When Mining G?ants Walk the Land
SPANEL, ANN
When Mining G?ants Walk the Land Defiance can confound the best-laid corporate plans BY ANN SPANEL They oughta put that guy in jail," said Maas Maassen, an eightyfour- year-old farmer in Sioux...
...No permit had been issued...
...Sophie Cohen, eighty years old and once a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, belongs to Sullivan Nuclear Opponents and the uranium task force...
...In mid-1981, Frances Rus was made conservator for her father...
...He made the crew stop work and took them down the road about a mile...
...Soon afterwards, Groth and eleven farmers set up an Iowa chapter of Farmers Against Radioactive Mining, an organization active in South Dakota...
...When he approached us, he led us on for fifteen, twenty minutes" before divulging that uranium was the subject...
...This has been trying and at times frustrating, but we're still at it, and we're elated to find other people around the state working with us...
...Terms of the Maassen lease, signed in March 1981, were highly favorable to Exxon...
...Spacek lent a hand by appearing last January at a press conference organized by opponents of uranium mining...
...And the miners themselves— largely Navajo—have a lung cancer rate five times greater than the national average...
...It expires on May 1, and we'd like to see it extended for another year at least...
...Marline is proposing to invest $200 million in uranium operations, and it promises 900 new jobs for the depressed areas of the state, such as Pittsylvania County...
...Our biggest concern was our water," Groth says...
...People here are nice, nice Southern folks...
...We knew by word of mouth he was checking the courthouse for land records, trying to secure leases," says Groth...
...Well, I just got tired of talking, you know...
...The issue is the same, whether in Iowa, New York, Virginia, or elsewhere: As the uranium companies move out of the Southwest into less traditional places for mining, ordinary citizens are organizing against them...
...We are concerned about our health and the health of our children," Russell added...
...The hills are dotted with large resort hotels, summer camps, bungalow colonies, and religious retreats...
...Alarmed at Gulf's threat to New York City's water, the local Friends of the Earth chapter urged the city council's environment committee last June to hold a hearing on uranium mining...
...In an April 1981 letter to Exxon, Rus demanded that the lease be canceled...
...She claimed her father wasn't fit to sign it, and she was worried about the risks associated with uranium mining— especially the radiation emitted by uranium tailings...
...The Board passed a moratorium on uranium mining in 1982...
...Even before Maassen was hooked, Exxon had generated ill-feeling in Inwood, a town of 800 in northwestern Iowa...
...Company officials "live in the neighborhood, contribute to various charitable causes, join the churches, and send their children to the schools...
...The zoning administrator for Sioux County wrote Exxon a letter that summer, telling the company that local zoning rules prohibit uranium mining...
...Since the bank was only half a block away, Humphreys walked over with the farmer and closed the deal...
...He would be entitled to royalties of 3 to 5 per cent on the unprocessed ore— which sells for as little as one-thirtieth the price of processed ore...
...I only did what I had to do," she says...
...If there are places in the United States where there are potential supplies of uranium, we'd like to find out where they are, what they are, and whether it would be a valuable marketable resource," says Jack Galloway, public affairs manager for Gulf...
...In the mid- 1970s, Marline discovered 100 million pounds of uranium lying beneath the Virginia soil...
...He had a lot to lose—700 acres of soybeans, corn, and grazing land for his herd of breeding cattle...
...There was one hitch in the signing of the agreement: Maassen "didn't know what it was about," says his daughter, Frances Rus...
...When Mining G?ants Walk the Land Defiance can confound the best-laid corporate plans BY ANN SPANEL They oughta put that guy in jail," said Maas Maassen, an eightyfour- year-old farmer in Sioux County, Iowa...
...But other states, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, have continued to lease thousands of acres for uranium exploration and mining...
...Her efforts, and those of other concerned farmers, paid off...
...Gibber's farm is in the heart of the Catskill tourist region, only eighty miles from New York City...
...There is no inexpensive way to dispose of them safely...
...She approached the crew boss and asked what they were doing...
...I'd been out there close to two hours...
...The lease would run for twenty-five years "and for a continuing term as long a s . . . any mining development or processing is being conducted on a continuous basis...
...The old man would receive only $10 down and $1 rent per acre for the first nine years, and $5 per acre each year after that...
...Gulf, however, remains on Isadore Gibber's farm...
...He was talking about Exxon's attorney, Stephen Humphreys, who some weeks earlier had flashed a check for $1,600 at Maassen while asking him to sign a lease that would give Exxon the right to mine uranium on his land...
...There were a lot of water quarries in this area" that would be contaminated by uranium tailings...
...Gibber thought it would be a good investment for his family...
...They don't want to trample on anyone's feelings—and their employers are mostly for uranium mining...
...She works with Friends of the Earth in New York City...
...No one at the local newspaper knew anything either...
...Sophie was getting angry...
...Tailings consist of sandy dirt that retains 85 per cent of the ore's original radioactivity and remains radioactive for thousands of years...
...Ann Spanel writes on environmental issues...
...I had my shot gun at the door, about ten feet away, and I was in front of the house...
...He told her they were looking for oil...
...Betsy Flick is a fifty-five-year-old secretary from Sheva, where the company has leased hundreds of acres...
...Because of her and all children, we have a special concern about the potentially dangerous long-term effects of uranium mining...
...Now look,' I said, Tve talked enough...
...Flick says she has met some resistance...
...Marline has been in the area for five years building good will," says Flick...
...Often he can't remember things for more than five minutes and sometimes it just won't come back to him...
...The day after her father closed the deal, Rus went to the Lyon County courthouse to demand revocation of the lease...
...Today, the Iowa group has 300 members...
...And in August, Lyon County adopted a zoning amendment requiring any company applying for a mining permit to show how it will prevent contamination of water, air, and soil...
...The zoning administrators for both counties report no requests for permits to mine uranium...
...Several thousand tons of ore are milled each day at a large uranium mine, but only a few pounds of uranium are extracted from every ton of ore...
...Groth refused to sign...
...William Livingston, another Exxon lawyer, replied, "Our view of the facts . . . does not reveal any violation of law or improper business ethics...
...The firm bought leases to 60,000 acres and recently sold leases on 45,000 of them to Union Carbide for the mining of the ore...
...Spacek did not dominate the press conference, though...
...Concerned about the dangers of uranium mining, she has been convening meetings and bringing slide shows to local neighborhood and civic groups...
...unenclosed and unmarked, some radioactive heaps have become playgrounds for children...
...Marline returned leases on the remaining 15,000 acres...
...SEAN FLYNN The area is also a watershed for New York City: One of the city's major reservoirs, the Neversink, is located about nine miles frgm the farm...
...Exxon's deal with Maassen kicked up one of a series of controversies that have surfaced in many Midwest and Atlantic states: Uranium mining is moving eastward, and as it comes, its corporate sponsors are encountering hostility from local residents who resent their methods and worry about the hazards of radioactive waste...
...One morning about a year and a half ago, she was awakened by her dogs at 5:30...
...Are you going to force me to become like the proverbial little old lady with a shotgun...
...Virginia has been our home for the past five years, and now my husband and I have a wonderful six-month-old girl," Spacek said...
...Residents of the Sheva area are conducting a petition drive seeking a five-year moratorium on the mining and milling of uranium...
...But the persistence of concern among local residents suggests that such an outcome is far from inevitable...
...We're worried about our water and our air and our children," says Rose Spada, who sits on the Sullivan County Board of Supervisors' task force on uranium...
...If the companies are allowed to go ahead with their plans, these areas may some day resemble New Mexico, where uranium tailings rise like mountains from the earth...
...But not everyone in the region is sold on the idea of uranium mining...
...This was the first of many meetings the farmers held that spring...
...Rus then went to the Sioux County attorney, who assured her that he would call out the National Guard, if necessary, to protect the old man's two farms...
...A number of us from Pittsylvania and Henry counties have been working for years to inform ourselves" about the dangers of uranium mining, says Sidney Russell...
...Sara Motley, a psychiatric nurse whose parents' corn tillage stands only two miles downwind from a proposed uranium site, has also taken action...
...On a cold, gray morning in March 1981, Groth joined some fifty other farmers at the home of Frances Rus...
...Exxon's lease stipulated that if the mill wastes, or tailings, were not removed by the company, they would become the landowners' property...
...Rus then enlisted the aid of Charles Dorothy, a sympathetic young lawyer from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who agreed to work on the case without fee...
...Uranium mining "cannot and will not be done safely, even with strict regulations," said Sidney Russell, an engineer employed by Goodyear...
...She followed in her car...
...Long-time residents of the community spoke up forcefully about the dangers posed by Marline and Union Carbide...
...By 8 A.M...
...When they secured a lease from Maas Maassen, that was a shady deal and that probably stirred up the community more than anything," says Groth...
...DEBORAH SHAFFER Marline Oil is a small, lowprofile mineral and oil exploration company...
...I knew something was going on that I didn't want and didn't like...
...Rus also continued to be active that spring, going to meetings in the area to expose Exxon's maneuvers on her father's property...
...A few months later, Exxon relinquished Maassen's lease...
...Isadore Gibber owns a 164-acre chicken farm in Sullivan County, New York...
...Tailings are stacked on the ground, where they leach radionucleides into the soil and emit radon gas into the air...
...He tried to make us believe that it was profitable," Groth recalls...
...Vermont has passed a law that amounts to a permanent ban on uranium mining, and New Jersey has a seven-year moratorium in effect...
...The people don't understand all that's involved in uranium," she says, adding that the company's tactics have also dampened protest...
...Galloway says Gulf is "continuing to catalogue and inventory the resource and insofar as possible make those resources available to our use when it becomes economic...
...I asked him what he'd do if they found uranium or any other minerals, and he said, 'Well, lady, I guess we'd take them too.' " .Cohen became suspicious and called the Youngsville town supervisor to ask if the company had a permit to explore for oil...
...We want a permanent ban," Spada says...
...Last fall, she called actress Sissy Spacek, who had recently moved to Charlottesville in Pittsylvania County to raise her child in a clean environment...
...Exxon's contract with Maassen galvanized the local farmers into opposition to uranium mining...
...There I was alone, facing this man and all the others...
...The old Wobbly fighting spirit was aroused...
...He provided invaluable assistance not only to Rus, but to the other farmers in the area as well...
...When Maassen's daughter objected to the lease, Exxon took the offensive: The company would start drilling soon, Humphreys said...
...While Rus baked cookies and brewed coffee, lawyer Dorothy stood at the gate and spoke tor forty-five minutes about the dangers of uranium mining and described regulations other counties had imposed to decrease the environmental risks...
...She went outside and found a crew from Atlantic Richfield laying cables by the secluded road just off her property...
...There it is, now who's going to get it, you or I?' " 'Well,' he said, 'we don't want to mess with any guns...
...So I said, 'You're not going to go on till you can give me some proof that you were permitted to do this.'" Still no response...
...There is a high probability that the Neversink will become contaminated if Gulf mines there," Joseph Wagoner, senior epidemiologist at the U . S . Public Health Service, told the committee...
...And Peter Montague, administrator of Princeton University's hazardous waste program, recalled the experience in the Southwest, where neither state nor Federal agencies had adequate funds to monitor uranium mining and milling...
...Gulf Oil persuaded him in 1980 to sign a lease similar to the one Exxon had offered Maassen...
...Atlantic Richfield never came back to the property near Cohen's house, and the corporation's public relations department denies A R C O has any interest in uranium...
...Jerry Groth, whose land holds rich uranium deposits, was one of the farmers Humphreys had begun visiting in early 1981...
Vol. 47 • May 1983 • No. 5
