Indian Villagers Oppose Uranium Mines

CIVIL NUCLEAR

Uranium ore processed into yellowcake, or magnesium diuranate, at the mill at Jaduguda in Jharkhand. At the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, this yellowcake is fabricated into fuel bundles that power the 13 indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors in the country. Eastern Jharkhand the only state in India mining the uranium ore.

by Raymond Kharmujai
Shillong (AFP) India, June 17, 2007
Villagers are fighting back against plans to mine uranium in northeast India, saying it will put their health at risk and destroy the environment. Residents voiced opposition at this week's hearing into the state-run Uranium Corporation of India Ltd's plan to mine in hilly, tribal-run areas.

News of the hearing by Meghalaya state's pollution control board, held in a remote village north of the state capital Shillong, trickled out with many participants not immediately available for comment.

"Seventy-five percent of the 700 people who attended the public hearing at Nongbah Jynrin village, near the proposed uranium mining areas, opposed the project," said senior district official Freeman Kharlyngdoh.

Villagers were mainly worried about the health effects of the project, said Kharlyngdoh who attended the hearing in the village of Nongbah Jynrin 150 kilometres (94 miles) north of Shillong.

Opponents say radiation from the mines puts communities at increased risk of cancer and other health problems.

"We are against mining because we fear health hazards to our people and we want the UCIL to defer the mining until this issue is clarified," said Plasterwell Syiemiong, the Khasi tribal chief.

Syiemiong said he had conveyed this view to the pollution control board after holding his own hearing on the issue among his people.

Still, the mines found some supporters among those whose land is to be acquired by the company as the area is poor and jobs are scarce.

"We want the mining. We have been living here and do not see any health hazards," said Heas Dienglan, who heads a federation of the six villages that the state-run mining company wants to buy.

The Khasi Students Union, the most powerful student body in the state, however vowed to vehemently protest the project.

"We will continue to agitate and will not allow the mining whatever happens," said student leader Manbaker Lapang following the hearing.

The pollution board will now forward its findings from the hearing to a special committee in charge of the environmental review for the project.

The debate over opening tribal areas to mining comes as India, which imports some 70 percent of its oil requirements, looks around for new sources of power to keep its burgeoning economy growing.

But India has few supplies of natural uranium to feed such power projects, with eastern Jharkhand the only state mining the heavy metal.

Mining there has been plagued with allegations that tribal communities living nearby have higher than average birth defects and that water polluted by mine tailings has been linked to cancer.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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CIVIL NUCLEAR

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