25 Years after Three Mile Island, Industry-wide Problems Increase
NC WARN joins citizen groups across the nation this week observing the 25th anniversary of the Three Mile Island meltdown. Just as the industry and the NRC pretend that Three Mile Island didn’t hurt anyone, they are pushing the deception that U.S. plants now are safer than ever.
Below are several key pieces of information that refute that dangerous mindset:
Admiral Hyman Rickover deeply regretted persuading President Carter to suppress
“alarming” information that TMI was “infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public.”
“In May, 1983, my father-in-law, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, told me that at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident a full report was commissioned by President Jimmy Carter. He (my father-in-law) said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry, because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. He told me that he had used his enormous personal influence with President Carter to persuade him to publish the report only in a highly ‘diluted’ form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public.
In November, 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report.”
Jane Rickover, Toronto, Canada. July 18, 1986. (notarized statement)
“In 2003, the industry saw the highest number of safety system actuations since 1995, the highest number of scrams while critical since 1996; the highest precursor occurrence rate since 1991; and reported the highest [generating] capacity factor in history. The reason that capacity factors are at record levels and safety is dropping fast is related to the first item — the NRC is prioritizing business at the expense of safety. If NRC keeps it up, they are going to kill somebody. “
David Lochbaum, Nuclear Safety Engineer at Union of Concerned Scientists March 2004
Testimonials from residents living near Three Mile Island:
www.tmia.com/accident/witness.html
3 Mile Island Cover-Up: Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s Signed, Notarized Statement, 1998
www.mothersalert.org/bertell.html
High doses of radiation may have injured people living downwind of TMI, scientists at
UNC-CH say:
www.tmia.com/healthsafety/wing4.html
Refuting the NRC on causes and consequences of the TMI accident, March 2004:
