Newspaper: The Sentinel
Date: April 6, 1979
Article: … but here’s one who’s had enough
Author: Deb Cline

Joyce Trinneer was mad enough at Met-Ed before Three Mile Island ever happened.
Now she’s steaming.

“I’m outraged,” she kept saying, as she relayed her feelings about reports that Met-Ed consumers would likely bear at least some of the costs of last week’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.

A resident of White Rock Acres, Trinneer believes she and her neighbors and customers of the utility have been paying far too much already.

ALTHOUGH HER reaction is one of the most emotional expressed so far, it is consistent with the opinions being expressed by customers and legislators over the possible economic ramifications of the Three Mile Island.

But Trinneer’s gripe isn’t new. She’s been upset with Met-Ed ever since she arrived here from New Jersey.

“I have to close off my bedrooms every day. I don’t heat my bathroom and I’m paying 200 and some odd dollars a month and I’m getting sick to my stomach,” Trinneer said.

“How can they hope for us to pay more?”

She was already upset over the fact that Met-Ed charges lower rates for people who use electric only for cooking that they do for all-electric customers. Calling that a discriminatory practice, she said, “They were not allowed to do that in New Jersey.”

Trinneer says she isn’t the only one who feels this way.

She said she and her neighbors have been planning to buy some woodburning stoves to help reduce their use of electric heat.

“NOW INSTEAD of getting one, I may decide to get two. They’re not going to make it on me.”

That isn’t the only thing Trinneer is going to do. Although she’s not quite sure where to begin, she says she’s been going to try to start up at petition protesting the present and possible future rates of the utility and present it to the governor.

“I’m willing to freeze before I give them more money. That’s how mad I am,” she said.

“I’ll do whatever I can not to give them more money. God help anybody who tries to stop us.”