Month: April 2012

 

As part of the Batten School’s Energy Policy Forum, SELC’s Cale Jaffe (right) and Virginia Uranium Inc.’s Patrick Wales (left) debated the necessity and safety of mining for uranium in Virginia, fielding questions from students of law, leadership and public policy, and environmental science. (Katharine E. Myer)

The debate over uranium mining in Virginia came to UVA last week, as Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Cale Jaffe joined Virginia Uranium Inc. project manager Patrick Wales as part of the Batten School’s Energy Policy Forum.

For two hours on Friday, Jaffe and Wales tackled the thorny issue of mining uranium in southern Virginia, and fielded questions from students, faculty, and members of the community.

According to Uranium Virginia, Coles Hill farm in Pittsylvania County is home to the largest uranium deposit in the U.S., and one of the largest in the world. It was discovered in 1978, but has remained untouched due to a 30-year statewide ban on uranium mining. The SELC is at the forefront of the effort to keep the ban in tact and is one of 16 groups in the statewide Keep the Ban Coalition, but Virginia Uranium announced in 2007 it plans to exploit the deposit.

Wales explained during the debate that the process of extracting uranium from rock is a fairly simple one, and it is merely the “separation of one natural ingredient from granite rock.”

In a written response to Governor McDonnell’s announcement regarding the ban, Wales said “uranium mining can be conducted safely in Virginia as long as stringent regulatory standards and industry best practices are put in place.”

But the SELC is concerned about the safety of the process, regardless of any regulatory standards or industry best practices—consider, Jaffe said, that the BP oil spill happened two years ago this month, despite stringent regulations on Gulf drilling.

Jaffe said the controversy over uranium is about waste management. In addition to the actual mining, he said, the process would also require milling, with the disposal of 58 billion pounds of toxic, radioactive tailings each year. 

According to Jaffe, these tailings retain 85 percent of their radioactive activity, and global studies have shown that those living and working near uranium mines are at risk for cancer, birth defects, weakened immune systems, and kidney and liver damage.

“We need to take these warning signs very seriously before we move forward,” he said. 

Wales said Uranium Virginia has “top notch” state regulators, who ensure the prevention of environmental disasters, and their regulations have been rated as 99.9 percent effective. 

Despite these statistics, Jaffe said the SELC fears that, right now, the risks are just too great to move the project forward. Because Virginia has not yet been mined for uranium, Jaffe said, there is no way of knowing how the area’s climate, rainfall and natural disasters will factor into the equation. Uranium is traditionally mined in dryer areas like the western states, and Jaffe fears that, even with “gold standard” regulations, mining in Virginia will present unexpected complications unseen in other uranium deposits.

“Risk is inherent and will always be there,” Jaffe said.

Wales argued that not utilizing the uranium deposits in the U.S. puts the nation at a greater risk: the risk of being too dependent on foreign countries for natural energy resources. 

“There is no material, from an energy perspective, that we are more dependent on foreign producers [for] than uranium,” he said, noting that the US imports 92 percent of the uranium used to power nuclear reactors.

Uranium is essential in the U.S., he said, because aside from natural gas and coal, there is “no other option for cheap, reliable, and safe electricity.”

“Do we need this stuff?” asked Wales. “The answer is absolutely yes.”

An architectural rendering showing a possible site plan for a mixed-income housing development on a city-owned dump site next to Oakwood Cemetery in the Ridge Street neighborhood. (Courtesy Southern Development)

One of the largest plots of undeveloped city-owned land near Downtown—long used as a dumping ground for fill dirt and debris—is slated to become a new 47-unit mixed-income neighborhood, ushered into being by a builder-nonprofit partnership that some say is a model for the future of low-income and public housing development in Charlottesville.

In a hearing last week, City Council expressed initial support for a joint proposal from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and Southern Development to clear and build on the 3.5-acre lot on Elliott Avenue next to the old Oakwood Cemetery. The city has debated selling off the parcel for years, said Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Tolbert. Last spring, the city met with residents to talk about what they would want to see on the site—no high-rises, sustainable design, appropriate density—and the city started requesting proposals in October.

Habitat Director Dan Rosensweig said the will to build affordable was evidence that the city has the right idea about development.

“There’s no NIMBY here in Charlottesville,” he said, referring to the “not-in-my-backyard” attitude some communities have toward low-income housing. “We continue to break the mold and find new ways to partner.”

But not everybody agrees on the details.

Besides the Habitat team, one other set of players stepped up with a plan for the site. Local development services company Milestone Partners partnered with the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, calling on a professional team that included architect Giovanna Galfione who lives near the site with her husband, former mayor Maurice Cox.

The Milestone team also had the support of adjacent property owners, including former City Council candidate Brevy Cannon, former mayor Blake Caravati and Barbara Pilkey, all of whom agreed to throw in their lots with the Milestone team. The partnership would almost double the site size, allowing it to stretch all the way to Oak Street to the northeast and making room for a total of 50 to 60 housing units.

Both proposals offered up good ideas for the vacant site, said Tolbert. Both planned for a relatively high-density neighborhood with mixed-income units and shared green space. But Tolbert said the Habitat team’s plan came with less risk attached for the city, and forged better partnerships with city and nonprofit agencies.

Milestone and the PHA offered $550,000 for the site, less the cost of cleanup, but they wanted the city to offer them a $500,000 loan to help cover the substantial cleanup. Habitat and Southern, however, proposed paying $10 for the property and assuming all costs of cleanup—no city funds required.

“They’re both very good projects, but our best estimate is that the cleanup costs are probably going to approach a million dollars,” Tolbert said, and if someone else was willing to shoulder all the risk, then all the better.

He said the city also liked the Habitat team’s Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority-backed plan to set aside a quarter of the approximately 20 affordable units for residents coming out of public housing.

But the partnership with adjacent landowners could be salvaged.

“Our first call would be to the other team,” Rosensweig said. He hopes the other property owners will get behind his project, and he said his partners are open to incorporating ideas from the other proposal. They’re delivering a kit of parts to the city, he said, but the site plan is still very much a work in progress.

“All the designs are conceptual at this point,” he said. “All ideas are on the table.”
Cooperation is in the cards, according to Cannon. Caravati and Pilkey, who rent out nearby properties, have been figuring out how best to use their lots for years, said Cannon.

Everyone wants to see the land put to good use.
But they have concerns. They want more points of entry for proper traffic circulation, Cannon said, and they’d like to see another developer besides Southern—responsible for numerous new developments in the neighborhood in recent years—take a crack at building in the Ridge Street area.

But the biggest issue, he said, is the amount of affordable units Habitat and Southern plan to squeeze into the plot.

“For a development this small, the understood best way to do it is to have no more than a third affordable housing,” he said. The Milestone team hit that ratio, but the Habitat plan calls for 43 percent affordable units in what Cannon said is “public housing central.” Another development with a high percentage of low-income housing south of Downtown could do more damage than good, he said, bringing down property values and jeopardizing the long-term viability of the project.

City Councilor Dede Smith offered a similar opinion at the Council hearing.
“I live on the south side of Charlottesville,” she said. “The south side bears the biggest brunt of poverty, and we’re putting more poverty there.”
But she and her fellow councilors ultimately indicated they’ll vote in favor of city staffers’ suggestion to pick the Habitat proposal when they meet again May 7.

Habitat’s Rosensweig said the cooperation bodes well for Charlottesville. He and local officials agree that the city has a high hurdle ahead when it comes to the pressing need to update public housing. The key to paying for it, they say, is forging partnerships between the city and community-minded developers willing to forgo some profit in order to supply new homes for struggling families—with some help from nonprofit groups.
The Elliott Avenue site is a good first step, said Rosensweig.

“I think this is an amazing template for how it should happen,” he said. “Taxpayers won’t have to pay a penny, and the risk is borne by a private entity who at the end of the day will make a little bit of money. Everyone is playing to their strengths.”

Not everyone tackling redevelopment projects is going to agree on every detail, he said, “but there are certain fundamentals where there’s a high degree of consensus.”

The family of Yeardley Love is also seeking the evidence used to convict George Huguely of her murder. The judge in the case is still deciding whether to grant six media companies access to trial documents. (Photo courtesy Charlottesville Police Department)

Attorney Mahlon Funk appeared before Judge Edward Hogshire in Charlottesville Circuit Court Thursday on behalf of Love’s mother, Sharon Love, to argue for the court’s release of trial documents, saying they were necessary for the family’s pending wrongful death suit against as-yet unnamed plaintiffs. His was the second hearing on the release of the evidence that afternoon, coming on the heels of another round of arguments for and against making the court documents available to six media companies who filed for access before the trial ended and have been fighting for it since.

“We now don’t have the luxury of time,” said Funk as a shackled Huguely, who awaits an August 30 sentencing date, looked on. “There’s a pesky little thing called the statute of limitations,” which gives the family until May 3 to file their civil suit.

“Unlike the media, my client presents no danger whatsoever of sensationalizing (the evidence) in any way,” said Funk. “They intend to honor the memory of Yeardley.”

Their intent doesn’t really matter, said the other attorneys.

Huguely lawyer Francis McQ. Lawrence said the media and the family have the same standing when it comes to court-ordered access to the evidence, and he reiterated the defense’s argument: Making the evidence available now would infringe on Huguely’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial if his request for a new one—as yet unrequested by his lawyers—is successful.

Robert Yates, the local attorney representing the media companies, agreed that Love’s family has no greater right as litigants than the public does.

“The public’s right, even though nobody up there wants to admit it, is pretty strong,” he said.

Hogshire didn’t rule in favor or against the release of documents and exhibits to Love’s attorney, but according to Funk, Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman can—and will—share the evidence in order to allow the civil case to go forward.
Whether the media will get to see what jurors saw remains up in the air.
Yates offered up two options for granting access to the trial evidence, which he has argued was presented to jurors in such a way that the media and the public couldn’t see it, creating a de facto closed trial.

One plan was to load everything, including photographs, text message transcripts, and the video of Huguely’s interrogation by police, onto a read-only computer terminal in the court clerk’s office and allow the media and the public to access it at will—not for reproduction, but just for viewing.

Acknowledging that such an approach would require the clerk to spend an enormous amount of time chaperoning viewers, Yates offered another suggestion: Put the transcripts and other non-sensitive evidence—no autopsy photos—on a CD and distribute burned copies.

But Huguely’s lawyers said that given the high-profile nature of the trial, there would be no way to keep even the sensitive material from making its way to publication. That, they said, would deny their client the right to an unbiased jury pool if he ended up back in court.
“If we make a mistake with the handling of this evidence, we can’t take it back,” said defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana.

Yates argued that the proverbial cat was already out of the bag.

“The trial already happened,” he said. “Everybody knows a jury found him guilty,” and the evidence is now part of the public record. The law is clear, he said. In order to block access, “you have to articulate a reason, and not a hypothetical reason. The threat of a new trial is a hypothetical reason.”

Hogshire said he was sensitive to the rights of the public to see the trial evidence, but needed more time before he issued a ruling.
“I don’t have a lot of guidance here, and I want to give it some really careful thought,” he said.

Yates maintains precedent is on his clients’ side. He’s been proceeded with patience and accommodated the court, he said, because that’s what you do here.

“I should be up on my First Amendment soapbox saying we should have access to everything,” he said. “But this is Charlottesville.”

 

Charlottesville High School prom night 2008, as captured in the new photo-essay Prom by Mary Ellen Mark.

The prom is a major event in a teenager’s life. Arguably, the girls more than the boys, look forward to it all year. They obsess over what to wear and how they’ll do their hair. The guys, whether they admit it or not, get anxious over whether their crush will say “yes” to being their date. When prom arrives, and everyone is styled up, the next step in the ritual is to get a photo taken as a lasting memento.

Looking at the images in Mary Ellen Mark’s new photographic essay, Prom (April 2012, J. Paul Getty Museum), it’s eerie how closely the event approximates some kind of fleeting marriage. Maybe it’s some precursor of what’s to come as they step into an adult world? Many of the teenagers in Mark’s portraits already appear to be experiencing some grown-up issues—pregnancy, love, cancer—heady stuff. Looking back on the project, Mark has a brighter perspective. “I was very moved by the optimism of the youth,” she said. Mark is known worldwide for her commercial photographs, exhibitions, and documentary photo books including Seen Behind the Scene, which features her work as a unit photographer on such movie sets as Network, Apocalypse Now, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This is her 18th book and is accompanied by a documentary directed by her husband Martin Bell.

Prom features 129 black and white portraits shot between 2006 and 2009, during which Mark visited 13 high schools from Newark to Cape Cod to here in Charlottesville. Diverse student populations were a prerequisite when it came to selecting locations. Charlottesville had “a lot of bold kids who were really ‘out there’.” Yet, it was traditional enough to remind her of her own prom in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. “Most of the high schools had their proms at a big hotel or some other place, where Charlottesville High School actually had their prom at the high school, which I really liked,” said Mark.

To photograph the students, she used a 6′, 240 pound Polaroid 20×24 Land Camera. Only seven still exist. With a 20×24, there are no negatives—each image is a final print. “You have to make a decision right away. The film is very expensive, so you can’t overshoot. You make a decision about the scale, the picture, and what you want and you shoot that,” said Mark. She favors the 20×24 because the photo becomes “a beautiful object that’s very much about detail.”

In Prom, that detail is depicted in the eyes, since the majority of students aren’t smiling in their pictures. This is intentional since Mark prefers natural, real expressions in her portrait subjects. “If someone is just smiling for the camera, its kind of a fake smile and it always looks that way. So if someone bursts out laughing and it’s a real smile then it’s fine. But I never say ‘smile’,” she said. More personal expression can be seen in the styles of dress. From traditional prom gowns and funky thrift shop finds to the unique camouflage dress with stud embellishments or the striking white tuxedo and Mohawk hairdo.

Prom captures the diversity of America’s student body—and yet, each student could have attended any of the other schools. They are all the same and different at once. What Mark’s photo essay accomplishes is to ask what’s going on behind their eyes, which have already seen a lot. You wonder, “What were they thinking—in that instant?”