MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH NUCLEAR POWER [View all]

[kadaholo]

I became aware of Arnie Gundersen (http://www.fairewinds.org) just after the accident at TMI here in Pennsylvania. On the morning of March 28, a problem in the Number 2 Reactor at TMI triggered a series of mishaps that led eventually to the meltdown of half of the uranium fuel and sparked uncontrolled releases of radiation that were literally "off the charts" of monitoring devices.

Working as a teacher within the 50 mile radius of the accident, I was blithely traveling to school on the morning of the March 28th TMI event when I happened to roll down the windows of my bright orange VW Beetle on that warm March morning. What I encountered as the windows opened was unlike anything I had experienced in my life. I had the unmistakable sensation "sweet metallic particles" landing in my nasal passage and throat. The best description I could articulate at the time was it was as if "sweet metallic powdered sugar" had been landing in my nose and throat.

Only later did I learn that there had been incident at Three Mile Island. Of course, we were getting only bits and pieces of what was actually happening there. Everyone, of course, was beyond frustration with the pallid assurances that TMI posed no threat.

We had teachers secretly keeping radios on throughout the teaching day to eke out any updates on the changing condition of the reactor and TMI site. Our science teacher immediately sent his pregnant wife as far as possible from the 50 mile radius where we taught our students each day. Each morning I would pack my car before going to school with clothes and food in preparation of a possible evacuation in the event of a total meltdown. Going to and from work I checked the roadways for any sign of police that might suggest organization for such an evacuation. When pressed by staff about whether to even send our district's elementary students out to recess, the Superindent responded that the kids "needed fresh air" more than any hidden threat of the evolving TMI incident.

Often when I would go outdoors, I would become aware of a dull ache in my thyroid area and my heart would begin to skip beats. In addition, there were numerous reports of animal anomalies following the accident, some of which are recorded in the book Three Mile Island: The People's Testament, which is based on interviews with 250 area residents done between 1979 and 1988 by Katagiri Mitsuru and Aileen M. Smith. Additional overview here: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/04/03/startling-revelations-about-three-mile-island-nuclear-disaster . Fortunately, folks like Arnie Gundersen (now at fairewinds.org) were working to document first-hand experiences and make sense of the science and mathematics of the runaway reactor.

Having stood teaching in front of my guileless students under the minute-by-minute threat of a possible meltdown and evacuation of the entire region within 50 miles of TMI, I can only ask the question, "Who in their right mind ever thought this technology should have been developed?"

How many more sites like Chernobyl, nuclear waste facilities, and nuclear power plants will sit like menacing monsters threatening life for the next 3000 years?