Submitted February 4, 2008, 1:39 PM
What do you remember about the accident at Three Mile Island? How did you hear about what happened at the plant? What was your reaction?
This was probably the single most frightening and disturbing news report I had ever heard in my lifetime. I recall hearing of the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who kept the New York area in fear daily in 1977, but realistically this killer was only takong out one person at a time, while the sheer number of people who could be affected by the nuclear fallout of TMI was potentially in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, and included those living at the time in a certain radius and wind direction of the fallout area, as well as countless unborn generations. This had the potential of affecting many more people for a much longer period of time.
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If you were a resident living close-by the plant, please describe your experiences. If you had preschool children or were pregnant at the time, did you follow the evacuation advisory? Did you flee the area?
I was living about 200 miles northeast of Harrisburg at the time and my first thought was that this distance might be enough to protect me and my family and neighbors from harm. However, after reading more about the harmful consequences of detectable or even undetectable levels of radioactive fallout, and as a direct result of this accident, I moved 2600 miles west to Nevada, where I live now. I feel safer in some ways yet in other ways I do not because of plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository planned for 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which I don't feel can ever be guaranteed to be completely safe; including the highways that vehicles carrying nuclear waste would be traveling upon. I hold less trust in the federal government now than I did during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
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What did you think of the responses of the government, the industry and the press to the accident?
The immediate response was the typical blame game, with no one person who would take complete responsibility. I was more impressed with the long term follow-up studies which have been independently conducted over the next twenty five years. This gave me some faith in mankind, some degree of solace that in the long run, we do accept responsibility and make corrections to the way we handle such events.
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What are your reflections about the Three Mile Island accident more than two decades later? If you live or lived in the area, what longterm effects did TMI have on your family and community? Did the accident affect your opinion about nuclear power and other technologies?
I have been impressed with the long term follow-up studies independently conducted over the next twenty five years. This has given me some faith in mankind's intent, some degree of solace on knowing that in the long term we do allow ourselves to accept full responsibility for our actions and do find ways to make corrections to our course including the way we handle accidents and. I think that we may have better systems in place to minimize loss of life, to avert disaster, and keep loss of life at an acceptably low level compared with the benefit to the economy and the strength of our nation.
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Do you have any further thoughts or reflections about Three Mile Island?
I think we as a people may have had a knee-jerk reaction, myself included, perhaps driven by fear, that has caused us a great loss of one of the most promising sources of alternative energy in the last century, with the result being that we have become much too dependent on oil when we should have continued to advance further in the direction of nuclear energy sources, learning from experience how to correct our course by studying new methods and new approaches to safety. I believe that the possible benefits of nuclear energy would have ultimately outweighed any question of safety.
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In addition to saving your story to the archive, may we post it to the web? (yes/no)
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