Back From The Brink

Atomic-age pioneers start their lives again

The threatening bubble had dissolved. The radiation readings outside Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant were nearing normal. Slowly the nightmare was ending without anyone receiving a lethal overdose of radiation, either inside the plant or out. The 100,000 or so of the area's 650,000 residents who had left started to trickle home, although many children and pregnant women, on the advice of Governor Richard Thornburgh, were staying away until the government said flatly that the reactor that had so nearly run away was safe.

For the first time, the threat of a reactor disaster had caused a large-scale evacuation in the U.S., disrupted hundreds of thousands of lives, temporarily disabled the economy of four counties, and plainly revealed the dark side of nuclear power. The atomic-age pioneers in the rolling farmlands of Pennsylvania who had lived through the unnerving ordeal were left with emotions that ranged from simple and utter relief to seething anger at the combination of forces that had exposed them to such danger. Declared Middletown . Resident Ann Martin, who felt her past belief in the safety of the plant had been betrayed: "They ought to make sure that thing never opens again. They should knock it down and give the island back to the kids and the fishermen."

With forced bravado, some sought to laugh off their experience. A radio station in the area broadcast a mock weather forecast: "Partly cloudy tomorrow with a 40% chance of survival." Another: "Two thousand degrees and bright." Yet another: "What's the five-day forecast for Harrisburg?" "Two days."

At the Elk's Bar in Middletown, just three miles from the crippled plant, bartenders concocted a new drink combining gin, vodka and bourbon and called it the Bubble Buster, because "it melts down everything." At Dickinson College in Carlisle, 25 miles to the west, students dreamed up such T-shirt slogans as KISS ME, I'M RADIATED. Other area residents wore more defiant slogans: HELL, NO, WE WON'T GLOW. Needling the lack of scientific certainty about the effects of radiation, some T-shirt wearers proclaimed: I SURVIVED THREE MILE ISLAND--I THINK.

Neither the jokes nor the downplaying of the accident was appreciated by most of the workers who pulled on their discardable yellow boots, plastic radiation-protective overalls and hard hats, and crossed guarded bridges to put in harrowing shifts at the plant throughout the period of greatest danger. For days, the engineers had not known for sure just what was happening in the overheated reactor building where radiation levels reached as high as 30,000 rems--a concentration that would instantly fry a human, like a microwave oven cooking a steak.

Even in the adjoining auxiliary building, separated by four feet of concrete and a stainless steel shield from the deadly gases, the radiation in some spots exceeded 1,000 rems, twice a lethal dose. Yet Edward Houser, a chemistry foreman at the plant, had put on his antiradiation gear, including three pairs of coveralls and a full-face respirator, in order to draw a vital sample of contaminated water to help his colleagues figure out what was happening. He absorbed only four rems during his mission; a total of five is the limit set by the plant for a year. "It's not the kind of thing you want to do," he explained later, "but you have to."

While praising the courage of his coworkers, one of the plant's engineers told TIME Correspondent Peter Stoler that he was not at all sure that they were fully competent to handle their high-stakes responsibilities. "We really don't have enough in the way of scientific people," he said. "There are a lot of technicians, but very few engineers and even fewer nuclear scientists." He claimed that the lobster shifts in the control room were especially inexperienced. "They are usually kids, guys in their twenties who took a course on reactor operation and still have to look in the instruction book all the time," he said. "You should have at least one cool head around."

What was more, the engineer said that Unit 2 had been plagued with glitches during its shakedown phase. "Nothing serious, but enough to suggest that both the reactor and we needed to get to know each other better." Instead of thoroughly studying the cause of the malfunctions, the engineer maintained, the plant "went commercial too quickly." The multiple problems should have been a warning, he said. "If the lights in your house blow out every time you turn on your toaster, you know something is wrong. You call the electrician." Questioned about the engineer's statements, Harold Denton, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's operations chief, said there were enough qualified personnel in the control room to meet federal requirements.

Metropolitan Edison, which operates the Three Mile Island plant, had pressed Unit 2 into regular service last Dec. 30. By meeting the year-end deadline, the utility qualified for $17 million to $28 million in 1978 tax investment credits, plus $20 million in depreciation deductions. It also got approval for a $49 million rate increase. "There was no question that there was strong incentive for the company to get that plant on line fast," contended David Barasch, an attorney for Pennsylvania's state Consumer Advocate office.

The debate about the culpability--and venality&3151;of Met-Ed was just beginning. In its defense, the utility insisted that the problems with Unit 2 were all routine. Before the reactor could begin operating commercially it also had to be approved by the NRC. Added Denton: "We don't issue licenses to operate plants until our people tell us that all tests have been completed."

Just how well the NRC is handling its responsibility to ensure the safety of nuclear power will be probed by the special commission set up by President Carter. But on the basis of the NRC's findings about what happened at Three Mile Island, the public had good reason to believe that safety standards had been ignored.

The sequence of human errors and mechanical failures began two weeks before the mishap. As part of a test, valves in three auxiliary pumps in the plant's secondary loop, which carries superheated water to the turbines that drive the electrical generators, were shut down. Incredibly--and in violation of NRC regulations--they were not reopened before the plant was put back into operation.

What triggered the accident was the failure of a pump in the secondary loop that transports hot water from the reactor. When this happened, the auxiliary pumps switched on as they were supposed to do. But, with their valves shut, they could not pump water. Their failure backed up water in the secondary loop and sent pressure inside the reactor soaring. This pressure rise, in turn, caused a relief valve to pop open. It stuck. Pressure then dropped so rapidly that the emergency core cooling system, designed to keep the core from overheating, was automatically activated. That started a reactor "scram" or shutdown. Tons of water flowed into the reactor and out through the open relief valve. At the same time, malfunctioning instruments gave reactor operators misleading readings of reactor pressure, which made them believe that the core of enriched uranium was covered with coolant when it was not. The operators switched off the system on the assumption that it was no longer needed. The premature shutdown and temporary loss of coolant caused the reactor's fuel rods to overheat. They reached a temperature of around 2,500DEG F., which could have led to a meltdown. Water pouring into the reactor overflowed to form a 250,000-gal. lake on the floor of the reactor building. Some of this water, laden with highly radioactive products, was pumped into the plant's auxiliary building, a structure not designed to handle high-level radioactivity. Gases given off by this water were picked up by the plant's ventilation system and spewed into the atmosphere.

The sequence that stopped just short of disaster exposed a number of weaknesses in the safeguard system, including the obvious flaw of not having a remote-control method of adjusting a stuck valve. But human fallibility apparently was the more alarming shortcoming of what happened at Three Mile Island. Once the original on-site mistakes had been made, the blame spread to the NRC itself. Commission officials privately admit that they were slow to get an emergency crew with the necessary skill and authority to the scene of the disaster. Had the right men been there at the right time, three days before they finally did show up, they might have limited the damage and certainly would have reduced the meltdown risk. Astonishingly, in the age of the atom and travel to the moon, the NRC engineers who first went to Three Mile Island had trouble keeping in communication with their home office. Says one NRC official in Washington: "We had a hell of a time trying to find out what was going on. The whole commercial phone system was jammed. We couldn't get through."

When Denton finally did get on the scene, he brought order out of the chaos. In Harrisburg, Governor Thornburgh, facing an emergency that was truly unique, had been frustrated by the lack of clear information. Thornburgh told TIME New York Bureau Chief Donald Neff: "There is a prayer for Governors who find themselves in my situation: 'Lord, send me the straight facts.' " Denton, said Thornburgh, "was a straight talker who knew his facts. He's been our best source, extremely helpful and useful." Jimmy Carter's visit to the plant's control room also helped calm the public.

Under Denton's supervision, company engineers worked with experts from the plant's main builder, Babcock & Wilcox, to eliminate any remaining danger. The crucial problem was a huge bubble of gas that threatened either to explode or block the cooling of the core. Pressure within the core was gradually reduced, the temperature of the fuel rods stabilized, and the bubble bled off. "Time is now on our side," said the relieved Denton.

It might take up to a month before radiation levels within the containment building will allow the dangerous structure to be entered, the steel cap removed from the top of the reactor vessel, and the damage fully assessed. Meanwhile, no human could even go safely into the auxiliary building. Only "Herman," a six-foot-tall robot with a remotely controlled arm capable of lifting 150 Ibs., could lumber inside, turn valves and retrieve fresh samples of the contaminated water.

After a complete cooldown, an even more complex and costly, but less dangerous task faces the company. The NRC's Robert M. Bernero, a nuclear plant decommissioning expert, estimated that the cleanup may take "a year or two." It could cost more than the $700 million spent on building Unit 2 in the first place. If Met-Ed decides the cost of decontamination and rebuilding is too great, the plant might be sealed up instead. That would create what Colorado Senator Gary Hart has called "a billion-dollar mausoleum."

Met-Ed, through a complicated insurance pool involving the industry and the Federal Government, may be able to receive hundreds of millions of dollars toward the costs. The company's insurance was also making payments to families with pregnant mothers and pre-school children who had left the area. When Michael Nye picked up his family's $280 check after leaving his home in Bainbridge, he admitted: "I'm a little happier now. But I will be a lot happier when they get the reactor straightened out."

The utility has other problems. Just replacing the electricity that had been generated by Three Mile Island's two plants (Unit 1, which had been shut down for routine fuel replacement, has also been closed indefinitely) is costing Met-Ed some $1 million a day. Company spokesmen claimed last week they had no alternative but to recover much of this loss from its residential customers by raising its rates by about $7.50 a month. That led to outraged protests from consumer groups, who asked: "Why in the world should we pay for the company's mistakes?"

Last week Met-Ed also added to its record of abominable public relations by announcing that any of its women workers who were pregnant and thus left the area as Governor Thornburgh had advised would have to count their time off the job as vacation days.

Elsewhere in the affected area, dairy farmers and related food processors, including the Hershey Foods Corp., are as worried about adverse psychological effects on their customers as they are about the damage to their products. However, traces of iodine 131 found in local milk supplies turned out to be far less than the levels measured after China's nuclear bomb test in 1976, and even that had been ruled insignificant by health experts. HEW Secretary Joseph Califano stated that the largest radiation dose received by anyone in the area of the plant was the equivalent of two chest X rays. Hershey was still buying over a million Ibs. of milk a day from 935 local farmers, but to be safe was converting it into a powdered form for storage until any possible radiation decays.

Dairy Farmer Tom Williams, who farms 300 acres and owns 110 cows within five miles of Three Mile Island, said he had felt confident all along that the plant would not destroy his livelihood. But he admitted that as a farmer he was naturally an optimist. Explained Williams: "Every spring you plant your grains and have confidence that the sun will shine and the water will come down so your crops will grow. Otherwise, you can't farm."

That tendency to see a bright side in even such a narrow escape from a technological disaster was typical of the response of many Pennsylvanians. Bartender Bud King even went so far as to predict that his home town of Goldsboro would become as popular as Plains, Ga. His explanation: "Tourists are going to flock here to see the famous Three Mile Island plant."

The area had survived three serious floods in recent years and rallied strongly, and surely would again after the accident at that nuclear plant out in the Susquehanna River. Yet there remained an underlying chill that was hard to shake. Retired Dairy Farmer Samuel Williams tried to explain what was so intimidating about the danger of radiation: "This you can't see, can't feel, can't smell." Those four huge cooling towers on the skyline will never look so innocent again.

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