Category: Content Type (Page 13 of 36)

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: ‘Beginning of End of Atomic Power’-Nader
Author: Patricia Koza, United Press International

WASHINGTON-For Ralph Nader, the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is “the beginning of the end of atomic power in this country.”

Nader made the comment Sunday in urging the government to immediately begin evacuating cities within a 30-mile radius of the plant site.

“The accident at Three Mile Island and the subsequent disclosures spell the beginning of the end for atomic power in this country,” said Nader, a longtime foe of nuclear power.

“The American people are receiving at last, in a compelling way, the truth about the dangers, the high costs and the lack of reliability of atomic energy,” he told a news conference.

THE CONSUMER advocate said he and his researchers “believe there should be stage-by-stage evacuation of the 700,000 residents living within a 30-mile radius of the disabled Three Mile Island unit” because of three factors:

-The possibility, suggested by the Nuclear Regulator Commission, of a hydrogen explosion in the reactor.
-The “significant” release of radioactivity by the plant in the last few days.
-what he called the lack of federal and state emergency preparedness plans for nuclear accidents.

Nader said in 1975 his Public Interest Research Group and 30 other citizen groups petitioned the commission to require that persons living near nuclear plants be notified of emergency evacuation plans and that all states hold drills to see if the plans work.

HE SAID the petition was rejected, but his group now plans to resubmit it.

He said he will urge Congress to repeal the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the amount of damages victims may collect in the event of a nuclear accident.

Nader said that for years he has opposed the construction of nuclear plants.

“Unless we are willing to tolerate the real risk of one or more major atomic power disasters in this country, disasters which could inflict radioactive death and disease on present and future generations on hundreds of thousands of people…we must shut down the nuclear power industry in this country,” he said.

Nader called on President Carter to make good on recommendations he made while on the campaign trail in 1976. He said Carter, a nuclear engineer while in the Navy, had called for underground nuclear reactors, location of plants in sparsely populated areas and federal inspectors on constant duty at plant sites.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 2, 1979
Title: Carter Visit has Calming Effect
Author: Jim Kershner, the Evening Sentinel

A “stable” situation at Three Mile Island and a visit by President Jimmy Carter calmed the fears of many central Pennsylvanians Sunday.

Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters Sunday afternoon the uranium fuel cells in the core of the reactor were cooling down to below 500 degrees and that he is convinced the size of the potentially dangerous hydrogen and oxygen bubble in the reactor is decreasing-both hopeful signs.

President Carter, after personally inspecting the crippled nuclear reactor, assured area residents “the reactor core is indeed stable.”

In a brief statement in Middletown Borough Hall, the president confirmed the possibility of an evacuation. But he added that if an evacuation is ordered, “it will not indicate that danger is high.”
He said any evacuation order would come from Gov. Dick Thornburgh and urged that any such order “be carried out calmly.”

ALTHOUGH STATE and county officials readied plans to evacuate areas within 20 miles of the plant, no evacuation has been ordered.

President Carter made it clear that Denton was in charge of the situation at the reactor and said Denton “has the confidence of the American people.”

The president did not answer questions at a Middletown press conference, but left Denton to field reporters’ inquiries.

Denton said if the size of the gas bubble in the pressurizer is successfully reduced by present methods it is possible the plant can be brought to a “cold shutdown” status without evacuating any people.

These methods include the use of hydrogen recombiners, machines that combine potentially explosive hydrogen and oxygen gases into water. He said the recombiners were to begin operation late Sunday night.

He said the scientists would decide “within the next few days” whether any new course of action would be required to end the crisis.

HE SAID they had “five or six days” before the gas in the pressurizer became capable of causing an explosion.

He made it clear the NRC was keeping a close rein on the plant’s operator, Metropolitan Edison Co.

“We have an unequivocal understanding that we will concur in advance,” before Met-Ed takes any new actions, he said.

The technical explanations from Denton indicated the situation was stable, but the crisis was far from over.

But neighbors of the nuclear power plant appeared to have been calmed considerably by the presidential visit.

“I guess if it’s safe enough for him, it’s safe enough for us,” said Steelton resident John Zales after catching a glimpse of the president entering Middletown Borough Hall.

“We were on pins and needles,” said his wife, Mary.

MIDDLETOWN MAYOR Robert Reid said after Carter left, “I’m more confident today than I was yesterday. I didn’t put too much faith in what the (Met-Ed) company said.”

While the president was talking to reporters Sunday afternoon, First Lady Rosalyn Carter stepped out of her limousine to greet residents gathered around the borough hall.

At the reactor Sunday afternoon plant workers leaving the site were pleased by the president’s visit.

One nuclear engineer from Babcock and Wilcox, the firm that manufactured the plant, said the president shook his hand and said “good luck.”

He said the president spent about 30 minutes in the plant’s control room getting briefed by Denton.
Carter, a former Navy nuclear engineer, was quite knowledgeable about the operation, he said.

A procession of trucks brought special equipment, lead bricks and loads of stone onto the island, while 12 trailers were brought to the observation center on the shore to set up a command post for the NRC.

MEANWHILE, AT Hershey about 150 evacuees spent their second night in the Hersheypark Arena.

Pregnant women and pre-school children were asked Friday to leave the area within five miles of the plant. Many were joined at the evacuation shelter by members of their families.

Gathered around television sets to watch the news Sunday evening, the evacuees seemed pleased that the president came.

“I think it’s a good thing he came,” said Richard Thomas of Lower Swatara Township, “it shows he cares.”

He said the food and care at the center have been excellent.

A Red Cross spokesman said a representative from American Nuclear Insurance Co. made immediate payment to some families Saturday, enabling them to leave the center for motels or hotels, but that they were replaced by new arrivals at the arena.

He said if a 10-mile radius evacuation were announced, the center would be evacuated although “whether or not Hershey is within 10 miles of the plant depends on where you are along the three-mile-long island you start your circle.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: County Planners Confident
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

Cumberland County officials are gaining confidence in an emergency plan they hope doesn’t have to be implemented.

Day by day, officials are fine tuning a plan for possible evacuation of the eastern part of Cumberland County because of the Three Mile Island accident-even though each day, it looks less likely the plan will be used.

But authorities are learning much from the planning process believing they can depend on local officials to implement a plan.

County Commissioner Jacob Myers said Monday the cooperation between evacuation areas and host municipalities has been “terrific.”

John Broujos, county solicitor involved in the planning, echoes the praise.

“WE HAD 35 PP&L personnel to be housed. Within 15 minutes of the request, Rick Hoerner, of Carlisle Civil Defense, had them placed.”

Although county authorities are directing formulation of a contingency plan, they are depending on local officials to implement it.

“Great reliance has been placed on local authorities to carry out the plan,” Broujos said. “It gives confidence to officials to use their imaginations and proceed to aggressively attack the problem on the local level.”

In case of a precautionary evacuation of a 20-mile radius around the plant, residents from eastern Cumberland County would be moved to the western part of the county.

Some municipalities, such as Carlisle Borough, have already met with officials from the communities they would host to make more detailed arrangements.

Representatives from both host and evacuation areas met again Monday night with county officials to iron out details on supplies, equipment and personnel needed during any evacuation.

Col. James Dunkelberger, commander of the 1st Battalion, 108th Field Artillery of the Pennsylvania National Guard, briefed officials on the services he could provide and the kinds of things they ought to be preparing for.

Dunkelberger said he could supply about 600 men to provide support to the county and local evacuation efforts.

“WE ARE NOT coming with weapons…,” Dunkelberger said. “We’re not coming to harass citizens or people on the street. We’re coming to support your people.

“The number one mission we have is to evacuate in a safe, smooth, orderly, deliberate way.”

But Joe Dougherty, a liaison from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, stressed the county plan may never have to be used.

“This plan is not to infer in any way that something is going to happen at this facility,” he said. “Even after the cold shutdown, we hope every community in Pennsylvania begins this kind of contingency plan.”

One sign that the Three Mile Island status may be improving is that many schools within a 20-mile radius that closed Monday are scheduled to reopen tomorrow. Some opened today.

However, schools within a five-mile radius of the plant are still urged to remain closed.

The decision to open is based at least partially on a request from the governor and the state secretary of education, who has asked that if an evacuation were called that it be done outside school hours.

MANY SCHOOLS on the East Shore and most on the West Shore announced reopening. Among the West Shore schools to reopen will be Mechanicsburg, Cumberland Valley, Camp Hill, East Pennsboro, Northern York County, Cumberland-Perry Vocational Technical School, and the Capital Area Intermediate Unit.

Mechanicsburg and Cumberland Valley schools had closed largely because of staff having left the area and parents concerned about their children being in school if an evacuation were called.

Charles Shields, Mechanicsburg superintendent, said today he was not certain how many staff had returned, adding “We’re going to do the very best we can.”

Various county and local officials are continuing to meet today for technical discussions on the plan, for training on how to use various pieces of equipment and other aspects of the plan.

Officials of area utilities and sewage treatment plants have met and will continue to meet to work out details of their operation if evacuation were necessary.

About 30 persons met Monday “to discuss the manner in which they can support the contingency plans in the event of an evacuation,” according to Broujos.

“They discussed how they would maintain the utilities, housing for service personnel, instructions to persons for preparing homes for vacancy and how to avoid crank calls to utilities,” he said.

Robert Matalonis, PP&L official, said no utility plans a cut-off of service to an evacuated area.

“WE DON’T want to damage any equipment,” he said. “If we were to cut off energy, for instance, a lot of food in the people’s freezer would spoil. Motors could burn up.”

United Telephone officials said they expect a lot of long distance calls in case of an evacuation but plan to put extra operators on its PBX system.

West Shore municipal water and sewer officials indicated they would curtail operations somewhat during an evacuation but nothing would be completely cut off.

All utility officials indicated they could supply adequate services to a crowded host area.

“All the utilities seem optimistic,” Matalonis said. “They don’t anticipate any problems.”

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Confused? The Crisis Explained…
Author: Dennis O’Brien

Here is what happened, and what’s now happening, at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station:

Last Wednesday, at 4 a.m., a leak sprung in the cooling system of the nuclear reactor.

The cooling system, a series of pipes that circulate water near the reactor, is necessary to keep the reactor from getting too hot during the process of nuclear fission. (Nuclear fission is simply the splitting of uranium atoms in the reactor, which produces heat.)

Under normal conditions, a small amount of water is continually broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. The gases rise to the top of the steel reactor capsule and are pumped out, ignited and combined back into water in a device known as a “hydrogen recombiner.”

WHEN THE LEAK sprung, however, the temperature inside the reactor grew hotter than its normal 240 degrees and an emergency cooling system automatically began to circulate water near the reactor, which is a tubular structure 15 feet wide and 40 feet high.

The reactor, encased in a steel and concrete vessel that’s 138 feet wide and 202 feet high, is currently at 280 degrees, according to officials of Metropolitan Edison, which owns a major share of the plant.

For a reason that’s still unknown-either through human error or mechanical failure-this secondary cooling system apparently shut down.

This lead to an explosion from hydrogen gas collecting inside the nuclear reactor.

THE EXPLOSION, which meant that an undetermined amount of radioactive gases escaped into the air, occurred at 2 p.m. Thursday, 34 hours after the initial leak was discovered.

Harold Denton, a top ranking official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that it was not until 9 a.m. Friday that the NRC was informed of the hydrogen blast, which is what led to last week’s order to prepare for an evacuation.

So for those two days hydrogen gas was forming at dangerously high levels inside the reactor.

The hydrogen explosion led to the formation Saturday of a potentially lethal bubble of hydrogen gas-which is now the major cause for concern among NRC and Met Ed officials.

What has the NRC and utility officials worried is how to get rid of the hydrogen bubble and keep the temperature in the reactor down at the same time.

To get rid of it they have to reduce pressure inside the reactor, but they are not sure of the safest way to do that.

If the temperature inside the reactor is not kept down, the uranium could get so hot that it would melt through the floor of the reactor and containment level.

Scientists differ on what a meltdown at Three Mile Island would mean.

Some say the molten mass would disperse through the ground just below the reactor with the radioactive gases floating right back up into the reactor, where it would be safely shielded.

But another possibility is that the mass would hold together and melt down through the earth below the reactor creating a “China syndrome” effect (this catchphrase was coined in the belief such a molten core would, hypothetically, continue melting through the earth eventually reaching the other side of the world, or China). Radioactive gases would be sent through the earth’s surface at various, unpredictable points and would be disseminated through underground water supplies.

BUT RIGHT NOW NRC and utility officials agree that a meltdown is not the immediate danger. For a meltdown the temperature of the uranium inside the reactor must reach 5,000 degrees, according to MetEd officials.

THE BUBBLE is trapped near the top of the reactor. To reduce its size some of the hydrogen, which is in solution in the water around the uranium, is being pumped through a one-inch line into a nearby pressurizer.

The pressurizer is normally used to check levels of water and gaseous materials in the reactor.
As the hydrogen in solution and other materials are removed from the reactor, pressure is being reduced, shrinking the size of the bubble, officials say.

From the pressurizer, the hydrogen in solution is being vented into a pipe to another storage tank in the containment vessel.

The hydrogen in solution in that storage tank, which is highly radioactive, will be transported off-site in the near future, according to Thomas Elasser, a nuclear physicist for the NRC.

Officials are currently optimistic, claiming a reduction in the risk of danger from the bubble.
Uranium is currently 500 degrees.

The main concern is still the bubble, which officials say is slowly diminishing in size.

If the bubble, which is now estimated at roughly 50 cubic feet, were pure hydrogen it would be harmless. But there are also minimal amounts of oxygen present.

If the mixture of gases reaches the right combination-five percent oxygen and four to six percent hydrogen, the hydrogen will burn.

If the hydrogen reaches seven percent, it may explode.

Scientists are not sure how much hydrogen is inside the bubble, but one NRC official estimated it could be as high as six percent.

Denton said Sunday that if the bubble were left untouched, the oxygen and hydrogen levels will reach the explosive stage in five or six days.

After that the bubble may explode at any time.

NRC and Met Ed officials agree, therefore, that it’s vital that the bubble be dissipated.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: 3 Mile Island Optimism Grows
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-Federal officials today cautiously expressed hope that the worst is over in the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis but said the reactor’s fuel core appeared so badly damaged it may have to be scrapped.

Evacuation plans remained ready if necessary.

Civil defense officials said there were indications that some of the 200,000 people who left the four county area around the plant are beginning to return home. Area schools remained closed but many planned to open Wednesday.

Pregnant women and young children were still advised to stay out of an area within five miles of the reactor.

“I FEEL PRETTY good right now,” said Robert Reid, the mayor of Middletown, three miles from the Susquehanna River power plant. “I feel confident things are shaping up but I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.

“The people in town are still a little jumpy. They feel as though they’re almost over the hump going down the other side but they know there’s still a problem.”

The town’s entire 18-man police force, which had been on double shifts of 16-hour days, went back to normal eight-hour shifts today and police chief George Miller said the town was “a lot calmer now than it was.”

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said preliminary indications suggest most-and probably all-of the 3,600 metal-covered uranium fuel rods that make up the core were irreparably damaged in the accident that launched the nation’s worst nuclear power emergency last week.

NORMALLY, ONE official said, only one-third of a reactor’s core would have to be replaced each year to add new fuel. But he said at Three Mile Island, the intense heat from the accident appears to have knocked out the entire core.

“The core appears to be damaged to the point it would not be re-useable,” the official said.

Still ahead were efforts to bring the crippled reactor to a safe, cold shutdown condition. Because risks remained, state civil defense officials said evacuation plans were ready if necessary.

“We’re still in a holding position ready to implement evacuation plans if necessary,” a spokesman said.

Les Jackson, of the York County civil defense office, said about 35 percent of 38,000 people within 10 miles of the plant in his county had left.

“From some of the calls we are getting, it seems some of the people are coming back. We have advised those in a five mile area to stay away.”

Officials in Lancaster and Dauphin counties also reported inquiries about returning home. About 150 people remained in the only official evacuation center still open, Hershey Park.

NRC teams have gradually raised their estimate of core damage as the full dimensions of the Three Mile Island incident unfolded.

The first estimates said only 1 percent of the core was badly damaged, while estimates Friday said 25 to 50 percent of the core had been knocked out.

AT first officials said some of the fuel rods might have melted. But new analysis led officials to believe the rods might only have split and twisted.

After more than five days on the defensive, engineers said they finally have taken the offensive in subduing the reactor.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: If Nuclear Power is Here to Stay, It Must be Made Safer
Author: Max Lerner

NEW YORK CITY-We fear the dangers we must face. But we must also face the dangers we fear. In a world of growing dangers and fears that is the ultimate maturity.

Within this frame I can give only a mixed review of the drama of the leaking nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pa. It has been a double testing, not only of the operations of a nuclear power plant in a crisis but also of the public perception of that crisis.

FIRST, ABOUT the actual experience with nuclear power systems. The Union of Concerned Scientists says there have been more than a hundred instances of safety failures and violations in nuclear plants across the nation. To which a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission responds with a question: “Did anyone die?”

The fact is that no one did, but their response is not an answer. Not only may someone die, but many may die before the safety problems get ironed out. We know there is no fail-safe, error-proof mechanism in the operation of nuclear plants. We also know that thus far there have been no deaths either of plant workers or of the public anywhere. But the question is only in part about what did happen. It is also about what might happen.

Here the problem is one of prudence and responsibility. At Harrisburg the Metropolitan Edison managers of the plant seem to have fallen short on both counts. There was no adequate back-up system to take account of human error as well as mechanical malfunction. And there was a failure to notify the public immediately.

THESE ARE PROBLEMS of operation and control that can be solved. That is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s job. Earlier this year the commission shut down five East coast nuclear plants because of faulty design which exposed their cooling system to the hazard of earthquakes. The nuclear industry protested but the shutdown was clearly prudent. The commission will have to be no less rigorous in cracking down on the design and operation of power plants in the light of the Harrisburg mess.

What can be done beyond that? No knowledgeable critics call for a total ban on nuclear power. If they did they would have to provide an alternative, especially since solar energy is too far off on any effective scale. The alternative would be for the West to throw itself on the mercy of the OPEC nations, including Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Iran, whose potential oil boycott presents far greater hazards than the Harrisburg leaks.

The Michael Douglas film, “The China Syndrome,” played a role in polarizing the wave of Harrisburg fear, even while it stands to reap windfall profits as a result. It is an instance of media luck and power in the workings of American capitalist democracy. Along with the more reasoned TV coverage of Harrisburg such a film can have a healthy effect in prodding the regulatory agencies and scaring the nuclear power industry into more stringent safety measures.

THAT IS BASICALLY what needs doing. Those who want all nuclear plants shut down until an error-proof way of running them is discovered fly in the face of reality. The best to hope for is to narrow the chances of accident to near zero, but that can be done by a tight regulation of the plants in action.

We live and have our being in a hazardous world. The dangers to health of chemical dumps, toxic sprays and polluted foods are probably greater than the chances of nuclear plant failure. We are doomed to live with extreme vigilance in a universe of danger and chance. An emotionally mature people will demand tighter safety standards but will react to the dangers without panic.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Nuclear Crisis at a Glance
Author: United Press International

Harrisburg, Pa.: The crisis at the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant appears to be ceasing, giving state officials added time before a decision is necessary on a precautionary evacuation prior to final reactor closedown attempts.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Civil defense officials say one-third-200,000-of the people living within 20 miles of the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear plant had left the area by Monday.

Washington: The Teamsters union says it will exempt communities near the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania from its nationwide walkout against the trucking industry.

Moscow: The Soviet Union, in a regularly scheduled television feature, blames the U.S. “energy monopoly” for the accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.

PARIS: French ecological groups demand an immediate halt to nuclear plant construction, saying the country’s reactors are as unsafe as the Harrisburg plant. But French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing scheduled a special cabinet meeting today to approve construction of several new nuclear plants.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Teams from France, West Germany and Belgium, all countries with strong commitments to nuclear power, are flown to the crisis area for on-the-spot investigations of the Three Mile Island accident. Japan soon will follow suit.

Seoul, South Korea: Inspections of South Korea’s nuclear facilities, begun as a direct result of the Harrisburg incident, already led to the suspension of operations at South Korea’s first nuclear power plant where some radioactivity was leaking into the cooling water.

HARRISBURG: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ships millions of dollars in cash by armored truck to Harrisburg area banks to enable them to meet withdrawal demands of voluntary evacuees.

Washington: Rep. Bob Carr, D-Mich., demands that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tell all it knows about the Three Mile Island power plant malfunction and charges that Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburg “had to be dragged kicking and screaming” toward last Friday’s partial evacuation.

New York: Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., says the Pennsylvania nuclear crisis “will inevitably slow the momentum of nuclear power development.” In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he urges all nations to reconsider the risks of nuclear energy.

Farmington, Conn.: American Nuclear Insurers, the firm that insures the Three Mile Island plant says it already has paid $57,000 in liability claims for last week’s accident and predicts property damage claims will be “sizeable.”

WASHINGTON: Presidential press secretary Jody Powell says he has directed federal agencies working at Three Mile Island to clear their public statements through the White House because there have been conflicting reports that could cause undue public alarm.

New York: General Public Utilities, owner of the Three Mile Island nuclear station, asks the New York Stock Exchange to continue a halt in trading of its stock that began on Friday.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Higher Met-Ed Bills to be the End Result
Author: Deb Cline, Associate Editor

Metropolitan Edison customers will probably begin to feel the financial effects of the Three Mile Island plant accident in six months.

John Clugston, Met-Ed western division manager, said today the cost of the utility’s having to purchase more expensive fuel as a result of the shutdown of the plant will be reflected in customers’ energy adjustment clause on their utility bills in six months.

He could not say how much of an increase in the adjustment clause customers would experience.

He also could not say how much the plant repair and clean up would cost the company.

Officials have said the unit is insured for damages to the plant and for the replacement of the fuel core up to $300 million. Most costs associated with clean up and repair, other than design modification, would be covered by this insurance, officials said.

However, U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, chairman of the Senate public works subcommittee, said he has learned Three Mile Island may be so badly contaminated, it may never be used again. “It may be more expensive to clean it up than it was to build it,” Hart said.

CLUGSTON SAID the utility is purchasing fuel reserves from a Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland power pool with the energy being purchased costing 15 times more than the energy produced by the nuclear plant.

He said the cost of the reserve energy being purchased would approximate $1 million a day until the plant is back in operation.

Asked why customers should absorb some costs of the accident, Clugston said, “You take the bad with the good, I guess…The public would have to absorb the costs because they also absorbed lower energy costs when the plant went on.”

“It if wasn’t here, they’d be paying higher costs anyway.”

A spokesman at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said today the PUC is investigating the effect of the nuclear plant accident on Met-Ed customers, adding there may be some development as early as this week.

The PUC’s next meeting is Thursday.

HE SAID it “sounds remote” that customers would not be affected by the accident in some way.

“Obviously the money has to come from some place,” he said. “The question is how much the customers can be assessed and how much the stockholders assessed.”

It is not known at this point whether it is permissible for the utility to seek a rate increase from the PUC to recover costs of plant repair.

One thing that may figure into the situation is that Met-Ed was recently granted a rate increase based on costs associated with the number two generator, the one now damaged at the plant.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Truckers Exempt Danger Area
Author: Kathy Liebler, The Evening Sentinel

MECHANICSBURG-Striking teamsters say they won’t interfere with trucking to and from Three Mile Island.

Paul Fritz, vice president of Teamsters Local 776, said today “anything that has to be shipped with regard to the Three Mile Island emergency will be shipped.”

“There will be no interference of materials trucked to and from the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear reactor site.”

In a related incident, Fritz said about 75 trucks were being moved from the Arkansas Best Freight Truck Terminal, Derry Street, Harrisburg.

He said Teamsters International has permitted the trucks to be moved to the Letterkenney Army Depot in Chambersburg since the Harrisburg terminal falls within a 10-mile radius of Three Mile Island.

“WE DIDN’T want to take any chances of contamination to the miscellaneous freight stored in the trucks, so striking drivers have been allowed to move the vehicles,” said Fritz.

However, he said, the strike is still in effect nationwide and for about 1,300 area drivers, packers, delivery men and yard switchmen.

About 900 employees are not working because of a lockout called by trucking firms that were not included on the Teamsters’ selective strike list.

Hall’s Motor Co., located on Route 11, Mechanicsburg, is one local firm that is locking out union employees.

Company officials refused to comment but Fritz said more than 500 Hall’s employees were out of work because of the company’s action.

He said the Mechanicsburg terminal is Hall’s main shop and is a transfer point for about 800 trailers and 350 tractors.

FRITZ CRITICIZED the lockout, saying, “the teamsters worked for a year to plan the selective strike so the economy would not suffer.”

“The lockout shows complete disregard for the United States,” he said. “The strike was planned in such a way that every point in the country would still have service.”

“Now because of the lockout, no one has common carriers.”

Fritz said orderly picketing continues at 12 striking sites in the area and he said no incidents have been reported by companies engaged in the lockout.

Teamsters are protesting an industry contract that reportedly calls for a 30-percent wage benefit increase over three years.

Effects on local deliveries still are unknown, but Wayne Powell, Editor-Publisher of The Evening Sentinel, said today the newspaper has less than a 30-day supply of newsprint. Since the newsprint is delivered by truck, Powell said he was concerned over the longrange impact of the shutdown. He said The Sentinel would seek other methods of delivery to insure its newsprint supply.

Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Date: April 3, 1979
Title: Radiation Release Harmless- Officials
Author: United Press International

HARRISBURG (UPI)-Radiation seeping from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident site has been in relatively small and harmless amounts so far, federal and state authorities agree.

But Harold Denton, chief Nuclear Regulatory Commission official at the scene, said no plans have been made to get rid of extremely large amounts of radiation still sealed up inside the reactor containment room. At a press briefing Monday, he called it a “long-term problem.”

Thomas Gerusky, director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Radiological Health, said at least some of the built-up radiation probably will get out into the atmosphere when engineers attempt to get things back to normal at the plant.

“SOME OF THIS will be released to the atmosphere-no doubt about it-when they’re trying to can it up,” said Gerusky, who is Gov. Dick Thornburgh’s top health expert on the scene and the man who advises the governor about precautionary evacuation concerns.

Denton said radiation levels of 30,000 rems have been measured at the containment building dome. That is equal to about 1 million chest x-rays.

Concrete walls 3 feet thick now protect the public from that radiation.

The massive radiation clean up task has been pushed to one side by the need to halt radiation leaks that have seeped from Three Mile Island since the accident occurred there six days ago.
The latest off-site radiation readings taken by the Energy Department showed a total exposure of 1,000-2,000 man-rems to a 10-mile radius of the plant site, and 10,000 man-rems to a 50-mile radius.

The “man-rem” calculation multiples the number of people exposed by the exposure each received. NRC and state officials believe the most any individual received was 100 millirems, equal to about three chest x-rays.

Gerusky said the 1972 National Science Foundation report, entitled “Biological Effects of Ironizing Radiation,” estimated one or two extra cancers could be expected with a 10,000 man-rem dose.

“IF IT continues at this pace, you’ll never be able to tell that this plant was there except for all the hysteria, from the heart attacks, and “hypertension,” Gerusky said. “Your chances of getting killed in an auto accident are much greater.