and constructive knowledge when looking at the cons in bringing uranium mining to the area. It will increase lung cancer and death around the region. Your children will have to pay the consequences of your support. Your family will have to pay the price of your support. So will your neighbor, your friend, your husband, your wife, your daughter and your son. And when a doctor tells you the reason why they may die, then you will get the point.
I'm in no way supporting the death of my own people, no matter their race, background or gender. They all have a right to a better life, and your public officials are taking it away from you once again.
In January 2008, a uranium mining company named Areva won the Public Eye Awards, negative awards for environmental or social behavior. The French-owned company mines uranium in northern Niger, where, according to the Public Eye Awards, mine workers are not informed about health risks, and analysis shows radioactive contamination of air, water and soil. The local organization that represents the mineworkers spoke of "suspicious" deaths among the workers caused by radioactive dust and contaminated groundwater.
My suggestion is everyone near or around Pittsylvania County should move away from the area as soon as possible after the General Assembly approves this project. If any youth are still in the area, then a guardian ad litem should be appointed to them on their behalf. A guardian ad litem is a guardian appointed by a court to protect the interests of a minor or incompetent in a particular matter.
For decades, people, including the government, have been trying to prove cigarettes cause lung cancer. We all knew that cigarettes caused it, but getting the government and the cigarette companies to take responsibility took millions and millions of dollars in order to achieve. It took 50 years before the courts finally acknowledged that cigarette smoking causes cancer. There were billions of dollars at stake. The dozens of court decisions that there "was no proof or the risk was minimum" were supported by physicians, expert witnesses of all types and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on attorneys.
The same is being done with this independent study to try to get you to increase support on the pros, instead of the cons, for the uranium mining project.
Uranium mining causes cancer just like smoking, but Pittsylvania County is going to say that it does, but it is a minimum chance of getting it. However, do the citizens of Pittsylvania County want to wait 50 years after the sickness, damage and deaths have been caused in order for your elected officials and the courts to say uranium mining causes these attributes and concepts in human beings?
Now the U.S government and over 20 states are looking to put labels of a corpse on the box in order to discourage smoking. Maybe, if the uranium project is approved, then it should be a graphic image of a corpse at the entrance gate reminding the workers of the consequences of working in a uranium mine. Do you think when you and your family members become sick that they won't try taking decades before you can prove that uranium mining caused the death or cancer in which your loved one died from? It will get deep when it is your family member.
This is the question that I want you to ask your elected officials: Would you put yourself or your family members to work in that mine. This is when you really start getting the answers that the report failed to put focus on, their family and their profits at the expense of yours.
Also, the state of Virginia won't pay for the diseases and deaths caused by uranium mining because it has sovereign immunity. You have to hope that Virginia waives its immunity and, if it does, then you are allowed up to $100,000 on possibly millions on millions of dollars worth in doctors' bills. This immunity is only waived by following the requirements of the Virginia Tort Claims Act, and it is still up to Virginia to decide whether to pay you or not.
Merle T. Rutledge Jr.
Chatham