About the accident at TMI that began thirty years ago yesterday, so many ways to release a sigh. But since breath and space hems into now, I offer a bit of what I’ve been reading and watching on this marked weekend.
The question in contention, still, as much now as then: how did the plant and the accident change the people and the environment in Lancaster County, PA? If you visit the links included here, you’ll see that opinions clash: splits embodied not just in fractured facts and disparate data but also in the mottled shadows of the cooling towers. These silhouettes kaleidescope through time and reach each of us in a different form: as workers, as consumers, as children, as citizens, as parents, as animals in a tripped field. A story without unity, a story demanding dissonance.
Here, in Voices from Three Mile Island, by Robert Leppzer, some citizens dissent from the official history, claiming personal damages:
“For two weeks after the accident, there wasn’t a sign of a bird anywhere,” remembers Jane Lee, a dairy farmer three miles northwest of TMI. “York County, where I live, is notorious for its starlings…They come by the hundreds of thousands in wave after wave and cloud after cloud,” Lee said, “but they never showed up this year.” Ever since the plant began operating about one year before, Lee and other area farmers had also begun to notice an unusual number of stillbirths in their cattle and other animals. Many also suffered from hypocalcemia, bones so soft that the animals couldn’t stand up. Across the river from TMI that Wednesday in 1979, Bill Whittock went into town to pick up his mail and noticed a metallic taste in his mouth. Neighbors he met in town also tasted the metal, like sucking on a penny, they said. (Voices from TMI audio program)
TO LOOK + LISTEN:
“CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite”
News broadcast from the third day of the accident, March 30, 1979
“American Experience: Meltdown at Three Mile Island”
A PBS documentary, available in six parts on YouTube: one of the most comprehensive overviews of the accident I’ve seen.
The nonprofit group critical of nuclear power recognizes the anniversary, includes an interview with Arnie Gundersen on the levels of accidental radiation released.
“People Died At Three Mile Island”
This account by Harvey Wasserman feels alarmist, but may include some important channels to glance down, or stare down… or turn down as white noise.
TO SAY:
Do you have memories of the accident at Three Mile Island that you would like to share? Email fissionkitchen@gmail.com.
