Remembrances of Three Mile Island

[Mike 03]

I was rather young when Three Mile Island happened.

The strangest thing to me is how my recollection of events at Three Mile Island became so conflated with my experience of seeing one of my first movies in a theater, "The China Syndrome."

I think I had been reassured (whether false or true) that Three Mile Island was frightening but ultimately no big deal.

But I remember my parents taking me and my sisters to see "The China Syndrome" (a great film for its time) and the shudder that ran through the audience when there was a line about a nuclear meltdown basically being able to (this is approximate, from memory) "render a state the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable." The audience just whooshed. Other than the finale of "Carrie," I can't remember a more emotional reaction from an audience watching a movie.

I'm obsessed with cancer clusters, but I have to confess I've not paid enough attention to whether or not there have been cancer clusters in and around Three Mile Island. Does anyone know?

[begin_within]

1. I was in college and it was scary

I remember one of our professors ditching his prepared lecture and spending the whole time talking about it. There was an air of fear about it, as if it was going to be a major, widespread catastrophe.

[femmocrat]

2. I remember Three Mile Island very well. We were terrified.

* (Steve Wing, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill school of public health) . . .

" *Wing also questioned the official line that the accident at Three Mile Island had a negligible impact on the health of nearby residents.

A study led by Wing, which hypothesized that radioactive plumes from the accident would have been carried by the wind to nearby communities, found that the rates of lung cancer and leukemia in downwind areas were up to 30 times higher than in upwind areas."


This snip is from an article about the 30th anniversary of Three Mile Island, not specifically about the health effects.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/27


I found an old NYT article on Google from 1990 that said there weren't any significant increases in cancer rates. Could be the "official line" to which Wing referred.

[FarLeftRage]

3. One of my father's co-workers was living in the area

at the time of the TMI accident... he died from skin cancer a few years ago.

The thing is, just after it happened, he and his family moved away as quickly as they could.

I know of no information regarding cancer clusters around TMI...

[Muttocracy]

4. this looks like an interesting article on it in a good peer-reviewed journal

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2003/6200/6200.pdf

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. I made a post about this at my blog.

Three Mile Island and other disasters - 30 years later


http://lavidacountry.wordpress.com

Find out what the other disaster is. :D

[lucretia54]

6. People don't realize just how close we came to disaster...

If you Google "The dangers of nuclear power" there are multitudes of accounts of damage done and problems with the whole nuclear power plant cycle, and there is a minute by minute narrative by Scott Johnson of the events as they occurred at Three Mile Island- http://kd4dcy.net/tmi/part1.html . It is hard to find good solid statistics on the cancer rates after a plant has an accident, because how are the power companies to get their licenses if truth be told? However, there are plenty of accounts of stillbirths, miscarriages, deformed livestock and pets after TMI. Overall, cancer rates have been found to be 16% higher within a 100 mile radius of a nuclear power plant, because they regularly release radioactive emissions into the atmosphere. These emissions, which include Cesium 137, Iodine131, and Strontium 90, settle on land and in water. When ingested by humans these radioactive isotopes are absorbed into bones, fatty tissue and glands where they can cause damage for decades. A good 50 year study will really show the effect of the TMI "incident."

[NutmegYankee]

11. "because they regularly release radioactive emissions into the atmosphere"

Got anything to back that up?

[AnnieBW]

7. I grew up in PA

Pittsburgh, but still close enough. We were worried, but we figured that the prevailing winds would carry any fallout away from us towards Philly. I had a friend from college who grew up downstream from TMI. She said that every time she went home, she'd hear about more people having cancer.

[azmouse]

8. I lived in the Reading area at that time... only 50 miles away from TMI.

It was a very scary time indeed. As for cancers, my cousin was 3 months pregnant at the time. Her daughter born that year has had cancer since the age of about 20. We often wonder if there may be some link. No way to ever know.

[MountainLaurel]

9. I remember by grandmother telling me

That the radiation could come over the mountains and make us all sick (we were about 5 hours from Harrisburg), and my grandmother's main news source was gossip around town.

[roamer65]

10. Wow.. 30 years ago but I remember it well.

...and I have my "lil yellow boots on".

Seriously, we dodged a bullet on TMI.

Read about Davis-Besse, Toledo Edison's nuke plant and how close that Babcock-Wilcox piece of shit came to a "incident". Only 1/4 of an inch of cracked stainless steel away from an event worse than TMI.

http://www.nirs.org/photogallery/davisbesseimages.htm

TMI and Davis Besse are Babcock and Wilcox reactors. I wonder if the remaining operational TMI unit has the same problem that was found at Davis Besse?

[MiniMe]

12. Remember it well. I had just seen The China Syndrome right before it happened

And I remember that line well. I'm in the DC area and we were keeping a close eye on it. There were conspiracy theories back then about Three Mile Island being fake and just a promotion for the movie. It was a big coincidence that the meltdown happened at the same time the movie was released, but I was never one to believe the conspiracy. And yes, it was scary.