Eight times the deadly level. So strong that after passing through a three foot thick concrete wall it can be measured a while away. Gary shepherd reports from harrisburg. The accident occurred here at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant a dozen miles south of harrisburg. At 4 00 this morning, two water pumps that helped cool reactor number two shut down. Officials say some 50,000 to 60,000 gallons of water escaped into the reactor building and that the radioactivity penetrated the plant walls. Steam escaped into the atmosphere and radiation was detected as far as as a mile away. At least 50 workers and perhaps twice that number were at the plant when the accident occurred. A spokesman admitted some were exposed to radioactivity and may have been contaminated. But he claimed no one was injured. All workers were given extensive checkwi checks as they left the plant. This is what reactor 2s control room looked like last september. It went into commercial Service Three months ago. Cbs News Coverage in march 1979, a live view of three mile island and joining us here in our studios is samuel walker. Hes the author of three mile island, a Nuclear Crisis in historical perspective. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Its nice to be here. Walk us through the timeline of these events as they unfolded. Wednesday march 28, 1979, things were going routinely. It was a midnight shift. And suddenly at 4 00 a. M. In the morning on march 28th, wednesday, there was a cut off of feed water to what was called the secondary system, which raised the pressure which caused according to design a valve to open called the pressure operated relief valve. With that opened, pressure started to build up or it opened so that it would relieve the pressure that had built up in the reactor. And that was according to design, and things were going fine at that point. But then after the valve had been opened for the valve sticking open, water started to rush out from the reactor, the cooling water it used to maintain the temperature in the reactor, started to rush out. And a fairly short time, you had all the makings of the worst incident, worst kind of accident you can have in a Nuclear Power plant. Loss of coolant accident. By that time in a control room, alarms are going off, 100 lights on the control panel were blinking. So the operators knew that something was happening that wasnt wrong but they didnt know exactly what it was. The lessons that were learned from the accident is that you didnt have any instrument on a huge control panel that showed that the plant was suffering a loss of coolant accident. There was no instrument like a gas gauge on a car that shows that water was evacuating from the core. And so it wasnt clear the operators, they were facing a loss of coolant. The cooling systems came on, but the operators were more concerned with what was called in the pressurizing, which is an important feature of pressurized water plants. What was called going solid, too much water in the pressurizer. Thats what they had been trained carefully to avoid. They were more concerned about the possibility of going solid than they were about a loss of coolant. So they shut off the emergency core cooling systems. One of the pumps was shut completely, the other was closed down enough to stop the flow of cooling water to a trickle. Within a couple of hours, the fuel rods were badly damaged. Within a couple of hours after the valves stuck open you had a major loss cooling accident and we found out much later you had a meltdown. Suffered a massive core meltdown. President carter visited shortly after the accident. He was a nuclear scientist. A Nuclear Physicist, having been trained at the naval academy. Did his visit ease the concerns we should point out youre from that part of the state. Yes, im from the area, so i had a great deal of empathy about what was going on. And i still do. President carters visit to the island was on sunday. This was five days after the accident occurred. And his visit was extremely important in reassuring the population that things were not in terrible shape. No one knew at that point that the plant had actually suffered a meltdown. His visit was important in letting the people of central pennsylvania know that things were more or less under control. One should not exaggerate the confidence that people felt on that morning about things being under control. But the fact that he would come there and visit the plant and go into the control room was a major reassurance for people of the area that if they werent under control would be taken care of or else carter wouldnt have shown up. Heres what president carter said back in 1979, just a few days after the accident occurred. The president came to the plant for one very simple reason. To assure the people that if the president of the United States and the governor of pennsylvania were standing there together right at the plant site, that obviously there was no reason to believe that the whole thing was going to blow up at any minute. Obviously, that would reassure the population that were going to have an advanced warning if we have to get out of here. Back to as a cause of a Nuclear Plant accident, what we learned after three mile island was that the operator should have been trained better. We also learned the instrument panels had to be redesigned. The operators were not getting as the accident proceeded. We also learned that we had to pay a lot more attention to emergency planning. And we also learned that we have to we being the country we also learned that we have to concentrate more on plant management. Too many utilities that owned Nuclear Plants at that point saw it as another way to boil water and didnt really pay enough attention to what needed to be done to make certain that plants were safe. It doesnt mean that an accident is out of the question, but it does mean that its much less likely than it was 40 years ago. If youre from central pennsylvania around three mile island, we welcome your participation. Our phone lines are open eastern and central, mountain and pacific time zones. For those in the area, 2027488002. Lets go to dave joining us from armstrong creek, wisconsin. Good morning. Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my call. Im wondering if the design of this plant is similar to the one in fukushima japan . To my understanding, these Nuclear Facilities are basically uninsurable. Theyre too expensive, so the government has to really back up if there is an accident, am i correct in those assumptions . Thank you, well get a response. The answer to your first question is that the design of three mile island was different than the design of fukushimfuku. But the problem, the basic problem at fukushima, as i understand it, was that the designing of the plant was in a poor place and a lot of questions have been raised about why you would site several plants that close to the ocean that had a history of tsunamis. In that sense, what happened in fukushima is different than what happened at three mile island. In terms of insuring the price anderson act which was passed early in the history of Nuclear Power was passed, we want to make certain there was enough coverage for people if there was a major accident in a Nuclear Power plant. And it simply turned out that there werent any Insurance Companies that had enough confidence or enough assets to insure a worst case Nuclear Power plant as early as 1957 or so there was great concern. If you have a major Nuclear Power accident, if you have a major release of radiation that the damages and the costs in injuries and lives could be much larger than the ability of any Insurance Company to cover. So thats why the government offered Liability Insurance for which owners of power plants had to pay in. So thats right. I mean, the government did step in and stepped in both as a way to reassure people and to help to stimulate the growth of the industry which was viewed as a National Objective at that time. But also to protect people who might be affected by a Nuclear Power accident. We were in the area recently, able to get drone footage, able to get a perspective of what it looks like. Jim is joining us. Good morning, gentlemen. Well, i was teaching science at the time three mile island happened. I heard your guest talk about the Human Element of being something, and of course the Human Element hasnt changed a whole lot in 40 years. I was wondering if he could put forward on the need, when you have the usc person coming up soon, i believe their stance is neutrality on a Nuclear Power plant according to design. And i was wondering if you could talk about what Design Elements i know plants are very, very expensive, which is why probably they arent being built at the moment. I believe theres is it a french design or a design for smaller Nuclear Plants which reduce the possibility of i suppose a major accident . If you could talk a little bit about that and any other changes we would see other than, obviously, a warning light for a loss of coolant or Something Like that. Thank you. Yeah, there are lots of ideas for new designs, some of which have been tested experimentally, some were still on the drawing boards. I dont know a lot about them, the designs that are in plants that are operating now are both based on early designs from the early 1950s for submarines. So its very possible that new designs could be put into place that that would be safer, that would create less radioactive waste and it would have major advantages over the current designs. I dont think there are going to be many more plants other than the four or five that are being built right now of current designs. If we want the Nuclear Power to be part of our energy mix, i think were going to have to find new designs and test them and make certain that they work as they should. I mentioned this earlier, but your Brother Robert walker had just begun his second term in the house of representatives and from central pennsylvania. Yes, my brothers district was just south of three mile island. He spent a lot of time up in middletown in the area. Those five days, there were five acute days of crisis. There were five days after the accident that occurred when no one knew what was happening. There was great concern. It was understandable anxiety on the part of central pennsylvania, but also policy makers in the government, both the state and federal government. One of those officials was my brother, bob and he was up there every day trying to find out what was going on and what the risks were and the chances were that there was going to be a major release of radiation. Hed tell us a story. He lived in East Petersburg and he found out later that his neighbors were watching him and his house. They had their cars packed and they were all ready to go. And they thought if he and his wife left suddenly, that they were going too. Didnt turn out that way, but at least that was their way of preparing for the accident was to make certain they were ready to go, their cars were gassed up. They were packed up. And if he left, they were going, too. You look a lot like your brother. We have a picture of him. Well share that with your audience. Well go to aubrey in clarksburg maryland. Hi, my name is aubrey and i too, lived in the harrisburg area at the time of tmi. What i recall about the accident was my parents as well had urgently come to school, removed me from Elementary School and our family, then packed up and headed to pittsburgh where were from. But the question im calling to ask about is both of my siblings had sickle cell anemia. After the event, ironically had experienced bone marrow suppression. Neither had enough supply of blood to last them more than a week or two with regard to their condition. Ive always had the question with regard to the radiation, radiation in the air if you want to turn it that. You know, what were the effects short of cancers that we may be discussing and debating here now 40 years later . Tell me the immediate effects. I look at that through the context of the lens of a scientist but also thinking about some of the other mass casualty events, for example, with the bombings of japan, chernobyl, you know, what is it that weve ever been able to discern with regard to those immediate effects, and specifically with bone marrow suppression of people with sickle cell anemia or anyone for that matter, have been a likely sort of effect of what had happened at tmi . Before we get a response, how are they today . My sister is deceased, unfortunately. That happened in 1988. My brothers alive, still living in harrisburg, quite frankly. Thank you for the call. Any connection . Let me speak can you decipher the connection . Let me address the general question first. That is the amounts of radiation that were lreleased. The day of the accident, the utility that operated the plant, metropolitan edison, had 20 radiation monitors surrounding the plant out to, i think, about 12 miles. And that wasnt enough to be sure how much radiation escaped. Its also true if large amounts of radiation had escaped from the plant, that it would have shown up. I mean, after the first day of the accident, there was there were helicopters that the department of energy was operating to trace the plume. There were measurements being done not only by the utility but also by the nrc, by epa, the food and drug administration, by the state of pennsylvania. If radiation in large amounts escaped, it would have shown up in food stuffs, in the water. If there had been large amounts of iodine 131 it would have shown up in milk. So you cant hide radiation. If there are large amounts, they would have shown up. And the epidemological studies that have been done, theres conflict but the best of those studies or the study that has the best data that has the best base for understanding what happened in terms of illness of the population studies a cohort of more than 32,000 residents who lived around the plant within a five mile radius. Steadied them f studied them for the period of 20 years. Those people had been interviewed by the state department of health for previous exposures to radiation, where they were during the accident. Its a really splendid database. And that study has shown no increase in cancer above normal rates. And im sorry that i cant address your specific question. And im sorry for the illness of your family. Theres no guarantee and we never know exactly what causes those kinds of illnesses. The chances that it came from radiation that escaped from the plant are unlikely. Our guest is samuel walker, a former historian for the u. S. Nuclear regulator commission. Walt is joining us from pittsburgh, good morning. Good morning. Yes, i was in ohio in 2002. When i found out its not just the accident, its the greed involved. There were brownouts here and there, they shut down a large area. That was the plant marge and the people involved trying to make themselves look good. The other one was up in ohio, Nuclear Plant, same company where the hedge was going bad. Instead of doing anything about it, they waited till the last minute. Fortunately there wasnt a lot of damage done, but i believe them hedge is Something Like, 250 million. Rather than the guy running that plant getting that thing fixed he caused more trouble by letting it go to the last minute. I worked in steel mills. Steel mills back in the 70s, 80s and 90s were more dangerous than Nuclear Plants. Thanks for the call. Yeah. For all the lessons we learned from three mile island and for other incidents, there still are problems. Thats why we need strong regulation and the industry is doing a much better job, a much stronger job of regulating itself, especially company management. But we also learned that we have to be humble because Nuclear Plants are large and complicated. And theyre hazardous. We have to live with that and theres no guarantee and there was never any guarantee, even back in the early 50s wihen the Nuclear Industry was first beginning. No one was saying an accident is impossible. Theyre saying its unlikely. Were going to do everything we can to make certain it doesnt happen. No one in their right mind was saying you could never have an accident. Even in more recent times, less than 40 years is recent times for me. Things still go wrong. We welcome our viewers on cspan 3s American History tv. 48 hours of history every weekend on cspan 3. Check out the full schedule on our website. Lets go to robert in las vegas. Good morning. Good morning, gentlemen. Mr. Walker, i look forward to reading your book. What a coincidence because i was with jim nelson and michael douglas. We made the movie the china syndrome. Are you familiar with that movie . Yes, yes, i start my book with that movie. Well, what a terrible coincidence, the movie when we released that three days after it was released the Nuclear Physicist was on television, he said the chances that we were depicting in that movie was one in 100 million or more. Well, then three mile a total of ten days we heard about the what was going on there. Now i was undercover. I checked all Nuclear Power plants all over the world. And now were trying to deal with all of the waste with what theyre trying to do about that. Robert, let me jump in very quickly. Explain specifically your role or involvement in the film the china sundrome. I did the research on all the Nuclear Power plants. To be honest with you, i think they should all be shut down and just go to other kinds of fuel. Because there is never a catastrophe that one would like in china and japan, with all of the radiation and the water and all of the fish that became sick. You know, just, to me, weve got so many other ways to go. You know, im not one to say, but it would be a lot safer. No i notice on the screen youre showing the china syndrome. So i just wanted to say hello and i appreciate the fact that youre on here discussing it with the people. Because there is a serious look at chernobyl and that happened. Horrible, too. So thats all i wanted to say. I appreciate you gentlemen bringing all of the facts to the public. Robert, thanks for adding your voice. Again going back to the film that came out just about a week and a half before tmi. It came out a week and a half before. When the accident occurred, it was being shown, still being shown in two theaters in the harrisburg area. And they put on extra showings on friday and saturday nights, which were the most tense days, the most anxiety filled days of the five days of crisis after the accident occurred. On those two nights, the two theaters in harrisburg put on extra showings of the china syndrome. Apparently the theaters were packed for those extra showings. Lets go to linda in minneapolis. Thanks for adding what a great addition to the program. Thank you for that, sir. Good morning. I have a couple of questions, i think theyre pretty quick answer maybe. The first one and perhaps the most important is more important one is i wondered if there was any information about how this problem of Nuclear Waste can be safely solved . Is this unsolvable and i mean, it seems like it just never goes away. What to do with the waste. The second one which maybe has is connected to it is what is the status of the plant in East Washington . Thank you, well get a response. Great questions. I did write a book on radioactive waste after my book on three mile eland. The history on that is in there. It was not well handled by the Atomic Energy commission, or by successor agencies. These are good scientists think that theres a technical solution thats reasonable. Youre never going to get a solution that satisfies everybody. But the political equation or political problem might be probably is more insolvable than the technical issues. In terms of hanford, theyre still undergoing a large cleanup. The hanford plants the aec and its successor agencies, at least for a long time did not handle radiation hazards as carefully as they should have. Its being cleaned up. The government is spending a lot of money to clean it up. I dont know what the status of it is now. Its a lot better than it was 25 years ago. Jocelyn, good morning, youre on with sam walker. Hi, mr. Walker. I want to know if a lack of water in the reactor has anything to do with the problem . Thank you. Lack of water . If the water if the lack of water had anything to do with the reactor itself. Lack of water had a lot to do with the fact that the reactor melted down. What the water does is to keep the plant cool. The normal operating temperature for a Nuclear Power plant, at least the pressurized water reactor is 600 degrees. And if you lose the coolant, then you have a problem and thats exactly what happened when that valve stuck open. In terms of anything else havine United States has exer sized a might make right dock trip among the smaller countries of the third world. Its long been practice to invade these countries, get what we want, leave the people to kind of rot. Sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, living hifl of History Reason act George Washingtons crossing of the river. And pro fefrds talk about impeachment including the current proceedings against president trump. One of the things that really strengthened the case against nixon and legitimized it was the fact that it was bipartisan. And that there were many republicans who studied the evidence. They looked at the reports. They listened to the tapes when they finally were released, looked at the transcripts that were released in advance. And they came to the conclusion that nixon had done something wrong. This weekend explore our nations past on American History tv on cspan3. 40 years ago, on march 28th, 1979, the unit two reactor at the actually Mile Island Nuclear power plant in pennsylvania partially melted down. Big thornburgh was the governor at the time. We visit the Archive Service center. To hear more about the accident and governor thornburghs role. Prime concern has been, is and remains a concern for the safety of the residents of the area and of those workers who must carry out the responsibility of decontamination of the unit two facility. The most pressing question is which of the
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