Please stay indoors with your windows closed. This is not a community that scares easily. Major floods and hurricane agnes have come here and the town has survived. But for almost a week last month, the people of middletown, pennsylvania, lived in fear of an enemy they couldnt see, hear or feel. From cbs news and of course that fear was radiation following the partial meltdown at tmi generating station, considered the most Serious Nuclear power accident in the history of the u. S. For the next 90 minutes well look back at the events that occurred. Eric epstein is joining us live. Hes the chair of the three mile island alert which is what . Three mile island alert is a safe energy organization. We were founded in 1977, two years before the accident at three mile island. Were a Nuclear Watch dog group that monitors three Nuclear Power plants on the susquehanna river. You were there march 28, 1979. What do you remember when the news first broke and as the story continued to unfold in the days and weeks that followed. Well, i think its interesting you cover mr. Bradleys comments. We had a bifurcated response from our family. I was away at college but we had a family Furniture Store and we had endured and survived three floods, actually a fire. We were hunkered down. We delivered on saturday the day after evacuation. My brother, who hadnt been born, he was in his first trimester, my father evacuated. Like a lot of folks there was confusion, anxiety, chaos. The company was providing disinformation and misinformation as you could well tell by the lieutenant governors comments on thursday, the day after the accident. By friday that teed things up for a precautionary evacuation which was for preschool children and pregnant women living within five miles of the plant. That target population was 5,000. Approximately 144,000 people evacuated from about zero to 50 miles. At the time we werent prepared for an evacuation. Im not sure we could execute one now. I think we have better plans. The Relocation Centers were outside of the ten mile zones. One in hershey and the other in william penn high school. When you declare an evacuation, people leave. And they left. A lot of people left not knowing if they were coming back. It was a psychic terror. A lot of people stayed to take care of their livestock and animals. A lot of people were conflicted. This was not the age of 24 7 news cycle. The big issue at that time was just lack of trust. And what made it even actually more difficult and confusing was the china syndrome had just been released several weeks ago. People didnt have a base line knowledge of Nuclear Power. Some journalists were tasked to see the china syndrome before they covered the story. On wednesday, things, you know, when we learned that there was a problem at tmi we have later learned 40 of the core melted. We didnt know the damage until 1982, 83 when the temperatures reached 4,800 degrees. We had two phases of the accident. Loss of coolant and then a Hydrogen Bubble. There were two prongs to the accident. Obviously, you know, folks had to respond based on little to no knowledge and the company didnt help as you found in the utah report and the hart report they misled the governor. When we heard keep your windows shut, would that have made any difference at that time based on what they knew or did not know . Yeah, i mean, i think, you know, again ed bradley captures the uncertainty and the unpreparedness of the company and the community. I interviewed people who were in Elementary School on the west shore of the river who were told go home, they were kids in lol. Put a book over their head and hold their breath. These precautionary instructions would have little to no impact of mitigating the exposure to radiation. Youve got to remember friday when the evacuation occurred it was an unreasonably warm day. You had chaos, people coming to the school to pick up their kidsism remembekid kids. Some people had three stops, getting gas, going away, not knowing if theyre coming back. One of the things we found after the accident is that the community suffered from chronic elevated psychological stress. As you can see the cooling towers behind us are haunting and so for about from 79 to 85 the other plant that wasnt involved was shut down for refuelling at that time. That plant was shut down and there was a fierce battle or whether we should restart the plant. Peoples responses were mixed and confused. It wasnt helped by the fact that the company misled the governor. Then on sunday if you recall the accident begins on wednesday, evacuation on a friday. President carter came on sunday. I think that calmed a lot of people. The real hero was the mayor here of middletown, robert reed who stayed behind. Hes still here, but Common People had uncommon courage during that time and this community is no exception. Born here, lived here, probably pass here. Were revolutionary era stock. Unfortunately a meltdown is not something you expect to have to survive. What the viewers should know the accidents not over. Unit 2 was defueled. It hasnt been decommissioned or contaminated. Only operated for 90 days. We still have a high level radio active waste site on an island and river that may never be cleaned up. The accident still continues. Our guest is the chair of the three mile island alert. If youre a resident of the area, you can join in by calling us at 2026488002. Eric epstein, what happened 40 years ago . Well, what happened was a i dont know if you want to call it an accident. An accident is when a deer runs in front of a truck and gets hit. This was an anticipated disaster. The core of the pilot operator relief valve which opened as it should had indicated on the channels that it had closed and it hadnt closed. We had a loss of coolant accident. Thousands of gallons of water were lost. And it wasnt until there was a shift change until the valve was actually closed. We found out through the department of energy years later that the temperatures were about 4,800 degrees, which was significant. Again, a core melt accident, which led to the fuel being exposed and interacting with oxygen which creates hydrogen. So that created the Hydrogen Bubble scare. Loss of coolant accident a lot of us, lets be honest didnt know what that meant. It was the fear of the unknown. You have the china syndrome in the background, misinformation, dismfr disinformation. By friday the governor agreed to do a precautionary evacuation. The Hydrogen Bubble issue gradually receded and the plant was put into cold shutdown. 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 bible belt area. I was one of the people who thought this was a great thing. This was a magical technology. This was the future. It was hard to believe that not only did it fail, but it was being built, we were told, it was likely as a meteor falling from the sky for an accident to happen. Not only did it fail but we were misled. Once you lose peoples trust, its very hard to get it back. Don is joining us, alexandria, virginia, good morning. Good morning. I appreciate cspan having this piece on. I really would like to note that while three mile island was absolutely an accident, fuel melt, no substantial products were released to the environment. It was all contained as designed. The radiation levels were minor to almost nothing. And 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 worst case accident. Thank you, don. Well get a response. Thats an absurd assertion. Its based on bad science. The design that was breached could have been anticipated. Davis bessie had a similar incident in 1978 the year before. The valve that failed was manufactured by dresser industries, had a 10 failure rate. The man is absolutely misinformed. The monitors went off stack, filters were clogged. The monitors could only absorb low level amounts of radiation. The amount of readyiation releases, which is still controversial because we didnt have exact measurements, were looking at anything from 10 million to 200 million curies. If you look at the Health Studies beginning with columbia, pittsburgh, north carolina, which was definitive and the health study last year which found increased Thyroid Cancer at penn state, the facts on the ground demonstrate people were harmed and there were huge releases of radiation. There were four different surveys taken of people who live in the nexus of the pathway of radiation exposure. They all reported the same thing. Folks around here dont lie. They reported metallic taste, sunburn, eye irritation, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea all consistent with exposure to radiation. If you dont look, you dont find. And the nrc to this date hasnt released the amount of curies that were released. That debate has been settled and nothing really was released. Youd have to ask the company why they settled Health Claims in excess of 100 million. In this Company Money tends to speak. Eric epstein, physically, geographically where are you located . Well, three mile island is an interesting island. Its not three miles, its 2. 2 miles. The closest Nuclear Power plant to an airport. Whats ironic is you cant fly over disneyland but you can fly over three mile island. Were about 12 miles from the capital but were close to the amish if you go to the east which raises another issue. Its very difficult to Contact People who dont have a phone to evacuate. To the west is york county. This was going to be an energy park. This was kind of a post image of america. Three mile island behind us, a coal plant to the west. You had a small hydro dam. If you go over to goldsburg, the Community Across from us youll see lake frederick, this is the future, atomic power. Coal, small hydro plant. This was great. It still is, great water skiing and fishing. I came down here to recreate. I was pro nuclear. Things changed. I was opposed to three mile island prior to the accident, but youre in the heartland of conservative republican bible belt pennsylvania. Lets go to annie joining us from sugar grove, north carolina. Good morning. Hi, good morning, steve. Before i ask my question, i have a comment to make about your 30 day rule, call in rule. As my soon to be 89yearold mother would say i have a bone to pick with you. You have a caller who calls in from north charleston, south carolina, his name is steve. And i know you know who he is. You guys chat it up. And hes got a very distinctive voice and hes called in january 18th, february 6th, march 2nd and hes called four times in 66 days. Ive left comments on your comment line at least two times for sure, three times. Because i recognize his voice and you two chat it up. Oh, how you doing, steve, great steve, how are you steve . I know you know who he is. Dually noted. Well do a better job to make sure that steve doesnt get through. Go ahead with your question. I think he needs to be banned. Really. I mean, im sick of it. My question, i had just turned 24 when that happened, three mile island happened. My question is, this is so close to hershey, i have heard over the years that its not really safe to buy chocolate made in that area because of the fallout. Thank you for your time. Thank you, annie. You know, steve, thats a really good question. You know, let me answer it in two traunchs. This is an area, youre asking where are we . Were right next to the amish, lancaster county. People came here for hershey and people came for the gettysburg battlefield. We were within a whiff of using all this. This was a place you wanted to go to, hershey, lancaster, gettysburg. After the accident, we became a pariah. This was a place you wanted to avoid. Hershey is interesting, because hershey did buy milk from the farmers to make chocolate and they froze it. The half life is about eight days without getting two technical. They froze it for 90 and used it again. That was one of the pushbacks you got after the accident is tourism took down. We took an economic hit. People didnt want to come to the area. You still have hershey park here, Hershey Chocolate. They did purchase milk, they froze it, used it later. But its a legitimate issue. Being born and raised here, i love living here. So i feel fortunate to live so close to hershey and lancaster and gettysburg. I encourage people to come here. I know to a certain degree theres a certain amount of dark tourism. People like to come and snap up pictures of tmi. If i could put a plug in, i still think Hershey Chocolate is a superior product. Well go to bonny who lives in lancaster, pennsylvania, good morning. Good morning, what do you want to know . All i can remember is that my brother brought my parents down through the door they lived in elizabethtown and my father was clutching his coin collection. I thought he was going to pass out. Number two, i lost two classmates that they believe that they downwind. They lived in banebridge and they died from cancer and they think it was due to tmi. Thirdly, my father remembers when they used to farm the three mile island. I guess they took a barge across . I would imagine my father was born in 1916. So i dont know if they take a tractor or whatever, but he said it was a cornfield. Number four, tmi is called three mile island because it is three miles from the center of middletown. Bonny, thank you. Yeah, ive heard that before, but, you know, the three mile island, it had a host of names prior to this. Honestly, were stuck with three mile island. She raises a good issue. You know, one of the things i would encourage people to do is go to the tmi survivors facebook. Theres several thousand members and they discuss the experiences they had, the Health Effects they believe they had h. Weve done four surveys, where we have our archives and the surveys were done by Norman Newberry township. In fact, if anybody is interested were doing surveys. You can get them online, three mile island alert. Thats something we do. In the last couple of years theres been an uptick in Thyroid Cancer. Last year a study was found there was an increased unfortunately t three mile island, like other Nuclear Plants has no health or cancer registry for the workers, unlike the department of defense where we can track those. The commonwealth of pennsylvania no longer tracks the incidents. Its up to citizens and id encourage people to go to the facebook page. We have a press packet for the 40th anniversary. You mentioned the film, the china syndrome which was released a couple weeks before three mile island accident. Heres a trailer from that 1979 movie. The china syndrome. Its about people. People who lie. And people faced with the agony of telling the truth. Right. People like kimberly wells, a Television Reporter paid to smile, not to think. Few words about a veterinarian who makes house calls on sick fish. Richard adams a cameraman who never learned how to play by the rules. Get that radiation all over that cute little body. Jack goodell. An engineer who knows too much to tell the truth. Anything that man ever does theres some element of risk. Thats why we have defense in depth. Who cares too much to lie. No accident. It will start with a tremor in a Nuclear Power plant where it will end, will depend on three people. I would say youre probably lucky to be alive. The same for the rest of southern california. Jane fonda. Lets face it you didnt get this job because of your investigative abilities. Kimberly, dont fight it. Jack lemman, michael douglas. Accident is the right word. That trailer from the china syndrome. Just put that into perspective. The one quote i would extract from that is the character who said safety in depth. That used to be the montra. Weve seen a large scale back in staffing levels. Weve seen the nrc turn into a regulatory body. That occurred in 1999. So since 79 i think lessons were learned, training has improved. Were falling back to where we were in 79. I dont see safety in depth anymore, i see older plants, aging plants that arent working as well that arent really staffed to the levels they should be, refuelling outages, now every two years. So i think that issue sometimes gets missed. I think the other thing that was chilling about the china syndrome is the spokesperson was reminiscent of the time. Some film and it was filmed back then from the area as the story continues to evolve. We listen to barbara who joins us from new jersey. Are you with us . Well try one more time for barbara in new jersey. Must have lost that call. As you look back 40 years ago and get a sense of how the story unfolded, no social media, no cable, what were people telling you . I knew you were in college at that time but you came back. What were they telling you in the spring and summer of 1979 . Yeah, its interesting because people that opposed Nuclear Power were on the fringe. I was volunteering for the alliance for survival, which was a critical for another plant which was shut down. A lot of the information that got out, remember, back then when you called, oh, it was hard, rotary phones or you had to call collect or use a credit card. It was difficult to communicate. People theres networks and people were basically observing what workers were doing. If workers were sending their families away, they went away. Truck drivers were communicating through cb. If you focused on the information you were getting from the company you were confused. You had no idea what was going on. People were take by surprise and had to make information on the run. There were some people up until recently that still had high anxiety levels that, you know, would always have a full tank of gas, would have tmi money. But it was a different time. I dont know if having all those outlets or portals of communication are better now. Because im not sure that good information gets always gets vetted or filtered properly. Different time in turerms of communication. At the time id point out not many science and environmental reporters. The inquirer came in later, the New York Times people with different skill sets started trickling in a day or two. Initially folks in the media that were trying to get to the truth didnt have the background that would have been helpful. Before we get to the next call, is the plant in any way operational today . No, unit two has a possession only license. Its part of an agreement we executed in 93. It will never operate again. The problem is its whats you can call whatever you want. Monitored storage. Its abandoned. In the 90s, we extracted most of the fuel, that fuel was loaded and taken to illinois idaho. The problem with tmi 2 at the time of the accident there was no decommissioning fund. We had to bail them out. We got tied with 2. 2 billion, cost 700 million to build. The people of this area have spent 3 billion actually to build a plant that only operated 90 days. The people in the area never got the energy. So tmi 2 is not going to operate again. I dont know if its going to be decommissioned. We havent had a human enter the basement for 40 years. Tmi 1 has been operating since 74. Maybe shut down. Its an older plant, its lost 300 million in the last five years. Theres talk about bailing it out. But, you know, to go back to my earlier point when this plant was sold, it was sold in 99. We had 804 employees, were down to 520. The amount of taxes the company pays has decreased. Its never a good time when anybody loses their job. I think most of those people will work on decommissioning. Folks need to know an accident that began in 1979 may not be over until the 22nd century. Ron in san antonio, texas, good morning. Hey. Eric, thank you for the information youve given. Its 40 years ago, but it seems like yesterday in some aspects. Just a quick question on decommissioning. How much is that going to cost . Is there any actual nrc plan to do it . Is it in safe store for the next 50 years or whatever . Yeah, theres three options. Decon, which is the immediate decommissions which is the protocol the industry is doing now. They did it in illinois and new jersey. Im a little concerned about that because the third party comes on site. The other is sad store, where they store it for up to 90 years. The third option is entombment which would be a horrible scenario. When it came on two there was no decommissioning fund. The industry and the government had no vision of how they were going to clean these plants up. Its estimated it will be 1. 2 billion to clean the plant up. And that, again, remember, rate payers, taxpayers paid to defuel the plant. And rate payers will pay for the decommissioning. Tmi 1 has a decommissioning fund, but they cant go back to the rate payers. Both plants are estimated to be a billion dollars. Tmi 2 i dont know. Its a very bizarre history here. Tmi 2 will make history again because it may have to find a fourth way to decommission the plant. Its owned by a different company. First energy owns tmi 2. So this is really a bizarre scenario where one plant may be decommissioned. This one may not be. Owned by two different owners. This plant has 520 employes, this plant has zero. Our last call is from philadelphia, carol, good morning. Yeah, hi, im originally from pittsburgh. I have been to that area a few times. The last time i think five years i stayed at a motel in the middletown area. I talked to a equipment who said they had nevarly averted an accident there that week and made the local papers. Im wondering how often these near misses the gentleman your guest has been excellent in talking about the history and everything. But he mentioned something about a steam release system. Would that contribute to near accidents . What are they doing to keep track of near accidents . Carol, thank you. I should point out weve been looking at the scene behind you. Were looking at the steam release today as well, correct . Yeah, in unit one. Unit 2 is obviously down. If you look at unit 2 youll see the baffling on the bottom has been dismantled because it caught on fire maybe three or four times more in the 1990s. So the cooling tower is basically a nesting ground for swallows. The problem is its obviously a high level radioactive waste site. Unit 1 has 1,200 metric tons of high level radioactive waste. This is one of the last plants the caller was talking about safety. Let me dovetail into safety, most were not designed to be waste sites. This is a waste product that has to be monitored for 500 years. When you talk about cleaning up a nuclear plant, this is a funeral where the pallbearer has to stay there for 500 years. Most of the industry has transitioned to dry cast, which is a spearerier way of storing waste. Even if the plant shuts down, it wont be 2022 until we construct a dry cast. So in terms of incidents and accidents, i would take the time to say look, if you live near a Nuclear Reactor what we should be doing is finding a wiay to gt rid of the waste. I dont know anybody who would buy a house and the toilet is there, the front yard is there, the waste is here, where is it going to go . On that note, eric epstein is joining us from middletown, pennsylvania, the chair of the three mile island alert. Thank you very much for being with us here on cspan television and cspan 3s American History tv. All week were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available ever weekend on cspan 3. Lectures in history, american artifacts, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. We continue our look back 40 years to the three mile island Nuclear Power plant accident. Joining us next samuel walker. It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare. As far as we know at this hour, no worse than that. A Government Official said that a breakdown on an atomic power plant in pennsylvania today is probably the worst Nuclear Reactor accident to date. There was no apparent serious contamination of workers. A safety group said that