VB Dems

The rumor on the street was that Sen. Frank Wagner was conniving to get VB Mayor Sessoms to rescind VB’s resolution opposing uranium mining in southwest Virginia. The Beach did so (as did the City of Chesapeake) as our drinking water supply comes from Lake Gaston which is in the area of the proposed uranium mining.

Although there is still currently a moratorium in the Commonwealth on uranium mining, a legislative subcommittee did order a study of it. The State has contracted with the National Academy of Sciences, it’ll take 1.5 years to complete and would otherwise cost our cash-strapped state $1.4 million. “No problem,” says the wealthy special interests who have been allowed to underwrite the “study”.

Assuming that NAS can be trusted to not sway results to the benefit of its underwriters, there is still a huge problem with their study. It’s not site specific! And Virginia Beach’s Thomas Leahy, the city’s public utilities director, knows it and he’s not afraid to act on his doubts. Virginia is not Utah after all, where uranium mining faces a dry, arid environment. We’re practically tropical – so moist and spongy – ergo great concern for the State’s “study”.

The Virginian-Pilot reported today that the City is preparing to commission their own study on the effects to our drinking water should uranium mining near Lake Gaston be allowed. It’ll cost upwards of $437,000. And Sen. Frank Wagner is shitting in his pants. Getting Virginia Beach to come round to seeing this his way has vanished in the haze. Ha!

I love one of the comments on the Pilot article online. “Who does Wagner represent, Virginia Beach or the uranium industry?”, writes Chris33. Umm… take a wild guess. The answer is the same as always.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 5:41 pm and is filed under 2010 GA, Environment, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.