Outside of harrisburg, transylvania, we look at the three mile island accident that was a partial meltdown of a reactor, a reactor number two at the facility in pennsylvania. It occurred 40 years ago and it was rated a 5 on a 7 Point International scale. As the story unfolded, this is how ed bradley of cbs news covered this. Pleasetay indoors r windows closed. Ed please stay indoors with your window closed. But this is not a community that scares easily. Major floods have come here in the town has survived. But for almost one week last month, the people of middletown, pennsylvania, lived in fear of an enemy they could not see or hear. From cbs news and that fear was radiation following the partial meltdown at the Nuclear Generating station considered to be the most precarious accident. We will look back at the events. Eric epstein is joining us and he is the chair of the three mile island alert, which is what . Three mile island alert is a safe Energy Organization that was founded in 1977, two years before the accident at three mile island and we were a Nuclear Watchdog group. We monitor three power plants. You were there 40 years ago. What you remember when the news first broke and as the story continued to unfold in the days and weeks that followed . I think it is interesting. You covered mr. Bradleys comments, and we had a response from our family. I was away at college, but we had a family Furniture Store and we had endured three floods , actually a fire, and we were hunkered down. We were delivered a dinette set and my brother was in not yet born. And there was confusion and anxiety and chaos. The company was providing misinformation as you can tell by the governors comments on thursday, the day after the accident. And by friday there was a precautionary evacuation, which was for preschool children and pregnant women living within five miles of the plan. That target population was 5000 and approximately 144,000 evacuated and at the time we were not prepared for an evacuation. Im not sure we could execute one now. But the Relocation Centers were outside of the 10 mile zone, one in hersheypark and the other at william penn high school. We called it a shadow evacuation. When you declare an evacuation people leave. And people left not knowing if they were coming back. A lot of people because this is an Agricultural Community state to take care of their livestock and animals and a lot of people were conflicted of do i go it leave my pets behind and would i do . This was not the days of a new cycle all the time. So a big issue was a lack of trust in what made it more difficult and confusing was the china syndrome. So people did not have a baseline knowledge of Nuclear Power. Some journalist went to go see the china syndrome before they cover the story. And on wednesday things occurred when we learned that 40 of the core melted. We did not know the damage until 1982 when the temperature reached 4800 degrees. But there were two phases of the accident. And people had to respond based on little to no knowledge and the company did not help as we found in the utah report that they intentionally misled the governor as to the severity of the accident. When we heard from that report about keeping your windows shut, would that have made any difference at that time based on what they knew were did not know . Again , ed bradley captures the uncertainty in the unpreparedness of the company and the government and the community. I interview people who were told to go home and they were kids in Elementary School and put a look over their heads and hold their breath. These instructions would have little to no impact on mitigating the effects of exposure to radiation. You have to remember that when the evacuation accord, it was an unreasonably warm day so people were outside and school was in session. People were coming to the school to pick up the kids, and some people had kids in Elementary School and middle school and hitting gas and going away and not knowing if they were coming back. And one of the things we found after the accident is the community suffered from elevated psychological stress. You can see the towers behind me are hunting and so from 1979 until 1985, the other plan that was not involved in the accident was shut down for refueling. That plant was shut down and there was a battle over whether not we should restart the plant. So peoples responses were mixed and confused and it was not helped by the fact that the company misled the governor and then on sunday, president carter came on sunday and i think that cant a lot of people. But the real hero was the mayor stay behind. He is still here. Common people had uncommon courage during that time and i think this community was no exception. We lived here and we will probably pass here for the most part. We are not going anywhere. And we survived floods and fires. Unfortunately a core meltdown is not something you think you said will survive. But the accident is not over. Unit 2 was refueled and it was never decontaminated and only operated for 90 days. It was supposed to operate for 40 years, so we still have high level radioactive site that may never be cleaned up. So it still continues. Our guess is eric epstein. He is the chair of the three mile island alert. If you are a resident of the area, you can call us. So what happened 40 years ago . What happened was i dont know if you want to call it an accident and accident is when a deer runs in front of a truck and get to it. This was an anticipated disaster. Relief valve had indicated on the channels that closed and it did not. So we had a loss of coolant accident and thousands of gallons of water were lost in was not until there was a shift change and about was closed. We found out to the department of energy years later that the temperatures were about 4800 degrees, which was significant, and a core melt accident that led to the fuel being exposed and interacting with oxygen, which creates hydrogen. And that created a Hydrogen Bubble scare. So a lot of us did not know what that meant. We didnt have a baseline knowledge of nuclear. And so the fear of the unknown and the china syndrome in the background misinformation and finally by friday the governor and the commissioner agreed to do a precautionary evacuation. The Hydrogen Bubble gradually receded and the plant was put into cold shut down and it took several weeks to get to that condition. One of the things that happened was a loss of trust. This is a very conservative republican area and i was one of the people that thought this was a great thing and magic technology. This was future. It was hard to believe that not only did it fail, but when it was being built we were told in it was as likely as a meteor falling from the sky for an accident to happen. Not only did fail, but we were misled. And it was very hard to get the trust back. Lets get phone calls. Good morning. But it morning. I appreciate cspan having this piece on. I would really like to note that while three mile island was absolutely an accident, if you will melt, no substantial fission products were released the radiation levels were minor to almost nothing in the general area around the plant. No one was hurt, no bad Health Effects occurred, and that was a test of the design to absolutely mitigate and contain the worstcase accident. That is an absurd assertion a some bad science. The design that was breached could have been anticipated. There was a similar incident in 1978 and there was a valve that held was manufactured by Dresser Industries and it had a 10 failure rate. The man is misinformed. The monitors went off, and the monitors could only absorb low levels of radiation. If you look at the dose inventory, the amount of radiation released, which is still controversial, because we did not have exact measurements, we are looking up to 200 million curies. And if you look at columbia and pittsburgh and north carolina, which was definitive, and the study that showed increased Thyroid Cancer, the facts on the ground demonstrated that people were harmed by three mile island and they were at least four different surveys taken of people who lived in the nexus of the pathway of radiation exposure and they all reported the same thing. People around here dont lie. They reported eye irritation and sunburn and nausea and vomiting and all consistent with exposure to radiation. So if you do not look you do not find, and we believe strongly that there were close to 100 million curies released. And if nothing was released, you have to ask the company why they settled Health Claims in excess of 100 million. In this country money tends to speak. Geographically, where are you located . Three mile island is an interesting island. It is not 3 miles. It is 2. 2 miles. What is ironic is you cannot fly over disneyland, but it is okay to fly over three mile island. We are in southcentral pennsylvania about 12 miles from the capital, but also close to the amish community. And that raises another issue because it is very difficult to Contact People that dont have phones and to the wests york county and this was going to be an energy park. We had three mile island behind us, and in plant to the west, a small hydro jam, and if you go over to the Community Across from us, there is a plaque that said this is the future. Atomic power and hydro plant and cole and is still is great waterskiing and fishing. Everyone came down here for recreation. And things changed. I was opposed to it prior to the accident, but youre in the heartland of conservative republican bible belt pennsylvania. Good morning. Good morning. Before i ask my question, i have a comment to make about your 30 dale rule. You have a caller who called in from south carolina, and i know you know who he is. And he has a very distinctive voice and he has called in in january, february, and twice in march. So he has called and four times in 66 days. I have seen comments and i recognize his voice and you guys chatted up. So i know you know who he is. Duly noted. We will do a better job to make sure he does not get through. I think he needs to be banned. I question regards, i had just turned 24 years old when that happened and my question is is so close to hershey and ive heard over the years that it is not safe to buy chocolate made in that area because of the fallout. That is a good question. Let me answer it. This is an area and you are asking where we are. This is an area where people came to visit. We are next to the amish people like to go to Lancaster County and people came for the gettysburg battlefield. One of the things that occurred to this community was this was a place he wanted to go to. And after the accident we became a pariah. This is place he wanted to avoid. And hershey is interesting because they did purchase milk from area farmers and they froze it. They froze it for about 90 days and then use it again. But that was one of the pushbacks after the accident and we took an economic hit. People did not want to come to this area. So you still have hershey park and hershey chocolate. They did freeze the milk but it is a legitimate issue. Being born and raised here, i love living here and i feel fortunate to live so close to gettysburg and hershey. And i know to a certain degree there is an amount of dark tourism. People like to take pictures of tmi, but i still think it is a superior product. We will go to bonnie from lancaster. Good morning. All i can remember is that my brother brought my parents down to the door. They lived in elizabethtown and i thought my brother was going to pass out. I lost two classmates and they believe that they lived downwind and they died from cancer and they think it was due to tmi. And my father remembers when they used to farm three mile island. And i guess they took the barge across. My father was born in 1916, so i dont know, but he said it was a cornfield. And tmi is called three mile island because it is 3 miles from center of middletown. I have heard that before. And had a host of names prior to this. She raises a good issue. One of the things i would encourage people to do is go to the survivors on facebook and they discuss the experiences that they had and Health Effects they believe that they had. Weve done surveys and they were done by several people and if anyone is interested, we are still doing surveys. And that is something that we do. And in the last couple of years there has been a significant uptake and Thyroid Cancer and that is why hershey medical conducted a study that indicated an increase in Thyroid Cancer of People Living near three mile island. There and expand that study. Unfortunately three mile island has no cancer registry for the workers. Unlike the department of defense does. And unfortunately the commonwealth of pennsylvania no longer tracks the incident. So it is up to citizens and i encourage people to go to our webpage. And you can contact us if you want to continue this discussion. You mentioned the film the china syndrome that was released a couple of weeks before three mile island. Here is a trailer from that movie. The china syndrome it is about people who lie and people faced with the agony of telling the truth. People like kimberly wells, a television reporter. Richard adams, a cameraman. Man who knows too much to tell the truth. There is an element of risk and that is why we have will be called offense in depth. It started with a tremor in a Nuclear Power plant and where it ends depend on three people. But youre probably lucky to be alive. Jane fonda. Jack lemmon, michael douglas. That trailer from the china syndrome. And put that into perspective. One quart i would extract from that is the quote the character who said that safety in death. Weve seen a largescale back and staffing levels, we have seen the nrc turn into a regulatory body. And that is when they had the reactive oversight process. So lessons were learned and training has improved, but we are falling back to where we were and i dont see safety in death anymore. I see aging plans that are not working as well that are not staffed to levels they should be. And now it is every two years. I think that issue sometimes gets missed and i think the other thing that was chilling about the china syndrome is the spokesperson was reminiscent of the spokesperson for metropolitan edison at the time and that only compounded the fear and anxiety. Some film from the area as the story continue to unfold in middletown pennsylvania this is barbara joining us from new jersey. We will try one more time. As you look back 40 years ago and get a sense of how the story unfolded, no social media and no cable, what were people telling you. You certainly came back. What did they tell you in the spring and summer of 1979 . It is interesting because people who opposed Nuclear Power were on the french. I was volunteering for the alliance for survival which was critical of a plant similar to tmi. But a lot of the information that got out remember, we had rotary phones and had, collector use a credit card, so it was difficult to communicate. They are networks and people were basically observing what workers were doing. If workers sent the families away, they went away. Truckers communicated through cb radios. But if you got your information from the company, he did not know what was going on. And you had to get information on the run. There were some people up until recently that still had high anxiety levels and would always have a full tank of gas and would have tmi money. There was a different time. I dont know if having all those outlets and portals of communication are better now. Im not sure that good information always gets vetted properly are filtered properly. So its a difficult time in terms of communication and, at the time i would point out that not many science or environmental reporters existed. People came later, but initially people in the media that were trying to get information or get to the truth did not have the background that wouldve been helpful. Is the plant in any way operational today . Unit 2 is done and part of an agreement we executed in 1993. It will never operate again. The problem is it is known in what is a post fueled monitored storage. In 1990s we had 1500 workers to fueling the plant and we extracted most of the fuel. The fuel was taken to idaho and the problem with tmi 2 is there was no decommissioning fund. So we had to bail them out to the fuel the plan. It cost 700 million to build and people have spent 3 billion to build a plant that only operated for 90 days. People in this area never got the energy. The people who operated the company were based in allentown , pittsburgh, new jersey. This will not operate again. I dont know if it will be decommissioned, but weve not had a person in the basement for 40 years. Tmi 1 has been operating since 1974 and it might be shut down. It has lost 300 million in the last five years and theres talk about bailing it out. But when this planet was sold, and it was sold in 1999, there were 800 employees. Now we are down to 500. We are going to Transition One where the other end i think most of the people there will work on decommissioning, but people need to know that an accident that began in 1979 may not be over until the 22nd century. Good morning. Eric, thank you for the mention you have given to 40 years ago but it seems like yesterday and some aspects. A quick question on decommissioning. How much will that cost or is there any actual nrc plan to do it, or is it just stored for the next 50 years . The decommissioning, which is the protocol that the industry is doing now, they just did it in oyster creek and zion in illinois. Thirdparty comes on site. And the others where they stored for up to 90 years and the third option is into meant is where you into the reactor. The problem with tmi 2 is there was no decommissioning fund. The government had no vision of how they were going to clean these up. It is estimated it will be 1. 2 billion to clean it and that is they paid to fuel it and they will pay for the decommissioning. So both plans are estimated to cost about 1 billion. This is a very bizarre history. Tmi 2 will make history again because they will have to find a way to decommissioning. Is owned by a different company. First energy owns it. And it is a bizarre scenario where one plant could be decommissioned and this one may not be decommissioned and owned by two different owners. This planet has 520 employees and this one has zero. Carol, good morning. I am originally from pittsburgh and i have been to that area a few times. I talked to a woman who said they nearly averted an accident there. I am wondering how often these near misses your guest has been excellent and talking about the history, but he mentions the steam release system and that contribute to near accidents, and what are they doing to keep track of near accidents . I should point out we have been looking at the scene behind you and we are looking at the steam release today. Yes. If you look at unit 2, you see the baffling on the bottom was dismantled because a caught on fire three or four times in the 1990s. So it is basically a nesting ground for swallows. The problem is is a high radioactive waste site and unit one has 1200 metric tons of radioactive weight. This is one of the last plans and let me just say that most Nuclear Power plants were not designed to be high radioactive waste sites. This is a product that has to be monitored for at least 500 years. So when you talk about cleaning up a Nuclear Power plant, this is where the pallbearer has to stay in place for 500 years. Theyve only even if this plant shuts down, it will be 2022 and we can start moving. So in terms of incidents and accidents, i would take the time to say if you live near a Nuclear Reactor, what we should be doing first and foremost is finding a way to get rid of the radioactive waste. I dont know anyone that would purchase a house with a toilet that led into the front yard and the contractor says all come back 40 or 50 years later. Eric epstein. He is joining us from middletown pennsylvania. The chair of the three mile island alert. Thank you for being with us. It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare. As far as we know at this hour no worst than that. But a Government Official said a breakdown in anatomic power plant in pennsylvania is probably the worst Nuclear Reactor accident to date. There was no apparent serious contamination of workers. The group said that radiation inside the plant is at eight times the deadly level. So strong that after passing through a three foot concrete while it can be measured a mile away