Schapiro: Executive asks, 'Is uranium a good business?'

Ben Davenport Jr.'s farm, where he and his family will spend Christmas, is 4 miles northeast of Coles Hill, site of a proposed uranium mine. The Davenport place, in Pittsylvania County, is hard by the Banister River, which mine opponents predict would be poisoned with radioactive waste. Davenport doesn't share that fear. He has other concerns.

"The question I have is the stigma," says Davenport. "We're being asked to endorse a risk."

Davenport, a politically muscular investor-executive who until now has been publicly silent on the proposed mine outside his picturesque hometown of Chatham, is a reminder that more than just the fringes are following the high-decibel uranium debate; that there are reasonable people — the vast middle — caught in the middle of a seemingly inconclusive argument.

Davenport is a committed capitalist, a property-rights guy and default Republican given to occasionally backing a Democrat. Long active in efforts to jump-start Southside's sputtering economy, Davenport got into a very public hissing match over the issue with a GOP governor, Jim Gilmore, in 1999. Davenport believes his region must shake its dependence on agriculture and what remains of its manufacturing base. But he's skeptical about uranium mining — and lifting the state's 30-year ban on it.

Proponents hope Davenport and others can be won over with facts. Any day now, the National Academy of Sciences will release an industry-bankrolled report on uranium mining in Virginia, though it is not specific to the Coles Hill site. Academy representatives are expected to discuss their findings Monday with a legislative panel.

"There are lots of fair-minded people who are keeping their powder dry until the report is issued," says lobbyist Whitt Clement, a former Democratic legislator and transportation secretary whose campaigns were financed, in part, by Davenport. Clement is among 16 lobbyists paid nearly $270,000 since 2009 by Virginia Uranium Inc., headed by Clement's brother-in-law, Walter Coles Sr.

Uncertainty is the bane of business, and listening to Davenport, the proposed mine is generating a mother lode. He worries that, with Canadian bankers backing the venture, more money would flow north of the border than through Southside. He worries about possible declines in enrollment at Hargrave Military Academy, of which Davenport is an alumnus and trustee. He worries property values will fall.

"Why would you come here, if you felt threatened?" said Davenport, whose fuel and waste-hauling companies employ more than 300 people along the Virginia-North Carolina border.

A recent report for a state panel attempts to sort out the economic pluses and minuses of uranium mining and milling. It generally depicts the project as a boon, but not without environmental risks. Among other things, the report says public fears could contribute to a temporary decline in real estate values, particularly property near Coles Hill. That might include Davenport's farm, Banister Bend. But he's not selling — and doesn't plan to.

Ramsey Yeatts, a banker-turned-property agent, won't say whether the proposed mine is already taking a toll on business. "The best way to answer the question is that it's more of an unknown. It's just … that I can't go there now."

But will Yeatts after the National Academy of Sciences report is out? Or this Friday, when the Danville Regional Foundation, set up with millions from the sale of a local hospital, makes public at a Chamber of Commerce meeting its snapshot on uranium mining's socio-economic impact?

To Davenport, a fourth study — on the possible threat of mining to Southside rivers and lakes that slake the thirst of Virginia Beach — makes the issue too knotty, too complicated and too emotional to be decided next year. That means a quick resolution is unlikely for Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is looking for anything that passes for a win on energy.

Davenport wants the legislature to set up a commission that would spend a year — that will keep lobbyists on both sides happily billing — sorting out the numerous findings of the various studies. The panel would then recommend whether Virginia should lift its moratorium on uranium mining and milling, opening not just Coles Hill but the entire state to an industry that thrives in Canada, Europe and Asia.

"Being a businessman," says Davenport, "being somebody who believes in the free-enterprise system, I have real concerns about government strangulating something I perceive as good business. But in this case, we have to have a balance."