Hindsight 20-20
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This weekend Fairewinds chief engineer Arnie Gundersen traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to commemorate the 38th anniversary of the Three Mile Island meltdown that occurred March 28, 1979. Arnie will present the keynote address at an event put on by Three Mile Island Alert on Saturday night March 25, 2017. He will speak about the lessons learned from the 1979 TMI meltdown and new findings he has unearthed drawing from his work with recently deceased University of North Carolina (UNC) epidemiologist Dr. Steve Wing.
Despite the United States Government’s apparent lack of understanding or consideration of the impact of the Three Mile Island disaster, the nuclear industry wants you to believe no one was hurt or impacted by this huge radiological calamity. To revisit the words of Dr. Steve Wing that still hold true today:
“…as we think about the current plans to expand nuclear power in this country and to promote nuclear reactors, whatever you think about the problems of waste storage or waste transportation or nuclear proliferation or other things, that when we hear, which we do hear often, that no one was harmed at Three Mile Island, that this really should cause us to question that. I would encourage any of you who are interested to really go back and look, as Arnie Gundersen did, into the records, to talk with people who have been here and to respect some of this history because I think it is relative to the debates that we are having today.”
Learn about Steve Wing’s findings here:
Read Arnie's Full Account Entitled Hindsight 20-20: Why I Was Wrong About Three Mile Island
Fairewinds is excited to announce the release of our new Three Mile Island webpage! In addition to an updated account and improved resources concerning the 1979 disaster, we are also posting a special report about the Three Mile Island disaster written in 1981 by noted scientist Dr. Henry Meyers for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Well before the world took notice, Dr. Meyers saw how the NRC and the nuclear industry were covering up TMI and wrote about this collusion between the two parties in his Congressional testimony.
Explore the link provided below to read and listen to first-hand accounts of the Three Mile Island disaster, see where we are today, and check out our body of work regarding the truth about Three Mile Island, including videos, blog posts, and podcasts.
Energy News:
Wicked Local - Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant: NRC inspection reveals myriad problems at plant
The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant has been dogged by significant problems in recent years, most of which have only come to light after a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) employee accidentally emailed an inspection report to a local Cape Cod resident who forwarded it on to a journalist.
Pilgrim’s mishaps included employees not knowing they were part of a group meant to develop a performance improvement plan, wrong names appearing on plans, wrong parts being used to replace broken ones, and temporary fixes being treated as permanent ones. The list goes on and on, but the NRC claims that none of these serious safety concerns warrant closing the plant despite the NRC’s ranking of the Pilgrim atomic reactor as one of the worst performing nuclear power plants in the entire country.
New York Times - Japanese Government and Utility Are Found Negligent in Nuclear Disaster
A district court in Japan determined that the Japanese Government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company – the owner of the decimated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site) are at fault for their failure to take steps to prevent the triple meltdown and resulting disaster. Evidence was presented in this ground-breaking ruling that the Japanese Government knew the plant was at seismic risk, and therefore should forced TEPCO to build a larger protective sea wall many years earlier. Although the compensation for Japanese citizens involved in the suit was relatively minor, averaging to $5,400 USD per person, this finding could open doors allowing more impacted Japanese citizens to receive compensation. This ruling shows government can still be held accountable for its lack of oversight, especially when decisions are made based on economics instead of public health and safety.
Read Full Article Here
Center for Biological Diversity - Scientists Use 'Beetlejuice Provision' to Protect Data From Trump
In an effort to preserve the United States government data that is crucial to advancing scientific studies and guiding decision-making on energy investments and for public health, a special provision in law has been activated to keep that data accessible to U.S. citizens. A group of research centers and organizations are using this provision to combat the deletion of this data by the current presidential administration. Known as the 'Beetlejuice Provision' these organizations are submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in groups of at least three requests that by law mandate the governmental agencies receiving these FOIAs make all the deleted data publicly available on each agency website.
Read Full Article Here
