As the U.S. revisits uranium mining the industry and towns consider profit forgetting what that profit has cost them in the past:

"Over the decades, many area miners contracted lung disease from poor mine ventilation and from smoking. Despite that legacy, some residents insist that their fathers, brothers and grandfathers would have continued to mine and work the mills, even if they knew it would make them sick. The ethic of putting food on the table and a devotion to the industry trump worries over health, they said."

Jobs that kill are not stimulating the economy. They are devastating and preying on communities that are desperate. Elva Archer Ayers, a Redvale resident since 1930, whose family worked at Uravan and other mine and milling sites:

"I lost five brothers, my husband, two brothers — lost with cancer," Ayers said. "I don't have a feeling that we shouldn't go ahead (with the mill.) Our kids has got to live."

How will these children live if the lessons of the past are ignored and uranium mining is, once again, permitted? They will live and die like their fathers and uncles, with cancer. Is that worth it? Or should this country invest in renewable energy and the jobs it will bring, providing both energy and the real possibility that these children and our planet will have a more hopeful, more viable future.

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Ex-Colorado mining towns hope for uranium comeback: Rema Rahman l Bloomberb Business Week  September 07, 2012