Fast Fiction

Today is the 25th anniversary of the nuclear mishap at Three Mile Island. In the wee early morning hours of March 28th, 1979 a faulty valve caused a partial meltdown of reactor two and the venting of radioactive water and steam into the area surrounding the island in the middle of the Susquehanna river, within view of the state capitol.

We lived in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. At mile 12 or so on the government’s little map of the area, we were not within the official evacuation zone. But my mother sensed that this little “venting” was a big deal early on and she pulled me and my brother and sister out of school that day and shut us up in the house. She then went out and bought bottled water and canned goods. We sat in the house for two days (drinking soda and eating pudding snack packs which was quite a treat for us) until Mom decided to take us out of state for the duration of the crisis.

For me, TMI always meant, and always will mean Three Mile Island. A period of unease, general distrust of the government and the NRC. TMI has always meant be wary of any possible cancers that can be traced back to that exposure.

By the time I moved to Humboldt County, the Humboldt Bay Nuclear Powerplant was shut down because it was found to lie upon a large and relatively active fault. (And when I say upon, I literally mean it’s right there, cuts right across the facility.) Though the plant was no longer in operation, the spent fuel was still there onsite, still to hot to move for another 20 years.

Seven years and one month or so after TMI, Chernobyl blew up in a far more devastating failure. This accident killed 30 people in the explosion and fire. No one knows for sure how many others will die as a result of the radiation exposures. The city of Chernobyl was abandoned. The radioactive plume drifted around the norther hemisphere. In Humboldt County I for several months after the accident, every evening along with the weather we would get a report as to the number of pico-curies found in that day’s milk at the local dairies.

It’s a sobering thought that today we’re more worried about dirty bombs.