ML19209B402
| ML19209B402 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 09/10/1979 |
| From: | Bowman S H AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7910090635 | |
| Download: ML19209B402 (3) | |
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e%e 6401 Cannon Drive Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 September 10, 1979 office of the Secretary United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 ATTN:
Docketing and Service Branch
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
Before I relate my original purpose, I want to give you my background and my husband's background.
I do this as one example of the many other residents in the Harrisburg area who have strong ties to the Central Pennsylvania area and who have planned to stay here for their entire lives.
I graduated from Cumberland Valley School District in 1967, Shippensburg State College in 1970, and took graduate courses at the Temple Extension, Millersville State College, and Shippens-burg State College.
In September 1970, I was hired by my home school district to teach first grade at Green Ridge Elementary School.
This school, incidentally, is in the neighborhood where I grew up.
I taught for six and one-half years at this school with much creati-vity, high standards, and dedication until my husband and I had our daughter January 6, 1977.
The hours I spent at home and on weekends devoted to the excellence of teaching my children were endless and rewarding.
My husband, Grainger, is an attorney in Harrisburg.
He was graduated from Cedar Cliff School District in 1965, from Princeton University in 1969 and Dickinson School of Law in 1972.
He was a lieuteaant and a legal officer in the staff judge advocate's office in the U. S. Air Force for three months active duty and for six years ready reserve.
As you can see, we are longtime residents of the Jarrisburg We actively supported a good Comprehensive Master Plan for area.
Silver Spring Township from November, 1973 until its final adoption much later.
Seven months after we were married in December 1973, we purchased twenty-five acres of land near my parents' home in Silver Spring Township.
We dearly love this area for its beauty, rural char-acter, and yet the growing list of advantages that the Harrisburg area offers.
We have been concerned about our community and have devoted much of our own time to public service in many other ways.
n w w ems. W 7910090/3,5
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. We have been concerned about our community and have devoted much of our own time to public service in many other ways.
To list a few are the Junior League, United Fund, WITF, WMSP Radio, the Chamber of Commerce, Market Square Presbyterian Church, Dauphin County Bar Association, and the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
We bought in January 1977 a home in Hampden Township which we have improved upon greatly since our purchase.
We are anticipating to build our dream house on our land in five or six years.
Once again you can see how important this area is to both of us.
We have many family members here and many friends who are very dear to us.
I've never had any desire to live elsewhere in the United States.
At the time the TMI accident occurred I was already bedridden with a pregnancy problem.
I was twerty-four weeks pregnant with a premature ruptured membrane.
I called my doctor at 9:00 A.M.
on March 30th to ask what he felt I should do.
He felt I should leave without increasing my activity any.
He felt we were not being told all the facts.
We made arrangements to leave.
We left our house at 1:30 P.M.
I didn't know how long we would be gone.
I was praying and still am praying that my adorable two year old daughter and my baby weren't going to be affected by the radiation.
We rented a furnished apartment for one conth in Philadelphia so my mother could care for my daughter and me.
We stayed in Philadelphia for two weeks.
The expenses we had incurred were very distressing, but not as distressing as the exposure we had already had to the radiation.
Our house is located seventeen miles from TMI, but as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't far enough away.
I don't want to seem to be an alarmist, but I feel that the people in the Harrisburg-Lancaster-York-Cumberland County area have been exposed to as much radiation as necessary for their lifetime.
The way in which the Secretary of Health and Welfare described the nuatber of additional cancer deaths from this accident, not to mention the birth defects this would cause, is enough to convince me that the residents of Harrisburg and its surrounding areas should not have the threat of TMI again.
If nuclear power is to be scaled down or eliminated as many states are suggesting, it has to start with the Harrisburg area.
Don't make dollars more important than lives.
Use the power which you are given to do right by us.
I know residents will have to curtail some use of energy, but I feel if we were given the chance to vote on the option, our safety would be our main concern.
Let us vote on it.
Don't let Met. Ed, Jersey Central Power & Light, GPU, or Penelec play upon your heart strings because they might suffer bankruptcy.
You are public servants to the people.
Think of "We, the people endowed with cert-in inalienable rights...".
The residents of our area should not have to live in fear and anxiety about the next release of additional radiation.
If either reactor reopens, we will
~;?
v all worry about the health of our future generations.
When will additional radiation spew forth?
Please don't let reactor number one or number two ever reopen.
Seriously, think of it this way--if you and your family had to live here, what would your cecision be then?
As a teacher who has tried to teach children about safety along with the many skills, it almost seems a fruitless attempt to protect them when the ominous cloud of nuclear radiation can do so much damage.
The only way to protect ourselves is to eliminate the cause of our fear - TMI.
If the worst had occurred, people in a fifty-mile radius around TMI could have nothing now.
The absurd nature of the disaster would have been the protective law for the utility company limiting the amount of damages they would have to pay.
The amount of insurance they had would not have even covered the homes and be-longings of the people in Hampden Township alone.
My husband and I would have nothing - no land, no home, no belongings, and no job for my husband.
This financially would have ruined over 500,000 people when all they wanted was to live and be happy.
The law for the protective limitation of insurance claims made against nuclear power plants has to be amended or eliminated.
Nuclear power plants don't have to be protected.
People must be protected.
If all this hasn't impressed you, try to solve the problem of all the nuclear wastes which are accumulating around the country.
How many more states are going to refuse these wastes as North Carolina did?
What is going to be done with all of it?
Just how much of this great nation are you going to contaminate with nuclear wastes in the future?
Nuclear power has proven its fallability.
I hope you can see we must gradually but with dispatch eliminate this specter.
You should worry about this problem as much as SALT II.
It is appropriate that we note that the SALT II debate centers around the avoidance of a world nuclear holocaust.
It is equally important to avoid a nuclear accident in our own back yard.
Remember, the world is watching you.
Don't just give Met. Ed. a slap on the hand and a pat on the back.
By not reopening TMI, you will show other nuclear plants that you will not accept the careless operation and flawed design evident at TMI.
Most sincerely yours, cLnIw h
Sandra L.
H.
Bowman 11i6 298