And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: http://202.139.253.156/news/23039909.html ========================================================== "MELTDOWN" SPARKS WAR OF WORDS OVER THREE MILE ISLAND By David Morgan, Reuters (Planet Ark) March 23, 1999 MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - Nearly 20 years after the worst U.S. commercial nuclear accident, members of the public are still trying to get the powers-that-be to admit that what happened at Three Mile Island was a meltdown. On Thursday, just three days before the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Pennsylvania will unveil the official historical marker for the site along the Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg, where two of the four 350-foot cooling towers that once symbolised a nuclear nightmare continue to belch steam into the atmosphere. A committee made up mainly of politicians, bureaucrats and utility executives avoided "the m-word" in a message that will appear in gold lettering on a dark blue metal scroll. Instead, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker will tell posterity that "part of the nuclear core was damaged." "It should say that a partial meltdown occurred, but this was the best I could get," said Eric Epstein of the group Three Mile Island Alert, the committee's lone environmentalist. "The original was even worse. They wanted to say that a major disaster was averted. No, it was a major disaster." Yet the word "disaster" also is absent from the marker's 64-word synopsis of the accident that changed the face of nuclear power and made the oafish cartoon character Homer Simpson a parody of nuclear plant operations. At about 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, sirens pierced the darkness around Three Mile Island's Unit-2 reactor when a relief valve stuck, releasing radioactive water as steam. Plant operators then mistakenly shut off cooling water for the 150-ton radioactive core, prompting a partial meltdown and the evacuation of about 140,000 people from the Harrisburg area. Half the core melted and 20 tons of molten material ran to the bottom of the reactor where the remaining water held it in check. The plant spewed radioactive gas into the air for days. TMI spokesman Ralph DeSantis says there is a very good reason why damage is a better descriptive word than meltdown. "It's more accurate," he said. "Some of the fuel did melt. But the damage to the reactor wasn't just from melting. Very hot fuel that had not melted shattered like glass when water was reintroduced to the reactor. And other components, like fuel rods, were damaged. It was all inter-mixed." Critics say the utility and the state want to avoid the word meltdown because it conjures images of the deadly 1986 explosion at the Soviet Chernobyl plant, at a time when the U.S. nuclear power industry is entering a new era of utility deregulation. But the war of words means little to people like Debbie Baker, who lived 5-1/2 miles from the plant at the time of the disaster. Her son Bradley, now 19, was born nine months later with Down's syndrome. Her doctor blamed radiation and she became one of only a handful of local residents to reach settlements with Morristown, N.J.-based plant owner GPU Inc. "What I want, is to know for certain. My doctor may say he firmly believes that radiation was the cause of my son's disability. But I want the 100-percent answer. That's what is frustrating to me," she said. More than 2,000 lawsuits that followed her settlement were dismissed for lack of evidence by a U.S. judge in 1996, after government studies showed no evidence of accident-related health effects, other than mental and emotional stress. The dismissal ruling has been appealed. Meanwhile, Baker said the debate over the historical marker is only the latest example of how local residents are ignored. The most glaring was in 1985, when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowed GPU to restart the undamaged TMI Unit-1 reactor, even though Dauphin County residents had voted 2-to-1 against the move in a nonbinding referendum. "People don't have a vote on what goes into their neighbourhoods. Democracy really isn't alive here," said Harrisburg activist Gene Stilp, whose No Nukes Pennsylvania group will place their own historical marker at Three Mile Island during an anniversary ceremony set for next Sunday. Their marker blames a "nuclear meltdown" in part on "corporate criminal acts," recalling the fact that a GPU subsidiary pleaded guilty and no-contest to criminal charges that Three Mile Island safety records were falsified just before the accident. Meanwhile, Three Mile Island is expected to make history again this summer. After a $1 billion 14-year cleanup, TMI-2 will never reopen. But TMI-1 will be sold for $100 million to AmerGen Energy Co., a joint venture of PECO Energy Co. and British Energy in the first-ever sale of a nuclear plant. ======================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Is ONElist important to you? Has it changed your life? http://www.onelist.com Come visit our new web site and share with us your stories ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOEWatch List --- Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/doewatch"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesized in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. Anyway we think we have found the way to cause the disintegration of the atom." -Quote from Truman's diary July 25, 45 after Pottsdam and the "baby was born"""The Doctor of the future will give No Medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."."-Attributed to Thomas Alva Edisonn"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"t"-George Orwell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
