ML19253B317
| ML19253B317 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 08/28/1979 |
| From: | Mark King HEALTH RESOURCES PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT |
| To: | Hendrie J NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7910110459 | |
| Download: ML19253B317 (94) | |
Text
e qNRC FIELIC DOCIBM F E cc 7.U .w m a h HEALTH RESOURCES E C &'E'% E. TO-299
, , PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT 209 Senate Avenue, P.O. Box 122, Camp Hill, PA 17011 717-761-3252 August 28, 1979 C
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Joseph M. Hendrie, Chairman t Nuclear Regulatory Commission bg ** '
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1717 H Street N.W. '
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Eleventh Floor S Washington, D.C. 20555 g 4
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Dear Mr. Hendrie:
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Health Resources Planning and Development, Inc., is the designated Health Systems Agency for south central Pennsylvania (under U.S.P.L.
932641). Counties served by our HSA include Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and York; all adjacent to the Three Mile Island site.
As part of our health planning process, HRPD held a series of public hearings on the Personal Health Effects of the Three Mile Island Accident.
Transcripts of those hearings, as well as support documents, are enclosed for your records. .
Should you have any questions, or desire additional information, please contact me directly.
Sincerely yours, (k /
MichhelJ. King /M [/ / (d
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Health Services Specialist-Planner
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.e HEALTH RESOURCES PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT i
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of j 3 PUBLIC HEARING 'b I
4 PI:,RSONAL liEALTH EFFECTS OF TI!E :
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THREE MILE ISLAND ACCIDENT :
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The Gallery Q) < l 7
Main Building l Penn State Capitol Campus i 8 '
Middletown, Pennsylvania ,
8 Tuesday, May 22, 1979 10 Met, pursuant to notice,at 2:30 p.m.
I 11 l BEFORE:
(Afternoon Session): l i
12
. CAROL CRAWSHAW, Board Member
,) JOSEPH TRAUTLEIN, Health Education Committee ,
13 UILLIAM PEARMAN, Health Education Committee ;
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BARRY ShUTT, Representing Congressman Allen Ertel (Evening Session): I 15 l
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' . 16 BARRY SHUTT, Representing Congressman Allen Ertel PHILIP FEATHER, Lebanon County Commissioner
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WILLIAM PEARRAN, Health Education Committee 17 i*
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_C _O _N .T _E .N _T .S Speakers Page 3 -
Afterno'on Session:
'4 Miriam McDonel 4 5
Jeane J. Crumley 7
- l 13 Robert W. Colman 7
Valerie Lorenz 19
- 8 Michael J. Sheldon 29 g, 9 yi Michael Cocciardi 30 10 John D. Brown 33 11 David Dunkle 34 12
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- j Kimberly Benner -
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Evening Session:
14 Joan Petrosky 42 15 Mary Manfred 44 Ruth Anr. Hepner 52 17
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Bonnie Petrosino 61 18 .
George McKelvy 73 19 Jeane J. Crumley 81 20 Also Participating:
21 Al Petrosky 22 George Manfred
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1 P_ R,Q q E E E 1 N,,E E 2 MS. CRAWSHAW: I would like to welcome you to 3 Health Resources Planning and Development's hearings on the 4 personal health effects of the Three Mile Island accident.
5 Our concern is to hear your concerns that are 6 related to emotional and physical health. We are here to 7 receive your testimony, and we will be developing health 8 prevention sections and health education programs for our
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s 9 health plan in this area from this testimony.
10 Those of you who wit h to testify, if you would fill 11 out a card and turn it in to Ms. Ulsh, we will call you one 12 by one to come up to present your testimony.
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I will introduce myself first. I am Carol Crawshaw, 14 the Plan Development Chairman of HRPC in this area, and I will '
15 let the rest of the panel introduce themselves.
16 MR. SHUTT: I am Barry Shutt. I am with Congressman
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17 Allen Ertel.
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18 DR. TRAUTLEIN: I am Dr. Joseph Trautlein, and I am 19 with Hershey Medical Center.
20 DR. PEARMAN: I am Bill Pearman. I am Dean of Social 21 Sciences at Millersville, and I am on the Health Education 22 Committee.
23 l, MS. CRAWSHAW: Ms. Miriam McDonel?
( l 24 J We are here to receive your comments and reactions 25 on your health concerns. 1445 235
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i 1 MS. MC DONEL: My personal health concern with that 2 of my husband and myself is that we lived in pineford dur.ing
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3 the incident and hava since then moved as of May 1. I 4 But we were really outraged that there was so little 5 concern on the part of anyone having to do with the public 6 health; that the main concern seemed to be with young people 7 of child-bearing age and very young children.
8 Now, of course, I would be even more outraged if I 9 '
were at that time bearing a child or had a very young child, 10 and I would have been terrified.
11 But no one seemed to give any concern for the varyin.
12 conditions of health problems that people have that would be
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13 affected by a disaster like this.
14 I managed to survive the natural disaster of Agnes 15 in 1972, but not without a great deal of stress, and the stress
- 16 was so serious that between June 22, l'972, and 15 November, 17 1972, I secreted so much acid, along with the fact that I had
- 18 an ileal hernia, that I literally destroyed my own esophagus.
19 I do not have another esophagus to give to my 20 country. My esophagus has been completely rebuilt. I found 21 that I was feeling the same pangs of stress; the feeling that 22 you get when you are driving down the street, and you are about 23
, to have an impact with another car. Do you know that strange
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) 24 pain you get, Doctor? Do you know that pain you get in your 25
. abdomen or somewhere in here? It is happening. It is 1445 236 i
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s I something that you can't see happening to you, but there is 2 something telling you that you are under stress. I have been 3 experiencing this ever since.
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4 My husband is a diabetic. He is controlled by
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5 oral medication. However, he does his own sugar testing, and, 6 his sugar went absolutely sky high.
7 We experienced, when we went down for our body 8
scans, several couples of our age that were expressing some of 9
the very same concerns as we did, and they were very vitriolic to about it.
11 To me, I didn't get involved in that because I didn't 12 need any more stress than what I had already had. But I am 13 really shogked and amazed that the Governor could only think i
14 as far as pregnant women and preschool children. He had no 15 concern whatsoever for dicbetics and people who do not react
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16 well under stress, because along with what we ingested from 17 the air, what it has done to our emotiona] health, we really
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. can't say just now.
19 But I have a great deal of anxiety, and I am still 20 experiencing these very same pangs; this jerk is sort of a 21 pain that one feels when he feels there is something terrible 22 about to happen to you. This is not healthy.
23 I think we all have been through a real sick thing 21 where nobody knew what they were doing, and we were being led 25 by a bunch of idiots, and it is an outrage.
- 1445 237 COMMONWE ALTH REPORTING COMP ANY #717* 761-7150
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/ 1 ' - v'h yu put a plant like that in the midst of .a 2 community, somebody has got to know what they are doing. I
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3 have a feeling that Laurel and Hardy were down there running 4 that thing, ..
5 So, any attempt to reactivate that plant would 6 certainly -- well, it is just out of the question because I 7 really don't think that we know enough about what we are 8 dealing with. j 9 We have got our science, but we don' t know what ou2 i 10 science can do to us. Right now, I can assure you that what-11 ever they call this science has certainly affected us very 12 badly, and we have b(an through a great ' deal of stress and
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13 anxiety.
14 We did not want to move out of Pineford. It was 15 a very pleasant community to us. We only moved to Camp Hill,
, 16 but that same stuff can blow right over there real easy.
17 We have heard such things as if we actually had a
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- la meltdown, that it could have affected an ' area as large as 19 Chicago. So, you know, who knows? Going to Camp Hill is like 20 going nowhere. -
21 So, that anxiety is still there, and I really feel --
22 and my husband and I, of course, left the area, and we came 23 to Harrisburg thinking -- because no one could even perceive 24
) what this was amounting to. We didn't have to deal with this 25 before, and, of course, the nt clear plant should have to deal 1445 238 i i
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have had Civil Defense dealing with this sort of thing because,,
3 as I say, we couldn't even perceive that anything could 4
cause us to hr.ve to leave our home and go elsewhere and arrange 5 for board and room, and so forth.
6 When I went to the insurance company when it was out 7 ~
at 19th and Derry Street, they said, "Oh, well, we can't do 8
anything for you," and I said, "May I speak to your supervisor, I
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please?"
18 This very irate gentleman came and told me, he said, 11 Well, we are only dealing with pregnant mothers, and obviously 12 you are not pregnant."
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18 Hey, I didn't come there to be told I was 50-some 14 years old and not pregnant. I came there for the insurance 15 agency to say, "Well, now, we haven't gotten around to it yet,
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16 but we do feel some responsibility to having upset the entire I7 community and forcing you to leave your home and seek board and 18
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room elsewhere."
18 So, this whole thing was so tragic and so horrendous 20 that I'm sorry I can't even express myself any further. I'm 21
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sure maybe someone else can get to it better than I can.
l Thank you. !
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MS. CRAWSHAW: Next we have Jeane Crumley. f
- MS. CRUMLEY: I am a resident of Camp Hill for, I 25 guess, about 13 years. My husband and I and our family have i 1445 239
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( 1 had a cottage on Beech Island, which is just a little sister J
2 just west of Three Mile Island.
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3 In the light of what we have heard, they were no't 4 telling any more than they just were forced to tell, and we are 5 concerned about our previous possible exposure, along with 6 a lot of other island people, to some emissions because I 7 personally recall two and perhaps three of those great big 8 steam releases, which we were told by people who were connected 9 with the island that they were just steam generators, but I 10 understand now perhaps they were generated by atomic reaction 11 because I don't know of any other way that they make energy 12 there.
) 13 So, we are just uncertain as to those ycars of
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14 exposure. That is one of our concerns. And, of course, as 15 this lady said, Camp Hill is not'that far away from the scene,
. 16 and indeed it was quite traumatic because -- I have a Bachelo 17 of Science Degree in Chemistry from Butlers Alabama College
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18 for Women, a' d it is now the University of Montevallo in 19 Alabama, and my first job was a little traumatic to me just as 20 a women and as sort of a philosophical person because I took 21 an exam for a feceral employment as a chemist and remarkably 22 passed it in spite of not ueing too terrific in the math part.
23 But my first job was working in making the first
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i 24 stages of nerve gas, which is certainly a disconcerting thing, 25 and even the early stages, the products involved were so
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I terribly dangerous that it made the secretaries nervous to type _
2 our directions and our lab procedures, and such.
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3 The only tooth I ever lost -- this is a little 4 Personal -- but the only tooth I ever lost was because you had 5 to have all of your teeth so perfectly sealed that you couldn't 6 get phosphorus and other things in your system. When they i sealed one, it didn't work, and I had to lose it after all.
8 Well, this job -- that is just a little background.
9 *That was the only real experience I ever had as a chemist, but to my husband has a degree in chemistry and physics, and at that 11 time he was one of the lab supervisors.
12 He tended to have a little health problem with k, ' .
13 breathing, and so forth, there, and the doctor suggested that 14 perhaps he should find other employment, so we left that area.
15 Since then, he has been in much cleaner research.
16 So, what I would like to say is that a little
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17 knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a little knowledge and
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18 not really knowing that much about how it is operating but 19 having a fearful imagination from our training, both of us, it 20 was an extremely nerve-racking time for us, because we knew all 21 too well what could possibly happen when we became aware that 22 they really didn' t seem to have the greatest control on it.
23 As far as I can tell, they never really had a whole
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lot of control. They simply reacted instead of acting. That 25 is my personal opinion to what happened.
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( I Einey-we,re rsaying, _"We will have natural cooling,"
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and they were forced to have that by other things occurring {
3 much sooner. '
4 Since .then, I have personally seen steam coming from 5
the cooling towers, and I can't imagine that it can be other 6
than contaminated, although perhaps it isn't contaminated, but 1
7 just knowing that there is a leak in the system, in the 8
reactor building, and that sort of thing, makes you still !
9 nervous. ,
10 We have only gone down once to the island since 11 then, and then, it was partly because we had been there just 12 the week before the accident and had left library books. We
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13 are great readers.
14 So, we called the Mechanicsburg Library and said, 15 "Sorry, but we don't know when we will get those books, anu i
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, we hope nothing happens to them, because if something happens
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17 to them, it is going to be very bad because it will have
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happened to everything."
18 So, anyway, we stayed away until just a little over 20 a week ago and dashed down, at which time we saw great smoke, i 21 black plumes coming out of what seemed to be one of these ,
1 22 business type incinerator things at one of the other auxiliTry!
23 buildings, and not knowing the floor plan of the island sys.em
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we aren't really sure, but we wondered and other people won-25 dered what was burning, and so forth, and we can only figure !
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2 everything there is, I would think.
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About our emotional reaction at the time, at first,
- 4 we had the trust that you would have normally; that surely 5 someone, if something were imminent, would let you know, and 6 you would really have time to evacuate.
7 Then, we gradually became very nervous that perhaps 8 this wasn't going to happen, so we laid in some foodstuff 9 just in case we got stuck in our home and arranged to have our-
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10 daughter come over to our house where at least we have a 11 basement and we have our own water supply because it had a 12 well before we went on city water.
13 We were all packed up on the Saturday. We were 14 extremely nervous, and my husband and I usuall'y get along very 15 well, but, oh, we were just terribly -- I think we really 16 wanted to go and we wanted to stay. We didn't want to be
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17 cowards. We really didn't want to lose our home to looters.
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, We hardly knew what to taka with us if we were to go other 19 than our personal papers, because after all, you figure like 20 a lot of other people told us later; there was a possibility 21 that if you went away, you would probably never come back or 22 not be able to come back for any reasonable time. If you did 23 go away, there was that possibility.
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24 I hope I haven't run on too much about the personal 25 part because I am coming partly o eha }pftheotherpeople COMMONWEALTH REPORTING COMPANY #717 761-7150
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g who also are summer residents, and I tried to speak on behalf 2 of them at the President's Commission hearings, but there 3 .were no more openings. I am sure that it was -- I personally 4 think it is a relatively minor consideration with all of
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5 these people who have farms and industries and their homes of i 6 Mdny years that are a lot more important than summer' cottages, 7 but I do think that the people who have these cottages have 8 perhaps been exposed to more radiation that they would care 9 tothinkofifyouconsiderthatyoumighthavehadenoughi) 10 do harm on what is considered or has been formerly considered 11 a safe level. Who knows?
12 I felt all along that there were things that could
(> 13 have been done and said that could have helped people make 14 their minds up a lot better whether to go or stay.
15 It is my feeling that what is good enough fo,r 16
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womenandchildrenisgoodenoughforeverybodyinthewayc{)
17 leaving the area. That was my feeling.
- 18 I feared very much there were going to be heroes 19 at Three Mile Island because of the peoplu who stayed very 20 bravely to cope with what was really a rather unknown condition.
21 I think I will just write a statement and hand it in 22 to you because I don t want to take up too much time.
23 The people who live in the area all of the time
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1 Camp Hill.
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2 Thank you. !
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MS. CRAWSHAW: Is there anyone else? If there is e no one else to preLent testimony right now, we can kind of 5 recess until someone comes forward who would like to testify.
6 (Recess.)
7 MS. CRAWSHAW: We will come back to order.
8 We have another person, Mr. Robert Colman,.who would 9 like to present some testimony. ,
. 10 Would you come up here and take a seat, please? .I 11 am Carol Crawshaw. I am Chairman of the Plan Development 12 Committee for Health Resources Planning and Development. ,
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MR. SHUTT: I am Barry Shutt with Congressman
- 14 Allen Ertel. .
15 DR. TRAUTLEIN: I am Dr. Joseph Trautlein with the j
, 16 Health Education Committee.
17 DR. PEARMAN: I am Bill Pearman. I am with the
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19 DR. COLMAN: How do you do. I apologize for my 20 garb. I was working in my office on an off-day, and a student',
i 21 came by and said, "Look, there is this hearing going on down l l
22 there. I thought perhaps you might have something to say." !
23 I think there are two sort of perspectives from which
) 24 I can speak. One is as a person who lives in Harrisburg who
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25 was afraid and evacuated and came back after a few days. I i 1445 245 _ ;
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1 I have some details, I suppose, about that, but I think they 2 are more or less standard.
3 - The other is as the coordinator of a Master's progran 4 here in Community Psychology which relates in somewhat a more 5 systematic fashion to the kinds of rental health problets that 6 people have been having here.
7 Let me say fast that I don't have any hard data.to 8 speak from. We are in the process, obviously, as a lot of 9 people are, of trying to develop research programs, butwhat) 10 I can speak from is a kind of anecdotal evidence, which I an 11 sure anybody in the room has been gathering in a variety of 12 ways.
(J 13 I was trying to take some fast notes as I was sitting
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14 over there to figure out what I was going to say. What got 15 down on paper was a short list of emotions that people seemed
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Is to have triggered off in them as a result of the events of [)
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17 late March; fear.
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18 You perhaps know more than I do about stress reacdons.
19 I am not an expert in that area. I have some acquaintance 20 with them as a participant in stressful events and also as a 21 psycholog~ist, but it is not my real area of study.
22 But I think it is clear tnat people experienced a 23 great deal of fear for their personal well-being, and that kir.6 i
) 24 of emotion going on for any continued time is bound to have 25 long-term side effects. Again, there are people more cualified 1445l246
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I than I am to speak about the nature of those, the psychosomatic 2 things, and so forth.
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There are, by the way, faculty here in more clinical 4 relationship to students here who are beginning to report 5 things like that. ,
6 The difference, though, that I see and what really 7 confronts me as a psychologist in the reactions that people 8 have is that more than any oth.er disaster that I have heard of 9 I or been in, more to the point, people are angry. There is a 10 great deal of anger.
11 With some people, I think that is a good thing in the 12 sense that it sort of motivates people to say, "This is 'a stand'
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13 I wish to Eake with respect to the issues at hand, and, "Here 14 I stand. I am going to do what I can to have~my position .
15 known."
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. But I think for a lot of other people, particularly 17 the people from this area, who -- if I can speak as an outsider
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- 18 who likeh; the area, people here, I think,. have a tendency to is trust authority, to believe what the people whom they put in 20 power , whcm they understand reasonably to .be in power, say to 21 them about concerns, about matters of concern to them.
22 Here was a case where those sources were not reliable, 23 and there is a great deal of anger directed at the people, at
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g I different kind of problem, a different kind of w,n6 erin; about '
2 how they should respond to the environment anymore.
3 _ There is confusion. That is another thing, if it 4 didn't get on my list, but I would like to say that, too. I 5 guess really there is a litany that people hear at most 6 hearings, the fear and confusicn. Those of us who have been 7 through it kind of know what was happening, and we didn' t know 8 what to do, and I think that people still don't really know
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i 9 what to do. [g to They are struggling for ways that can express the 11 way they feel about the way the situation ought to be resolved.
12 My own reading of the situation is that, by and large, people
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14 joining activist groups to having informative meetings of 15 people in their neighborhoods to just a few old friends 16 gathering together over coffee to discuss things and how
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I think that one primary sort of' gap in what was 19 provided to the people in this area has to do with sort of a 20 lack of personal caring, as it were. -
21 The people who had effect on us in those days, and 22 maybe even now who have effect on us in relationship to Three 23 Mile Island, the main thing you get is not a concern for your
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well-being as a human. You got the feeling that your life was 25 being moved around sort of under the control of forces that 1445 248
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, I really didn't have much to do with that, and I think that 2 the one sort of health planning gap then would be to work more 3 . thoroughly toward providing networks of people who might be 4 able to provide support for each other.
5 My perspective is that the closer you can get that 6 to the way people live anyway, the closer you can get it to 7 the family or the church, or whatever,.the better off you are.
8 But I think it is needed. I really want to all but
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9 agitate people getting together to talk about their feelings 10 so that they can share that with each other.
11 Now how that relates to health planning, I have not 12 thought about, and I wouldn't want to say. I think that that
(/ 13 is the bu1R of what I have to say right now.
14 MS. CRAWSHAW: We are going to be accepting written 15 material and testimony as well, so if you wo'uld care later to 3 ,
16 send in a written statement, that could be sent to our office, 17 and we will accept them until the end of May.
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- 18 DR. COLMAN: I will be writing something for a 19 presentation early in June, but I am not sure if I will be 20 able to get it out by then.
21 MS. CRAWSHAW: Is the real cutoff on May 31 for the {
22 written testimony?
23 MR. POTRZBOWSKI: Not really because the planning
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l 2 MR. SWENSEN: That one day is solely for incorpora-3 tion in the record of this hearing. '
4 MS. CRAWSHAW: To have it incorporated into it.
5 MR. SWENSEN: Nothing to prevent it from input 6 later on.
7 DR. COLMAN: Perhaps there is a piece of paper or 8 .something that might have yor.r address.
9 MR. SWENSEN: I will give it to you. h i
10 DR. COLMAN: '
I will forward that to you when I get 11 it.
12 MS. CRAWSHAW: We might be interested in reading
() 13 some of thd things that you find in your work with the students'.
I 14 DR. COLMAN: Maybe I can give one example that to 15 me seems to be an illustration of the situation. It may be
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16 that that can be enough.
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17 There was a training session here for resident
- 18 assistants who work with people in dorms and in the residence s
19 areas with life, with the kinds of problems that come up, and 20 the counseling center quite appropriately' developed a little 21 workshop on problems that people might be having around Three 22 Mile Island and how to deal with them, you know; when somebody i
23 starts being stressy at you, what do you do. It made sense.
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/ The interesting thing was that what it turned into 25 was a session of sharing anger by the resident assistants that 1AJLE >"D
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r 1 they had to be here. The evacuation was still in effect. The J
2 evacuation order was still in effect at that time.
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3 So, they expressed upset of being ripped out of their 4 lives by the event and then also very clearly trying to express 5 upset at being ripped back and being pressured by the school.
6 The school was fairly responsive in this concern 7 sometimes. The students can speak better to that perhaps. But 8 we tried to communicate that to the faculty to let people know
9 that there was this feeling of being kind of a pressure cooker.,
13 But there were pressure cookers and there were 11 highly emotional ones, and they are not really the ones that 12 even the mental health professionals foresaw in events; like
) 13 we set up this training session and we didn't think of it.
14 Thank you.
15 DR. LORENZ : My name is Valerie Lorenz, and I am 1
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16 a community psychologist. I did not come here to testify, but g 17 I jun more and more aware of my own -- I guess the word is
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18 " anger" really, " anger," and that is why I would like to take 20 this opportunity to also voice my feelings on this whole 20 incident.
21 Let me put it in from various aspects. About five i
22 years ago -- and I address this to you, since you are Mr. 1 i
23 Ertel's assistant -- about five years ago, I was dating a
- 24 nuclear physicist who was working at Caree Mile Island.
25 He That man was in sheer agony almost every dal.
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.% .k s I said, "I know there are no health or safety factors. The i
2 community is ncit safe." We, in fact, did have a minor leak 3 at that time, and he was dealing with it.
4 This man would go back and forth to Washington and 5 here pleading with the Energy Commission to build in safety 6 factors. It was never done.
7 I had this belief in government, that government 8 would not let this happen to the citizens. There is a certain, i
9 amount of value on human life and a certain amount of presse a I
10 that Met Ed lobbyists, and so forth, can put on government, 11 and I did have the belief that government in the end would 12 think in terms of human life.
(#
7 find now that this has not been the case.
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13 I do 14 put a lot of responsibility on the Energy Commission. I find 15 that this has destroyed my belief in the federal government to 16 a large extent. I don't have that trust in federal government
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17 at all anymore.
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Now I have worked with the Penn State University 19 and the Governor's Action Cent'er for the last two years working 20 very closely with the state government here in Pennsylvania.
I 21 That state government restored my faith in politi- l l
22 '
cians, the political process, and in state government. The 23 federal government has very quickly undone that faith that I i
24 had for the last two years in the state government.
25 While I was working at the Governor's Action Center,;
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I 1 we sat up a 24-hour hotline. Governor Thornburgh did that.
2 We were given constant instructions and updates on what to say 3 to the citizens calling in 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. I was there at 2:00 and 4 3:00 in the morning talking to these hysterical, frightened 5 people.
6 It was not unusual for us to get conflicting 7 evidence and information from NRC during this whole time. I 8 would give a certain piece of information, and then somebody
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9 would say, "Well, I called NRC and they said, "Oh, no, it is 10 at a different level." You know, that makes me feel like a 11 liar.
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12 I consider myself an honest person, and I don't
() 13 like being put in that position of even inadvertently lying, 14 although this is information that we were given by NRC, and ,
15 so forth. I am very angry about that.
- 16 Another thing I am very angry about is Hershey ,
] t 17 Medical Center. We were told that if people wanted to be
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18 checked for radioactivity, which was a valid concern that
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I 19 people had, they had to pay for these charges. ;
20 Right or wrong, I don't know if they had to pay for 21 them, but, by god, I think that is a disgrace that the govern-22 ment or that Hershey Medical Center could be so callous as to 23 take these people in a state of panic and charge them, make 1 24 shem an appointment and charge them to find out whether or not 25 they have been over-radiated or over s d ,. whatever. That
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20 22
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- 1 is outrageous.
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2 'My own daughter, who is 19 years old, had to pass 3 through the Three Mile area at that time. That was the only 4 way she knew how to come home. All she knew was she wanted
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5 to come hc . ,.to mother.
6 She had heard on the radio, "Close your windows.
7 Stay indoors. Close your windows." She thought she was safe a when she was in the car with her windows closed, even though-9 it was warm. She said, " Mom, it was so warm, but I didn't we't to to turn on the air-conditioning." Then she found out glass
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11 doesn't do a darn thing to protect you.
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12 Now I am considered a very supportive person. I
(# 13 know how to deal with stress and how to calm people down. I 14 have interned at Crisis Intervention.
15 By Sunday, this girl was absolutely in a panic
- 16 state because, " Mom, I don't know what is on me.
, I don't know 17 what' happened to me."
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18 But yet when we were working at the Governor's Action 19 Center and the attizens would call in, "Does it help to wipe off s
20 counters or stuff when it comes in," we never got an answer.
21 I still to this day don't know. Would it have helped if people 22 who had clothing hanging out on the line had tr ' hose
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23 clothes and washed them off? Probably not.
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24 But we never got an answer, and.that is part of the 25 confusion that Dr. Colman was talking about, confusion at COMMONWEALTH REPORTING COMPANY (717 7%1dt h ) h h ,
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1 organizations including NRC. Maybe Harold Denton is above all J
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2 of that. I love the man. 'He is the one person that I still 3
have faith in, and I hope that I never learn of a con..radictory 4
remark from this man because this would totally destroy me.
. 5 This whole incident has been a very destructive 6 experience. My daughter had planned to go to California State 7 University. In June, she was scheduled to go.
8 As a result of the fear that she was expressing
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i 9
and of my need to work with the Governor's Action Center and to with my other children, I said, "Pam, we will send you out 11 early."
12 She had to go into temporary housing. Then she
) 13
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was at the university housing. Now the term is closed. She 14 had to move out. Until the term starts sometime in June, she 15 will have gone through four different moves.
. 16 1 This poor girl calls up constantly and says, " Mom, 17
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I just don't know what I am doing anymore. I have no control
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18 over what is happening."
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Now, there is a limit to how much I can talk this 20 girl down from a distance of 3,000 miles over a telephone, 21 even though she has a supportive network out there. There is 22 a limit to what we can do.
23 I have a friend who evacuated to Florida. He had no
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) 24 reason to stay here. He would call up and say, "My god, what 25 is happening out there?" They were getting more reports in 1445 255
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1 Florida; it was creating more panic in Florlds that it seemed 2 to be creating right here.
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3 -
Maybe it is when you are ir. that situation and 4
everyone is supportive to everyone else, you are not as aware 5 of it. The people in Florida were certainly panicky. They 6 did not want to come back if they lived here. These were 7 their homes.
8 I k'now of any number of people by the dozens who j
9 areplanningtoleavethisareajustassoonastheycanse1[)'
to their houses, and they are angry about it. There is no ques-11 tion about that, because when you do not have faith in some-12 thing like NRC or your federal government, who can you have
) 13 faith in? -What do you believe in?
14 Government is here to protect the citizens, and we 15 don't feel protected.
We feel lied to and cheated, absolutely.
16
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People know what I do in my job. It seems that 17
{}
everyone I talk to feels they need to express their anger, 18
,
their frustration.
19 I am saturated. I don't want to hear any more, and 20 yet how long is it going to be before this whole situation '
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21 calms down?
22 We have hearings in Washington. We know what ;
23 Washington hearings are like. Maybe two or three years from i
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24 now we will get a decision. Congress does not move that fast.
25 I am not optimistic that Congress will move very fast.
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25
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1 I am angry. I am angry and I am confused, and.I
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2 resent it very much. I don't knu:4 what impact this will have 3 on my health.
4 I have always taken the attitude that it is not
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5 the incident that causes the problem but the emotional effects 6 that you attach to it.
7 I can have a certain amount of distance from some-8 thing like that, but when you are exposed to it practically 9 every waking minute, there is a limit.
10 Those are my feelings.
11 I wonder if I might ask a question. I really don't [
t i
12 know who to address this to, but during this incident, because
) 13 my son belongs to the fire department, we were monitoring 14 evaits throughout, and at .one point even a 20-mile radius 15 was geared for evacuation.
. 16 Have evacuation plans been made once and for all 17 that give fairly ready -- we are told it would take 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />
,
18 under best of conditions.
19 DR. TRAUTLEIN: I can't speak officially, but I can 20 tell you that having sat in that fateful' weekend on the county 21 evacuation planning meetings, all o f them, and the township 22 committee meetings, that as of Sunday night that week, there 23 was at least theoretically a viable plan, and starting the l t
24 previous Wednesday, the Red Cross had begun to identify 25 catchment area places.
_
. -...._,,.. . . . . .-.....- _. .. . .. 1.4.4. 5. . ?. .S._7 -
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night, the plans were worked out to the
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2 detail for hospitalized patients and people that were in
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3 dursing homes, for example, which door you take who out.
4 Now, the unanswered question and the question I still s.v : 2n: . c-5
'...
have in my owii mind is: if they give a party, is anybody going 6 to come? '
7 The health care facilities, we are told very clearly 8
that, "Your job is to identify your needs and deliver your 9
peopletothefrontdoorinaviableconditionwithadequate])
. 10 life support equipment, medication for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, color coding,"
11 i an? so on. That was an accomplished fact.
12 Likewise, for the people in Dauphin County, at (J _
13 least -- I*can only address myself to that -- the roads were 14 identified, the catchment areas were identified; there were 15 identifiable mass shelters with sufficient resources to be 16
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brought to bear to take care of these people.
[)
17 Now the question is: would anybody have gotten 18
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there? Would anybody go there? Would people go to their
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19 relatives or frisnds? These are unanswerable questions.
20 DR. LORENZ: When you talk about the entire popula-21 tion, we are not just talking about'the few hundred that are 22 in the nursing homes.
23 DR. TRAUTLEIN: I grant you that, ma'am, but there
) 24 was an effective evacuation as well. I haven't seen the 25 figures.
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DR. LORENZ: When you mentioned hospitals, if I may
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1 2 relate a case that I took in, again, at 1:00 or 2:00 in the
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3 morning.
4 DR. TRAUTLEIN: Also, at the township level, we 5 had it worked out as to what bus stops at what corner.
6 DR. LORENZ: There was some confusion, and I cite 7 this in order to prevent it from happening again in the future.
8 There were orders er at least rumors going around that 9 hospitals were not taking patients, only heart patients, heart to attack patients. That was the word that the citizens were 11 getting.
12 Yet I had a frantic woman calling up and saying,
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13 "We have a child here in convulsions.
, Where do I take it?"
14 I said, "Take it to the hospital ER," and they said, "We are 15 not allowed to take it. We even called the hospital."
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16 I said, "Take it anywhere. I will cover for you, t
17 and I will call the hospital." That is the kind of thing th:t
, 18 was happening, too, and I think that that is something that 19 people should be aware of, the planners, so that there is a 20 clear network for that.
21 DR. TRAUTLEIN: Yes. There were highly individualized 22 responses there. I am not aware that any hospital in the area 23 closed its emergency room at any time.
24 Some of the hospitals, when it became clear that the 25 possibility of an evacuation was a reality, did stop doing
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1 electzwew 43 ;ical procedures, converting somebody who could 2 walk into somebody who couldn't walk who would require two 3 healthy people to move him out rather than letting them run 4
themselvc:." *(.e
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.f, 5 That was an individual basis. It was not by edict 6 of anybody. This was a decision made at the hospital beard 7 level or the hospital administrative level on a case by case 8 basis.
9 Iamespeciallysensitivetothepointyouhaceju)
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10 made because our group had the very distinction of having the 11 honor of shutting the lights off in Harrisburg, in that NRC 12 said on Wednesday said, "Would you mind staying around and
() 13 being the last medical facility on the East Shore, so that
~
14 when the guy who throws the switch down at Three Mile Island 15 comes staggering out covered with radiation burns, he will
, 16 have somebody to give him a shower and wash him before he
[)
17 dies," or something along those lines.
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18 So, at least the emergency services were never 19 curtailed, and in fact there were more because of the shalter 20 emergency services that were set up in addition.
21 Does that answer yJur question?
22 DR. LORENZ: Yes. I am just saying that for future 23 planning, people should be c'learly told what is and is nc:
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24 available to them '
25 15 2A0 DR. TRAUTLEIN: I am still waiting for a phone call
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7 . , . 29
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1 from Met Ed. To my knowledge, this thing never happened. All i i
2 I know is what I read in the papers and see on television. I ;
3 was a victim, too.
4 MS. CRAWSHAW: We will recess.
5 (Recess.)
l 6 MS. CRAWSHAW: We will go back into session.
7 I will call on Mike Sheldon.
8 Would you like to come up here? Will you give your 9 name.and address, so that the stenographer can get it? Do you' 10 want to tell us how you feel about TMI?
11 MR. SHELDON: My name is Michael Sheldon. I live 12 at 4951 Hamilton Drive in Harrisburg. I am a student at
'
13 Pennsylvanra University, Capitol Campus.
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14 I feel somewhat apprehensive about the incident at 15 TMI. I feel that as a member of the public, we were lied to
. 16 and coerced into a false sense of security.
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17 I don't know to what in particular agency that is 18
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most. attributable, inasmuch a~s we had broad representation 19 in the. press and in the members of the government that informed-
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20 the press of the situation.
21 !
I do have some questions, one of which the future 22 l effects. Over the past couple of days and over the past couplei 23 of weeks, we have had people tell us that the effects of the
, 24 nuclear radiation on the individual's body are minimal; that 25 the long-range effects will resvi: in a maximum of ten people 1445 261
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Ir28 30 -
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7 1 dying in the future or twelve people dying. Recently we have 2 been told that there could be more; there could be 1,200, 3 12,000; nobody really knows for sure.
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4 We are also told that the quality of the drinking 5 water, the quality of the milk produced in Pennsylvania, and 6 particularly in this area, is safe for individual consumption.
7 With the different versions of stories that are
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8 being told to the individual consumer as to the amount of 9
radiationandtheeffectsofdamageontheindividual'sbody;])
. 10 I am wondering just how much truth ic in the matter that the 11 milk and the water is safe, that it will produce no harmful 12 effects on the human body whatsoever, and whether or nc; this
(# 13 is another.one of the publicity stunts, .one of their little 14 coercive attempts into luring the public into a false sense 15 of security about Babcock and Wilcox.
, 16 That is how we feel.
17 MR. CRAWSHAW: Thank you. -
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18 Michael Cocciardi.
19 MR. CCCCIARDI: My name is Michael Cocciardi. I an 20 a student here at Penn State, and I live in Pittsburgh.
21 The thing that bothered me most about the whole 22 crisis was when Governor Thornburgh came out with his advisory 23 to evacuate preschool children and pregnant women.
t 24 ~
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What I don't understand about that was why he only 25 limited it to preschool children and pregnant women. I mean,
_ . . . . . . . _ . . . . - _ . . _ . - . . - . .
1445 26?
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I what about the old people who are sick who maybe have emphysema 2 who are crippled or handicapped and would not be able to get 3 out as a young person would in a given situation where an 4 evacuation would have been called, and I don't under-tand the '
5 limitation there.
6 It did not really make any sense. If it was bad 7 enough for preschool children and pregnant women, then it 0
8 should have been serious enough to take into consideration all
!
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9 of those other people who would have had a difficult time to evacuating.
11 Another thing was the way that the press handled 12 the situation. Every time you would pick up a newspaper or
- 13 every time you looked at TV or listened to the radio, you were
~
14 hearing different stories.
15 There were so many different stcries that everybody
,
16 was confused. The normal person was going to take the most 17 '
serious story regardless of who is giving it. Out of all of
. 18 those stories that they are hearing, they are going to take 19 the one that is the most serious and believe that.
20 What I don't understand is why there was such a 21 variance of stories. It was very mishandled by the press. It 22 was very mishandled by the NRC and very mishandled by TMI.
23 l
I honestly feel that the people at Met Ed were doingI
(
/ 24 the best job that they could to prevent that meltdown, but at 25 the same time, they were not taking into concern the people's l
1445 263 ;
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I safety of this area.
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2 They did not give out clear, concise information.
3 I don't believe that they were totally honest with the people 4
although they were trying to do a good job.
5 All in all, it was a very strange experience. It
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6 was. frightening because nobody knew who to believe. Quite 7 personally, I know outside of the state, I have had relatives 8 call saying, "We heard that people were really sick," or 9 "We are hearing this in California or New Mexico," and here, )
10 the situation was treated almost like a normal situation.
11 One other thing that irked me was the attitude of 12 the Penn State University. We came right back to school maybe
() 13
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a week and one-half after the incident, and we were expected
~~
14 to just go on with life as it normally is.
15 I think that the university should have given us
- 16 more time to recuperate. I know a lot of people are just )
H having a lot of problems.
.
We are not going to be getting out
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18 of school until June 15 when everybody else is getting out 18 right now. -
20 That means that the people who are staying here are 21 going to have trouble getting summer jobs because they are 22 all going to be taken.
23 We are going to be missing out on vacations or
} 24 family outings. They are trying to force us into a normal 25 way of life when it is not quite that normal anymore.
1445 264
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s 1 You can't look at those 'our towers anymore and
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2 just walk by without giving it a second thought. Those towers 3 are always on your mind.
4 But my main point was that I did not understand 5 evacuation of preschool children and pregnant women. It didn't 6 make any sense not to take out all of those other persons 7 who would be considered having diffier.lty in evacuating if a an evacuation would have taken place.
.
9 MS. CRAWSHhW: Thank you. ,
10 John Brown.
11 MR. BROWN: John Brown, 809 B, Weaver Avenue, 12 Penn State, Middletown.
(
13 They mentioned most of the ma3or questions. My 14 feelings are quite similar to theirs. One is'the. children 15 in that five-mile limit sort of seemed to be arbitrary.
16 I understand prior to Denton coming to this area,
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17 it was recommended to him that the Tri-County area be evacuated,
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18 and that that was sort of hushed down because if you do that, 19 you are going to cause a panic.
20 But the children in the-area, for the future, their 21 parents have a lot of questions to be answered. Is the area 22 safe for them? Are they going to be able to grow up and have 23 children and continue a trend of life; that with Three Mile !
24 Island, and if it starts back up in this area, the children 25 are going to be -- I think there might be some type of damage, 1445 265 M -
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32 34
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4
, 1 and nobody has definitely said, "You are safe" or "You are 2 not safe, and if somebody does say, "Well, you don't have 3 to worry about it because it is below federal limits," you 4 don't really have to worry about it. Lots of people are 5 taking it; some are, some aren't.
6 I just don't think that the government is telling 7 people what is safe and what isn't; and really, who knows 8 what is safe? But that has to be set down somewhere to let 9 people know.
. 10 That is my main concern along with theirs.
11 MS. CRAWSHAW: Thank you. -
12 David Dunkle?
(# 13 BR. DUNKLE: My name is David Dunkle. I am from 14 Big Rock, Illinois. From where I am in Illinois, we are 15 surrounded by nuclear plants. We have a design nuclear plant 16 at Lake Michigan and a number of plants further south of me.
,
17 What got me about the one out here was that there
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. 18 was.no emergency plan actually set up for this area before the 19 accident occurred, so there was slipshod action concerning the 20 evacuation of even the children.
21 They did not know what they were doing most of the 22 time. It was just that they were running on guesses. The 23 Mayor of Middletown was quite upset about that.
t 24 The thing I am mostly worried about now is, as Dr.
25 Gofman when he was on campus, the contaminated water in the 1445 266
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containment building right now, they are wondering what they
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2 are going to do-with this water.
3 -
They want to dump it in the Susquehanna River, but 4 they won't say exactly what will happen if it is dumped in 5 the Susquehanna River.
6 Will people be affected by it? Most likely they 7 will be. They will not say why it is increasing, what they 8 are going to do about it. No other states want to take it off f
9 their hands at the moment. !
I 10 So, it just seems like nobody is handling the l 11 situation as well as it could be handled. Looking on the 12 university people on campus, the administration, they have not'
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13 really acted too much. They have had a few speakers on campus.
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14 They have given us refunds, a small amount for inconvenience I 15 of staying on campus for a week, but they are not really
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16 voicing thei7; opinion to the NRC or to the Commission hearings.
17 Concerning the Commission hearings, why didn't they I
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18
, receive the subpoena power before they were brought to campus?
19 It just seems like a total waste of time and energy to bring 20 a Commission here, have them totally set up, have all of the 21 reporters there,~and they say, "Well, we don't have the power !,
22 i to act." So, now they have to reconvene at a later date. :
23 It just seemed as if the entire situation could be l y-better handled. All the rest of the questions were voiced by !
i
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the other people. l 1445 267
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en u u,wu, . . vu o c o--. .. ,- -n....... . . , . , . . - . .
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MS. CRAWSHAW:
'
, 1 Thank you.
2 Kimberly Benner?
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. 3 ,
MS. BENNER: I am Kimberly Benner. I originally 4 lived in Saxton, which is in the western part of the state.
5 When they first started coming out with nuclear
.
6 power and things of this nature, they set up an atomic reactor 7 in our town. It is a small town, so they set it up there on 8 an' experimental basis. I
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i 9 I was young at the age, and I didn't really raise .
10 any questions in my mind until Three Mile Island happened. My!
11 concern was at the beginning and the initial stager, of this.
12 I was home when the first peak occurred, and you didn't hear
(#
much about.it.
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13 It was just sort of passed off as nothing.
14 Then we came back to school because we had been on
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15 break, and it just seemed like, as far as when. the intial i 16 thing started happening, that the first couple of days,
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17 nobody around here knew what was go.>ng on. i I
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18 This did seem to bother me.. However, I would like 19 to say that it is not that I am against nuclear energy or ,
20 anything. I think that this accident occurring has brought 21 a lot of questions that were not really brought up before
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22 about what to do in an emergency situation, and maybe there 1
23 are regulations that need to be placef on the plants that had
(
, 24 not been before and safety regulations that should be checked i
25 - out more carefully. !
1445 268 ;
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_, COMMONWFat TM Q FD ADTONC ("AMD & NV engv. gee geen , , . _
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,- 1 I would like to say that I was very pleased with 2 the evacuation procedures and how there was a tentative 3 procedure set up very rapidly if something serious would 4 happen because I had a brother-in-law who was involved with 5 the school system which was going to be used as an evacuation 6 System, and through this I did find out more about what was 7 going on and being planned.
8 My initial concern was how the incident was handled 9 at the very beginning. In the future, no matter where a.1ything'
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10 like this happens, I think maybe things could be handled a 11 little bit better because we were just getting contr.adictions
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12 all the time from the press; like one tirce you would hear one 13 story, and -the next minute you would turn on the radio and you 14 were hearing something different.
15 But I would like to say that my main concern was i
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16 that and how panicked people got during the initial few days, 17 but since these hearings have been set up and people are trying 18
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to answer everybody's concerns, I think the situation is being 19 handled well, and that maybe from here on, we can work and 20 these controls can be maintained.
21 I think we just have to praise the lord that nothing 22 serious really did go wrong and that things did work out well 23 this time, and look to future events as to what can happen.
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24 But I don't feel that the concern of ruling out 25 nuclear energy'is that important because we need energy, and 1445 269
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f I right now, that seems to be our only answer because solar
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2 energy has a long way to go. '
i 3 _ Those are my main concerns of how things were handled
!
4 at the very beginning. !
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5 MS. CRAWSHAW: Thank you. ,
6 Do we have anybody else who would like to present
'l testimony? ,
8 MR. COCCIARDI: I would like to ask one more question.
9 Are we going to die? ,
10 DR. TRAUTLEIN: Yes, within 100 years, but nobody .
11 can give you a figure.
12 MR. SHELDON: The seriousness of the question, the
() 13 implication, is very pertinent to the situation. Over a period 14 of time when this first thing came out, we have been told, ,
15 "Well, within 20 or 30 years, you will see the effects, and
,
16 maybe 12 people will die."
17 Since then, it has been proposed 120; then it has
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. 18 been proposed 1,200; now it is proposed 12,000. That is a 19 very serious question considering all of us.
20 Who is to say where the radiation went and where it 21 didn't go? TiI didn't set up monitoring plants initially after 22 the incident. As a matter of fact, as reports have it, one 23 of the TMI employees advised his wife to leave prior to the
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24 publication of the incident.
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25 So, how are we to know if we are or not? Are we 1445 270
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I going to die? That is a very pertinent question, and I think 2 it should be asked by everybody; and I think because of that 3 question TMI should be shut down.
4 MR. COCCIARDI: I will tell you some. thing else. I 5 wish this lady was here today and she could talk to you, 6 because maybe then you could get your real story.
7 It is simply the fact that this lady did not know 8 that she was pregnant at the time of the accident and she did 9 not leave. She just found out that she was pregnant about a
. 10 week after the accident, but she had been pregnant durir.g that 11 week. And now she is scared to death that her child is going 12 to be a genetic defect.
'
33 Row how are you going to tell her to have that 14 child and take a chance on having a genetically defectite 15 child? How are you going to explain that to that child when 16 she grows up?
)
. "Well, we were living in this area and we were 17 not told to leave. They didn't demand that we leave. Because 18
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of that, you are a genetic defect."
19 How about that mother? You talk to that mother 20 about it, and she starts crying. She breaks rignt down, 21 because she doesn't know whether to have this child or whether 22 to have an abortion.
23 That is what it all comes down to, human life.
, 24 Regardless of everything else we are saying, if human life is 25 on the line, is nuclear power really worth that? Have we gone 1445 271
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,. 1 that far that the power is more important than the human. lives 2 involved here?
3 _ MR. BROWN: Even the very conservative estimates of 4 ten people, ten people are more important than a nuclear power 5 plant; one person is, and it is just not worth it.
6 MR. COCCIARDI: An unborn child is more importr.it 7 than those towers over there any day of the week, anytime.
8 MR. SHELDON: And we definitely feel that that is 9 a question to be asked: are we going to die?
])L 10 DR. LORENZ: There has been nuclear testing in the 11 southern part of Utah, and hearings now have indicated that 12 there is an increase of leukemia.
() 13 1 guess in relations to health questions, just
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14 what exactly are some of the effects from radioactivity? We 15 are told cancer may be one in so many thousands of people, but 16 then what kind of cancer? What form of cane:er?
Whatwillit)
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17 do to the lymph nodes, or whatever, the young children and
. 18 pregnant women? What kind of genetic effects?
19 We are just given such vague information, and that is 20 frightening. Maybe doctors don't know yet. Maybe we have to 21 have enough exposure to radiation. Maybe we need to go back to 22 l Japan and look a little closer. But it is all of these ambiguities,.
23 MS. CRAWSHAW: We will be in recess then until 6:30.
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24 (Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned,i 25 to be reconvened at 6:30 p.m., this same day.)
1445 2 72
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/ 1 EVENING SESSION
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2 (6:30 p.m.)
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MR. SHUTT: I would like to welcome everyone here
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4 this evening. For those of you who picked up the bulletin 5 on.your way in, it would basically explain the purpose of 6 the hearing. They are to hear the concerns of the people in 7 the area about the personal health aspects of the TMI incident.
. 8 My name is Barry Shutt. I am here on behalf of
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9 Congressman Allen Ertel. To my left is Mr. Phil Feather, 10 former Board member of the Health Resources Planning and 11 Development Committee and also a County Commissioner in Lebanc.
12 County. To my right is Dr. William Pearman from Millersville
(# 13 State College. He is also a member of the Public Health 14 Education Committee.
15 What we will try'to do is to have anyone who would
. 16 like to testify fill out a small card with your name and i
17 address on it so that the stenographer can get the informatien
. 18 accurately in the transcript, and then we will hear your 19 testimony.
20 As the bulletin indicates, we are a listening pa..el, 21 not specifically designed to debate or answer questions, but :
22 get a general idea of the emotional aspects of those affec:ed 23 by the TMI incident.
f 24 As is further indicated, written statements will be 25 accepted by the Board through May 31 of this year and can be
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1445 273
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( submitted after the hearing.
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2 If there is anyone here who would like to testify '
3 we would invite you to the table to discuss it, or if you feelI 4
more comfortable sitting where you are at, you are free to do 5 that also.
6 If you do choose to testify, we ask that you speak 7 loudly enough that the stenographer can understand your
. 8 testimony.
l 9 MS. PETROSKY: My name is Joan Petrosky. I live i 10 Steelton. It is my thought that the state should provide .
I 11 medical care and the care of the psychologist to anyone in the !
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area, senior citizens, men, women and children, if they need
(. 12
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13 this care-immediately, with the idea that they can use their 14 attorneys to recover this money from Metropolitan Edison.
15 I think that this care should be made available to
- 16 anyone who needs it. I attended the Presidential Commission ,
~)
17 hearing on Saturday, and one of the doctors from Middleton
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18 testified about the number of small children who were suffering 19 a psychological and medical problem because of this terrible
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20 thing happening.
21 I was not at all happy to hear one of the Commission 22 members pose a question to one of the witnesses who was there
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23 saying, "Well, these children's condition will not improve
) 24 whether or not Met Ed reopens, will it?"
25 I was sorry that the doctor did not say that perhar 1445 274
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1 it won't help them recover, but it certainly can aggravate 2 the situation and perhaps cause the same situation to other 3 children and parents as well.
4 I know that children are very sensitive to the 5 emotions of the people around them. I know because I raised 6 two sons and had'much chance to observe them as well as 7 children that I took care of. I am a registered nurse.
8 I know that these children's mother probably jn ps 9 as far as I do when I hear as much as a fire engine sound these 10 days.
11 I don't know that if the TMI Number II plant comes 12 to a cold shutdown, I don't know whether I will jump less. I
)
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13 hope so. But I don't see that that will happen if the plant 14 begins to operate or even if Unit I standing next to that 15 chamber of horrors continues to be refueled and is permitted i " 16 to resume operation.
17 I think this care should be provided. I also an
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- 18 very concerned a' bout those young pregnant girls and all that 19 they went through.
20 There is a condition called post-partum depressicn.
21 I think that if any of these girls have any problems, this 22 medical care and the care of a psychologist should be atailable.
23 I think this should be available now, provided for by the state, 24
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with the idea of this money being recovered from te E -
25 MR. SHUTT: Thank you very much.
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- 1 Is there anyone else?
2 MS. MANFRED: Could I talk from here?
3
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MR. SHUTT: Yes.
4 MS. MANFRED: I would like to know what preventive ,
I 5 '
. care we could use for our children or our grandchildren. If 6 there is something -- the state should know what is coming out=
l 7 of Met Ed now. They probably don't have the equipment or what ?
8 ever to even monitor.
9 So anything that is coming out -- it will soon be
)
10 three months. What is coming out of it daily? Isn't there 11 any preventive -- if you know what is coming out, you could 12 prevent it maybe by staying inside or going away.
( .
,
13 I think we should have that choice of watching over 14 our own selves. When the kids are outside all day, and the 15 milk -- I know we don't drink any milk. It is nothing but 16 powdered milk used for our family.
,
17 MR. FEATHER: You mean what type of emissions are
,
18 being released from TMI?
19 MS. MANFRED: Yes. I don't know what to call it.
20 MS. PETROSKY: I have another suggestion. This is 21 unrelated; however, it is related to any kind of emergency. I 22 do think that all of the heads of these disaster units should 23 i have contact with the State Health Department or a medical I
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, 24 officer.
25 I know that the first part of the first emissions
.445 276
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I were on Wednesday. On Friday, I tried to call the State c.ealth 2 Department to get questions that I had answered, and I had to
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3 spend over an hour on the phone before I could reach anyone 4 who could answer .ny questions.
5 I think this should not be necessary. I think in 6 the event of an emergency, a medical doctor or somebody at the 7 Health Department should be -- I think they should have a hot-8 line or something provided so that people can contact them.
9 In my case, I had the hour to spend on the phone, 10 but there are people at work or away from home who might hate 11 just a few minutes, and they don't have that much time to get 12 a question answered.
'
13 MS. PETROSINO: I would just like to ask a questien.
14 We heard so constantly about a cold shutdown, and then all of 15 a sudden we heard no more about a cold shutdown.
.
16 At the last reading that I ever heard, we still had 1
17 not arrived at a so-called cold shutdown. Did we ever arrice L there?
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39 MS. PETROSKY: No, not yet.
20 MR. SHUTT: As I stated at the beginning, we are not 21 here in a. position to answer the questions. There are many 22 agencies that have been formed and many committees and 23 commissions, and so forth, to answer questions.
/ 24 MS. PETROSINO: It seemed as if the news had been 25 cut off at one point as if we had heard enough and shouldn't 1AA Co PdjY 977 COMMONWEALTH REPORTING
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,s 1 hear anymore.
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I 2 MS. PETROSKY: Exactly. What are you here for and 3 what will come of this hearing? It goes to the Governor's 4 Office, or who does it go to? The Health Department?
5 I would like to know the purpose of it.
i
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o MR. FEATHER: One member of the Board is here who 7 may be able to answer that and also a staf f member.
8 MS. CRAWSHAW: The HSA Board is sort of a federally 9 mandated Board that is set up under public law to develop a
}
to healtn plan for our area.
11 We have developed one, and every year we are review-12 ing the plan and updating it, and we will take this testimony 13 and study it to see if there are areas of our health plan for 14 this area that we did not think to address before because no 15 one thought of these kinds of problems happening.
16 We have sections in the plan dealing with mental -
17 health, with environmental health, and things llke this, and we are hoping that we will come up with something for our
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18 19 area because a new health concern has come up in our area, and 20 we felt that we needed to address it some way.
21 The best way to know what the people's concerns were 22 is through public testimony.
23 MS. PETROSKY: Would you mind telling us what was
( . 24
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brought up at the meeting-this afternoon? It might be helpful 25 to the people here to know what was discussed or suggested, and 1 45 ?7 L
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( 1 maybe that might present questions that they might be inter-2 ested in.
3 MS. MANFRED: Is this for the Capitol Campus area?
4 MS. CRAWSHAW: No. It is for an eight-county regicn 5 here in this state, and it just happens that TMI is in t'.e.
6 center of the eight-county region that our health syste:
7 agency covers. ,
8 MS. MANFRED: But when you can't get answers frc:
9 the State Health Department, what good does it do to gite ycur 10 opinion here?
11 MR. SHUTT: I believe she stated that. The peint is 12 that there are things that they may not have addressed, and
{) 13
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those things should certainly be considered in the planning 14 and restructuring possibly of the health plan for this area.
15 MS. MANFRED: Do you mean there are some thi..gs that 3
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16 have not been discussed about TMI?
17 MS. CRAWSHAW: Prior to this, I don't know.
- 18 MS. PETROSKY: Is there any possibility of getting 19 medical help for these people from the state?
20 MR. PETROSKY: He just told you he is taking data.
21 He is not taking any --
22 MS. PETROSKY: I know he is just taking data, bu:
23 do they have any vague idea of whether this might be s: el:dy i
s 24 from the Health Department?
25 1445 279 MS. MANFRED: A doctor should answer there whether
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4 8. ' i r45 .s
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1 there is any preventive things you can do for a child.
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i 2 MS. PETROSKY: Are you from the state? !
3 - DR. PEARMAN: No. We are all here in terms of our 4 roles with this agency. Maybe I could clarify something about 5 the agency.
6 The agency acts as kind of a watchdog in terms of 7 the spending of federal dollars for hopsitals and health care 8 services in this area.
9 Theyhavetohaveafeelingintermsofthekindsc]}
to services that wil' be needed and also the anique health 11 problems of this area.
12 So the purpose of this hearing is to find out whether
( -
13 there is a connection with this TMI incident that the agency 14 might use in rewriting its health plan for the future.
15 MS. MANFRED: I think most anything, if it is ever
- 16 used out of any of these hearings, will be too late for anybo 17 MS. PETROSKY: Can a report be submitted to the
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18 Governor's Office stating that people do think that help is 19 needed now?
20 Really, I think that maybe he is unaware that there 21 are people who cannot afford to take their child to a psycholo ;
I 22 gist.
.i 23 These people were not told that they were going to
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24 have to undergo an experience like this, and they are not l 25 financially able to take care of these incidentals that are 1445 280 i
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49 j
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I being placed upon them now. .
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2 Can't, say, some of these things that are discussed
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3 here be forwarded on to the Governor's Office? There are so 4 many commissions. There are commissions and commissions, and l 5 you wonder whether they are not overlapping and interlapping, 6 and you wonder whether any of this'information is actually 7 going to do any good.
8 MR. PETROSKY: This evening, my wife said, "Let's ,
9 go to Middletown," and I said, "My god, not again." This is ;
.i 10 our fourth meeting.
11 That lady over there, I have seen her at every 12 meeting. '
Now we certainly should be able to find something
>
13 to do rather than come here, and no one gives a damn anyway
'
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- 14 when it is all said and done; two months, nothing. It looks 15 like we will never get anything.
.
16 In the meantime, we are exposed and having all of i
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17 these problems, but again, who cares? In other words, why !
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18 have all of these stupid meetings? We are not getting any- ,
i 19 thing out of it. i I.
20 MS. MANFRED: Have you said you get four checkups a l 21 year? What kind of checkups? You ask the doctor, and the 22 doctor says, "I don't know. I don't even know what's going on.'"
23 MS. PETROSKY: You mean, they actually are providing
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l 24 for checkups? 1445 281 ,
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25 MS. MANFRED: No.
ll
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NR.'PETROSKY: Good ones or just with their eyes.sh'ut.
2 MS. MANFRED: They recommend *
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3 MS. PETROSKY: Will Met Ed pay for these?
4 MS. EMNFRED: I'll bet they will.
5 MR. PETROSKY: So meanwhile, how about some actions
'
6 here? Yes, no, or what?
7 MS. PETROSKY: Meanwhile, the doctors cannot afford 8 to take care of all of these patients.
9 MR. PETROSKY: You are getting paid for this? '
i 10 MR. FEATHER: No, we are not getting paid.
11 MR. PETROSKY: We are not getting paid. I am getting
- 17. to the point where it is useless; a lot of talk and no action.
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13 MS. MANFRED: The doctors that we have talked to, 14 they said that they cannot help you. They can't provide you 15 with anything because they don't know what was released.
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16 MR. PETROSKY: You wait until somebody hits you, I m
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17- guess.
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18 MS. PETROSKY: They can't afford to provide free 19 service either. That is why I think it is a matter for the
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20 state.
21 MR. PETROSKY: The state has not taken any action.
22 MS. PETROSKY: If they would forward this --
23 MR. PETROSKY: If we only had a bunker to crawl into
\
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) 24 with 200 friends and have a good life, I wouldn't mind staying 25 here, but I can't afford that. i445 282
48 51
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1 MR. SHUTT: I think what you are doing is basically 2 addressing what the purpose of this meeting is to begin with; 3 to hear testimony of the concerns again, as Carol has stated, 4 to spot deficiencies that may have existed in the existing 5 plan and to improve them. I think that is the way we hase 6 to approach the solution to the problem.
.
7 MR. PETROSKY: It is not enough, though. It has 8
been two months and nothins. It doesn't look like we will
.
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9 ever get off the ground.
,
10 MR. SHUIT: There is a new plan, as I understand it:
11 and again, I am not part of the Board. There is a new plan 12 to be implemented by the er.d af October -- or is it Nove:her --
13 which will hopefully take these suggestions into account so 14 that they can update their proposal by November.
15 Again, it is to spot those deficiencies that we 16 are trying to obtain right now.
.
- 1 17 MS. MANFRED: One, I feel, deficiency is putting 18 everything.ca the economy.
.
19 MR. MANFRED: Since you are representing Mr. Allen 20 Ertel, could you relay a message to him .- or will I have to 21 write a letter -- that if he can contact the Governor and have 22 them expend their energy on trying to guarantee the health cf 23 the people or assure them that it is safe around here rather 24 than to worry too much about the economy, because if thep ta?.e 25 care of the people and assure the people that their heal:h is 1445 283 COMMONWEALTH REPORTING COMPANY 1717 761 7150
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49 5,2 -
I going to be all right, then that would be getting the monitor-2 ing equipment and making Met Ed let the people know just what 3 is going on, and then the economy would take care of itself.
4 The economy comes first; money is first, and people 5 are second. Would you relay that message to Mr. Ertel?
6 MR. SHUTT: I certainly will. I have to report on i the whole activity.
8 Are there any other comments?
9' (No response.)
10 MR. SHUTT: Are you familiar with our procedure
_
11 here? What we are trying to do is to take testimony from any-12 one who would like to comment on the medical aspects and the
() 13 emotional aspects of the TMI incident.
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14 Any comments that you would wish to make would be 15 taken down by the stenographer, and hopefully it might go into
. 16 a plan to revise the health plan in this area.
b) li Until we have someone else to testify, I guess we 18 can stand in recess.
,
19 (Recess.)
20 MR. SHUTT: I believe we have a' lady who would like 21 to make a few comments.
22 MS. HEPNER: I really didn't prepare anything for 23 comments. We just came to observe. But I work over right
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24 across froa here at the Governor's Office for the state, and 25 I thought, well, maybe I could comment something about -- vell, 1445 284 COMMONWEALTH REPORTING COvP ANY '7175 1- 1
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.i I we work right in back of the towers, and that was some day.
2 So, I don't know really what to say because I didn't 3 come prepared. I guess I should have. But it was something 4 that day to go through that. We didn't know what to do.
5 MR. SHUTT: Are there any other comments?
6 MS. HEPNER: I am worried about the radiation and 7
the effect that it will have on us because we work right in 8
back of the towers only three miles away, and we have to go 9' every day back there to it, and I am concerned about my cwn
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10 health really.
11 MR. PETROSKY: I do still think if you run scmeone 12 down here, like the Lieutenant Governor -- we don't even kncu
)
13 who you are, so maybe comebody with some power instead of 14 just -- I don't know who you are. You don't know me. It is 15 nothing.
16 MR. SHUTT:
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I don't think that is quite true.
17 MR. PETROSKY: What is wrong with the Secretary of 18 Health? Why not him? You have no power. Send somebody with
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19 some teeth in them.
20 MR. SHUTT: I believe you may b'e misunderstanding the 21 purpose of the meeting.
22 MR. PETROSKY: Nothing is going to. happen over here.
23 Everybody knows that. Get somebody who has some power to gc
) 24 to the Governor and get some results.
}44}} 25 MS. PETROSKY: I think they just set up another _
r51 S.4 -
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' commission, another one.
,g I t 2 MR. PETROSKY: A lot of expense and nothing to gait. l 3 _ MS. "ETROSKY: I don't know who is heading ~it. 4 Maybe you can go in and speak there. 5 MR. PETROSKY: Every week. there is another oxmdssion, 6 another <crddess commission. They go on and on. You fellows 7 haven't done a damn thing there in Harrisburg, nothing, and 8 we still keep getting these idiotic reports from the mill; 9 nothing. The people are hurt financially; nothing. 10 i MR. MANFRED: What exactly does the Health Resources S 11 Planning do? What are we supposed to do here?
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12 MR. PETROSKY: I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I ( 13 wanted to tell you what the problems are. You have no solu-14 tions to them.
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15 MR. MANFRED: What can this agenicy do for us? 16 MR. PETROSKY: Nothing.
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I just told you, nothing. . 11 MR. MANFRED: There are three of you. 18
, DR. PEARMAN: Let me try to answer that.
19 MR. MANFRED: I'am only asking because I don't 20 know enough about this agency, and I don'.t know what you could ! I
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21 do, so how could I know what to tell you what you could do for 22 me if I don'E know what you can do? 23 DR. PEARMAN: Approximately four or five years ago, i 24 there was a public law known as 93-641, which basically was 25 to involve consumers a little bit more in the health planning MM NV r r Q q COsa Ny 7 7 76 (425 ed ?86
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Si - ' s' 55
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1 process.
- J 2 What they did was to divide the country up into 3 NSA's, Health System Agencies, and Health System Agencies 4 would be run by Boards composed of providers and consumers ;
5 from that local area, but it would have a dominance of con- :
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6 sumers. The Board has from 51 to 60 percent consumers,
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7 people like yourself, on the Board. 8 The people here, Mr. Feather was a Board member, and 9 I serve on a committee. The Board is divided into sub-units."
*
- 10 The Board members head committees, and then there are volun-11 teers; consumers, health care consumers, and providers, such 12 as physicians and nurses and medical school personnel, and so
) 13 forth, are providers; people from the community without medical 14 affiliation and health care affiliations are consumers.
15 Basically, what they do is act as kind of a watchdog
,1 16 in terms of the way in which federal dollars are spent in the 17 Health System Agency in the arta.
- 18 So you are talking about an area here which deals 19 with South Central Pennsylvania, and they are responsible for 20 developing a health care plan, a health system plan, which is 21 a five-year plan for the delivery of health services, parti-22 cularly citing unique needs of that area, and then that health 23 plan is updated every year in terms of what they call an annual 24
/ implementation plan. 1445 287 25 So that is one of the reasons behind this; to get the
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53 36' ~
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l 1 information from people, because TMI is something very unique '
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3 to this area, to find out what particular services might be , 3 needed. 4 So a record is being kept of the testimony tonight, 5 and this is a public record which would then be made available 6 to people in government, in hea th care services, and so forth. 7 So that is a little bit about what this is about. 8 We are all just really volunteers. As you say, we don't have
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9 any power, but we are here to listen, .and we are representinr{}'
.. 10 consumers like yourself in terms of the health planning to take
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11 place in this area, so we want to hear what other people have 12 to say.
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13 MR. PETROSKY: We were told that the earliest we 14 could get anything on this is November. We lived around 15 Harrisburg; I lived there for 30 years. I know that nothing
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16 will"ever happen. Even it is is, the process will be so e5 G$ 17 watered down, it will be worthless anyway.
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. 18 I am looking at this paper now. This is a damned 19 good grade of paper. What is worth? Nothing. It is beautiful 20 paper. Somebody is paying for it.
21 I don't mean to take you fellows apart, but when you 22 come, it should be organized, not just haphazard. Organizers 23 should know what you are doing, get a target and go to work on
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24 it. 25 You cre disoriented. You don't know what you are 1445 .?88
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- I doing.
2 MR. FEATHER: I'm sure glad I came out tonight to 3 listen to you. 4 MR. PETROSKY: I told you like it was. You are not 5 listening. I just told you what the problem is; you are net 6 listening. 7 MR. FEATHER: Why don't you just testify as a 8 witness. 9 MS. PETROSKY: This is a good example of how a lot r_ , 10 of people in the area feel. You must unde stand that a lot
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11 of people's emotions are involved in this. 12 I don't mean to be offering explanations, but it is
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13 true. People are upset, and I know that everybody is trying 14 to help. 15 But again I think that probably a lot of necassary g . 16 help is not here because this is a unique situation. Pecple 17 are getting discouraged.
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18 MR. MANFRED: This accident, I think, affected 19 everyone's physical health, not only through stress but their 20 mental health, and that is about all that we can say as far 21 as what it says the purpose of the hearings are; is that 22 right, if we tell you that we are worried about the effe::s of 23 this accident at Three Mile Island? 24 1445 289 MR. FEATHER: I think the purpose of us is to ha ce 25 you give us examples of what you are talking about. _ ___
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I MS. MANFRED: You mean like nightmares and things , J . I 2 that I worry about? . MR. SHUTT:
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3 Before you continue, let me suggest that. 4 Mr. Feather wasn't in on the afternoon session, but we had 5 similar testimony from people with that same type of problem, 6 emotional stress that they were concerned about. That is the 7 type of thing that we are here to find out. 8 l Again, there seems to be an underlying concern of 9 the afternoon session.
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l 10 MS. MANFRED:
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I believe all of the emotional is 11 triggered by not knowing what is going to happen to you
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12 physically; like, you have grandchildren, and I know that my 13 daughter, she is very upset emotionally because she has a two-l _ 14 year-old and a three-month-old baby, like she says, "I wish j i i 15 I had never had them to bring them up, and in five years one l 1
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16 die with cancer from this." You can't ever prove it was Thret 17 Mile Island.
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18 MS. HEPNER: The girl that I work with is a grand- i i 19 mother, and her daughter just gave birth to a baby girl just 20 this week. i 21 We were really worried about that baby, how she was 22 going to be, but she is okay. She is fine.
]
23 MS. MANFRED: It is just where the plc a - nt over;
, ~24 but who knows what is now? What I would like to know for 25 future health would be monitors around that you wculd know what!
!445 190 l
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i . 1 is coming out, but the state doesn't have anything like that. 2 MS. PETROSKY: And that takes us back to my original 3 statement. Psychological help should be available to, like, 4 this lady's daughter. 5 She should be able to go to a psychologist, express 6 her fears, and have him tell her how to deal with them. Lay 7 people are not qualified to do this. 8 The same thing applies to my original statement about 9 medical service; that it should be available. I am sure that
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10 there are people in the area that need it and can't affcrd it 11 and are going without. 12 Now Unit II is not at a cold shutdown. Something
)
13 could go wrong. We don't know how much more is necessary to 14 push a lot of people right over the brink into some real r.enta-_ 33 problems. 16
) . Therefore, as I say, precaution is better than later .
II cure, and if we have some medical service available to these
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18 people and the services of psychologists provided by the state 19 now, not later when things get a lot worse -- is there any 20 kind of emergency set-up to this provision of funds whereby 21 you could provide this kind of service; it could be provifed 22 at this time when it is needed? 23 Do they have any emergency funds set aside fcr 4 emergencies in your federal allot.r.ent of funding? 14 4 5 L)91
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MR. SHUTT: I really ar4 not prepared to answer -hat.
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i 1 MS. PETROSKY: It would be nice if you would make ,
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l 2 a note of that and see if there is such a thing, and maybe j t 3 by our expressing these fears and thoughts that this is i 4 necessary, maybe it could be studied and something provided i
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5 earlier than: November. 6 These people need help now. Your daughter needs it 7 now. I 8 MR. MANFRED: We need an 4ssurance to know, that we yi 9 could believe what is happening now. I think that is what I' .
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10 is affecting our health now, the unknown, how the accident
- 11 already did affect us.
12 MR. FEATHER: Do you have any experience with the ,
) 13 mental health-mental retardation area in Dauphin County?
14 MS. MANFRED: No. 15 MR. FEATHER: Has anyone checked into them to see 16
. if they are providing this service? h) 17 MS. PETROSKY: No, but I will call them if you think
* . 18 it is worthwhile.
19 MR. FEATlF;R: They would provide psychological help. 20 I don't know if there is staff to handle'a large number of 21 pecple, but I think that is where you have to just start 22 putting pressure there. 23 If there are a lot of people requesting help, then
# 24 they are going to have to respond with more help.- Ithinkyour!
l 25 point is good. I had this down from the beginning. S ee te 1445 292 p
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1 Psychological help is needed today. 2 But we are not here to agree or disagree with you, 3 just listen. 4 MS. PETROSKY: I understand, and I think it might 5 be worth a phone call to see what they have to say. 6 MR. FEATHER: MH/MR in Dauphin County, part of the 7 gCourthouse. I don't know if there is a public health center 6 in this area. 9 MS. PETROSINO: I don't think I have anything drama-10 tic or different from anyone else's, but I am in a positicn of 1: being a nurse here, so I have people coming to me for 12 reassurance, and I find it a little hard to give that reassur-13 ance because I am not wholly reassured myself. 14 I have a daughter coming on campus here this fall, 15 and I have just a little reservation about that; so that 16 concerns me, trying to reassure others when I wish that she
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17 were going somewhere else. 18
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But yet, I feel, like, an intellectual part of me 19 says not to worry about it, but yet an emotional side of 20 20 worries about it, and as long as I read things in the newspaper, 21 like, one day there is 4,000 gallons of radioactive water to 22 be gotten rid of, and a week or so later I read, and I think, 23 " Good heavens, now it is 750,000 gallons of radicactive water
, 24 that nobody wants," and I wonder how long this is going c keep 25 multiplying. 1445 293
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1 So, there are fears and concerns that do come up 2 all of the time. !
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MR. FEATHER: Do you have examples of experiences i
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4 where you have referred people to a psychologist because of
- 5 their apprehension and tension?
6 MS. PETROSINO: I do have a couple of instances of ! l 7 students who were concerned about things, such as rashes; a "Could this be from Three Mile Island?" I
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9 I have had specific questions come to me, where th 3 10 asked, "Is this possible that this is related to Three Mile !
., 11 Island?"
. 12 I have had others come and say that, "I don't think
() 13 I want to be around here anymore." I find it a little hard to I
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i 14 be reassuring when I am not reassured myself. ' i 15 MR. FEATHER: Where have you referred them? ! i
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16 MS. PETROSINO: We have psychologists here at . ! _ 17 school that we refer students to. 18 MR. FEATHER:
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Has he been overwhelmed with requests?
19 MS. PETROSINO: I cannot answer that. He has not l
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20 told me that he has been overwhelmed. I can't tell that he 21 has been. We always have a certain number of problems with 22 students, and whether or not it is more, I didn't specifically 23 ask him if it is a lot more. t
/ 24 I do know that there have been students that have
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25 come to me and told me that they were concerned. That night i 1445 294
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I before we closed, I had a lot of students come to me to tell ) 2 me they were concerned.
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3 MR. FEATHER: What date was that? 4 MS. PETROSINO: That was Thursday night. I was 5 trying to be reassuring on Thursday night when I naively 6 thought I was safe. But on Friday, I became very unsettled i myself and left the area. 8 Another thing that I feel is very unjust in the 9 whole thing is I have known of a few instances of people who
., 10 1 eft the area within a 10 or a 12-mile radius and went to 11 considerable expense in a motel with three children, and they
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12 said something like a $300 or $400 figure that they had put ) 13 out and they could not afford that.
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14 But they were not within this five-nile reimbursemen: 15 area. I felt that that was a little unjust.
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16 MR. FEATHEP. So you feel that the reimbursement s 17 should be an area of 15 miles?
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18 MS. PETROSINO: I think 15 miles or 20 miles would
'19 be more realistic. I myself evacuated to Pittsburgh. I did 20 not feel that I should be reimbursed necessarily, but it 21 certainly was not a pleasurable weekend.
22 I just wanted to state my feelings. Each night 23 as I walk out of here at 1:30 in the morning, I think, "I
) 24 wonder if they are releasing an emission right now." It seens 25 like a good time that they might be doing it. I figure at 1445 ')95
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' 1 1 : 30,.egery mnrning , I have had a pretty good dose, if that
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2 is what they are doing. 3
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MR. FEATHER: Have you found _aat people are 4 adjusting to this or getting more tense within the two months a ,- se 5 now? 6 MS. PETROSINO: I think that people are getting 7 inured to it, but then it is there; it is always in the back-8 ground. 9 IthinkthatIamkindofreactinglikemostpeoplr])
. y . 10 when you read the paper, again, that no one wants the water --
11 and I certainly wouldn't want it in my river upstream, either 12 -- that this brings it all back very fragrantly.
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13 I had felt very ill yesterday, and through my mind 14 flashed, "I hope this has nothing to do with Three Mile 15 Island." I didn't really think it was, but that thought was 16 there.
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17 So, I think that that is about all I have to say. 18
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I feel very, very sympathetic toward our night man, who is 19 here very night outside, and I feel that if this is being 20 released at night, then he is certainly getting extreme 21 axposure because he is outside. 21 Those are just a few of my thoughts. 23 DR. PEARMAN: What about physical complaints from i 24
. students? Are they about the same as chey were?
25 MS. PETROSINO: I would say th.3 question goes through
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1 your mind, "Is this more GI complaints than normal," for
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2 instance, and it is hard to know because they relate to final 3 exams, and this sort of thing. 4 We have had a lot, but then we have in the past, so 5 it is really hard to tell. I must say that everything that G comes up you kind of relate in this new aspect that you never 7 had before. 8 That is all I have to say. 9 MS. MANFRED: But if you go to a mental doctor or
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. 10 a psychologist, do they program you to bury your head in the sand
- 11 and say, "No, everything is fine"?
12 To me, it upsets you, and everything like that, but
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13 you have to work yourself through it. You have to know that 14 tomorrow it may be worse than today. 15 You can't go to a doctor and they tell you, "Well, 16 now, calm your fears.
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Your children are going to be fine. 17 Just relax and let it go." 18
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MS. PETROSKY: Psychologists don't do that. I r.ean, 19 a good psychologist will not do that. He will work along with 20 you, and he will recognize the fears that you are experiencing. 21 He is not going to deny that they are there, and he 22 is trained to help individuals. I am not talking about a 23 psychiatrist, who is one who deals with the mentally ill. I 24 am talking about a psychologist who.is trained to deal .ith 25 emotional problems.
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1 I think that -- this is my opinion -- I think it 2 would de invaluable to people who are having emotional pro-3 blems to have access to one or as many as would be required 4 to help them at this time.
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5 ' Mc$"MANFRED: I know a lot of young mothers with 6 young children that their mental state would be a lot better 7 if they knew what the environment was; if, like, Allen Ertel 8 or amrbody could put up monitors to know what is tomorrow and 9 what is today; what did the kids get today. g)
. 10 I know you probably hear it is more mental. Most 11 of Three Mile Island is based on what it did to you mentally 12 because nothing physically has come out of it yet. That is '
13 a couple of yearc from now. 14 So, I can't see that you can work out of it mentally 15 until you know that you feel that your state or your govern-16 ment -- Met Ed isn't going to do it. ~
- They didn't tell us at u$)
17 first -- untii they do something to give you a little assur-
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18 ance.that you are going to be safe. 19 I know me, if I could go -- if my daughter wasn't l 20 here with her two children, I would leave Middletown tomorrow, 21 and I am sure that a lot of other people would, too, if they 22 could afford it. 23 When you talk about the economy and the psychological
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! 24 effect on you, this meeting is not what I expected either. I 25 know what you are getting, and I don't mean to get off the MY N A .
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2 MR. MANFRED: I guess most of us were expecting a 3 different type of a meeting, but we are here and maybe we 4 will feel better talking, if you will listen. 5 MR. FEATHER: I think the three of us expected 6 to be sitting here with some leader telling us what was
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7 happening, and we found out that we are the leaders. We were 8 just told to come here and listen. 9 MR. SHUTT: I understand this had been planned,
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10 I guess, within two weeks after the Three Mile Island incident, 11 and it was scheduled after the fact, as the gentleman indicated. 12 Other committees have been formed; other commissions
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13 have been formed to study the problem. As you had said, it 14 is a very unique problem that we have gone through, and we 15 have to reassess our understanding of the entire problem, and () - 16 that is what is being done, I think, by the various committees 17 and commissions.
- 18 It is not an easy problem. It is not an easy 19 problem. There are no simple answers. But we have to prceeed 20 and understand exactly what happened and come up with 1cgical 21 methods to deal with it.
22 This is just one aspect of that. Again, it is the 23 emotional that you related to. That is something that j 24 obviously has to be addressed. 1445 299 25 MS. MANFRED: Well, I would feel 100 percent be::er
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2 MR. MANFRED: The whole sorry thing about this is 3 that more and more articles you read in the paper, or even 4 when you go to the municipalities like Middletown, or certainlyl
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5 if you read what the Governor writes every time he has an
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6- article in the paper, everything is for the economy now. They 7 are sort of sliding back and letting the people go. 8 If they would only tell you, like you say, to
- 9 reassure you, I think that is what people need, to be reassui ~\
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,, 10 that the danger is over or what is being done.
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11 l MS. PETROSKY: It is not over. 12 MR. MANFRED: I know it is not over, but I am saying
) 13 our leaders now are tending to worry more about the economy, 14 and that is really the truth.
15 Anyone you talk to, they -- we were to a meeting
. 16 last night in Middletown, for example, and the president of [)
17 the Council tried to let the people think that they had
- 18 monitoring equipment out around Middletown somewhere.
19 Then, one of the other members said, "Yes." Someone 20 asked where is the equipment placed," and then another member 21 said, "Well, we could not tell you where it is. Someone would 22 destroy it or do something to it." 23 Then a gentleman got up, and he asked them point 24
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blank,'"Is there any monitoring equipment out there, do you 25 think," and he said, "Well, not to our knowledge, there is none
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1445 500
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2 Now there they were trying to lead the people to 3 believe that they were monitoring. 4 MS. MANFRED: That would settle my problem.
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5 MR. MANFRED: As far as I am concerned, all I know 6 is that the leaders in Middletown are for the economy. They 7 are not worried about the people.
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8 What I am saying is even the Governor, at first, he 9 tried to let the people believe that he was for their safety 3
- 10 and welfare, but they are all sliding right into worrying abou 11 the economy; and I believe that if they would assure the people 12 to stay here and tell them to get after Met Ed, or if we could -1 13 get some word that we could believe someone, then I beliece 14 the economy would take care of itself.
15 That is the whole sad situation, as far as I an 16 g . concerned, and that~is what is leading to the mental health cr 17 physical health that is going to come out of this.
- 18 The big thing is not what already happened; it is 19 the unknown and wondering what is going to happen.
20 MR. FEATHER: Part of the Health Systems Agency 21 plan is for emergency medical care, the evacua tion plans. : 22 was wondering if anybody has any comments on the plan. 23 You talk about monitors; that would be fine. Eu: 24 once you find the radiation level is high or is going up, wha: 25 do you do about it? How do we notify people and how do we
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' I evacuate, if necessary? 2 MR. MANFRED: That is a good question. I often 3 wondered. 4 MR. FEATHER: I was wondering if anybody has 5 experience on that, how they were notified and what they did 6 after they were notified. 7 MR. MANFRED: You read it out of articles about what 8 went on, that they didn't know where to evacuate or how to
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9 do it. [f 10 MR. FEATHER: I think we are more concerned about 11 your personal feelings rather than what you read.
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12 MS. MANFRED: When we left, it was 10:00 in the
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13 morning when we heard. 14 MR. FEATHER: What day? 15 MR. MANFRED: Friday morning. 16 MS. MANFRED: We heard through a good source that '
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17 there was going to be evacuation, and we got our daughter and is
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her two children -- her husband could not go because of his 19 job -- and we left Middletown that I could not even talk when 20 we got out of Harrisburg. a I s'id, "Just get out." We threw 21 things in the car and left. 22
- When we got to Baltimore, we heard that they were i i
23 evacuating the women and children. Those are things that you 24 come back -- you vere away 12 days -- you are come back, and
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25 you are still living in fear. 1445 502
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. 1 Every night, you wonder; you wake up; is it goir.g 2 off? Are you going to evacuate? Who knows. No one kncws the 3 evacuation rules, or anything. We don't. All I know is you 4 get in your car and you go. 5 MR. SHUTT: What was the source for receiving the 6 information that you felt was reliable? 7 MS. MANFRED: I would rather not say. 8 MR. SHUTT: I am not trying to get a name. You are 9 saying, "If we get reliable information. " Who did you lock
- 10 for? What agency?
11 MS. MANFRED: Do you mean before, before wa evacuated? 12 MR. SHUTT: During the whole thing. Where did you
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' 13 go? 14 MR. MANFRED: Just even the Middletown officials 15 themselves, all the news they were getting was from the news,
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16 from television and radio. They did not even have a guideline. 17 They had no one to tell them. They couldn't even get in 18
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touch with anyone to tell them what to do in case they would 19 have to evacuate. 20 They didn't have any plans. They were supposed to 21 be working on evacuation plans for years, and they probably 2; still don't have any. 23 MS. MANFRED: That would all go on how the wind was 24 blowing at that time, wouldn't it? If we would evacuate a: 25 that time, we would have been going north. But if the wind
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I would be going that way, we would go that way, right? So, wht ' l i 2 knows. You wouldn't know until that time would come up. 3 - MS. PETROSINO: It would be interesting to find 4 out or get information as to how they plan to coordinate these 5 different evacuations of the different areas. 6 This is a mystery to me how they plan to coordinate 7 all of these different areas, and I for one would be most 8 interested in reading something in the paper about this. 9 I doubt seriously if they have a workable plan as 10 of now. 11 MS. MANFRED: I think it is impossible. 12 MR. FEATHER: I sat for four days in a bomb shelter 13 in Lebanon County trying to prepare evacuation plans for 14 100,000 people, and you are right, we had no plan. 15 But 48 hours later. we had a plan, but the word 16 was " workable."
. The word is " workable." hh 17 MS. MANFRED: How long would it take to evacuate? -
18 MR. FEATHER: We came down to a 24-hour notice to 19 evacuate 37,000 people. I am still not sure if it would work. 20 I don't know if there is such a plan that can be designed. 21 MS. MANFRED: I believe this area is too big for 22 that. 23 MR. FEATHER: I am only talking about Lebanon County 24
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not here. 25 MS. PETROSKY: Now, of You would have three hours. 1445 504
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. e.. 73 1 course, Lebanon County is a little bit further away, so perhaps 2 you might have better success than a lot of places.
3 MR. FEATHER: That is why they gave us 24 hours. I 4 don't know what they gave you here. 5 MS. PETROSKY: Three hours for a meltdown. That is 6 all the. notice they would have beforehand. 7 MS. MANFRED: They said it would take the radiation-- 8 if it left, in five minutes it would reach Middletown. 9 MR. SHUTT: Sir, would you be interested in testi- ' 10 fying? 11 MR. MC KELVY: I saw your ad in the paper. I am 12 here as a private citizen because I live in the Hershey area. !
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13 MS. PETROSKY: I think the announcement in the 14 paper was not very clear. I for one thought that there would - 15 be a panel of medical personnel to answer our questions. i
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l 1 - 16 So I, like everybody else, I think, did not realize '
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i 17 ' what it was, but I am glad we are here because now we know
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18 the workings that you are involved in, and every bit of 19 information that is exchanged is helpful. 20 MR. FEATHER: I think that is why I am more inter- l
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21 ested in what your personal experiences are rather than what 22 you read in the paper because I read it in the paper, too. 23 I would like to hear your personal experiences. 24 MS. PETROSKY:
/ I meant the announcement in the media; .
25 it is misleading. I thought it wa gene f medical
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1 authorities. I 2 MS. MANFRED: When we got away, we went from Maryland 3 to Virginia, and our granddaughter, for three days, had 4 diarrhea. 5 Now whether that was emotional -- certainly she 6 knew what was happening. I mean she didn't know what was 7 happening, but she knew that it was dramatic. 8 But I think the kids, more or less, can bounce back. . f 9 MR. FEATHER: Do you have any statements?
]
10 MR. MC KELVY: I worked up some thoughts. g 11 MR. FEATHER: We would like your name for the record. 12 MR. MC KELVY: This is going to sound awfully (' 13 formal compared to really the situation that we have here, 14 because I went to a public hearing last evening in Cumberland
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15 County and was working up some material for a formal public 16
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hearing format. II My name is George McKelvy, and I live eight miles
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, northeast of Three Mile Island in the Hershey area. As has 18 been referenced here, I am the administrator of the Capitol 20 Region Planning and Development Agency, an agency created by 21 the counties of South Central Pennsylvania.
22 We have a staff of only four and are primarily 23 involved in public participation in water resource planning, , 24 such as the coop program that some of you people may even be
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25 getting our mailings around that particular prog a - 06 CoMMoNWCALTH REPORTING COMPANY a717 7617150
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a 1 Also, we are involved in area economic development 2 programming, planning coordination between counties, and inter-3 governmental cooperation. 4 Our offices are seven miles due north of Three Mile
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5 Island near the Harrisburg East Mall. At 11:00 in the morning 6 on the Friday that we had what they call the puffs of radiatior., 7 which I was not aware of at the time, at 11:00, I called the 8 secretary of the head of another agency in the area to let hin 9 know that I was on my way to a meeting that we were to have
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10 that morning at that time, and everything seemed very ncr:al. 11 Fifteen minutes later, I was nearly run down by the 12 gentleman in the lobby of his building in his haste to leave.
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13 The only explanation that I got was a hastily thrown, "Gecrge, 14 the office is closed" over his shoulder as he went out the 15 door. (g . 16 I immediately suspected that something must be 17 happening down the river. So, I went to the nearest public
. 18 telephone, which was just outside the building, to try to 19 alert my office, and already, the lines were so busy that it 20 was impossible for me to get through. I'could not get a dial 21 tone.
22 So, I immediately returned to the office and at 23 that time still encountered no unusually heavy traffic. Iy 24 that time, the staff had a portable radio on, and on the cague-25 ness of the reports that were on the radio at that time, 1 _ 1445 '07 _
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I dismissed my staff because I did not want to feel that I l 2 should take the responsibility for their safety, which at ' 3 that point in time seemed rather precarious. Then I closed j 4 the office myself and left shortly afterwards. 5 We sent our teenaged daughter to friends in Georgia 6 when they began to talk about the possible meltdown situation, 7 and we packed the car, and I even turned it around and headed 8 it facing outward so that we could almost jump in and take 9 off if the actual evacuation order came. h
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There were times when literally I could have a 11 sensation of my skin crawling. I knew that that was psychologI
- 12 ical. There was not any radiation effect that far up certain1
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13 that was producing that kind of sensation, but it makes you 14 wonder. _ 15 I concur with the many, many concerns that people 16
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fave expressed throughout the area about the situation, and 17
'()l I don't want to minimize what they have experienced.
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The potential danger frankly that I feel is still 19 within our midst until they resolve this, especially that 20 polluted water situation. .
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21 But there is another aspect of this that I would l I 22 like to share with you that I think kind of relates to the ' 23 I aspect of the incident that Health Resources Planning and 24 Development is trying to address in particular; and that is
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25 that I think that maybe perhaps the greatest danger that has 1445 508 l
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een done to us as a region and as a people is how this whole 2 thing seems to those beyond our immediate area. '
3 . On the basis of what was reported in the media, 4 a large segment of the population in the rest of the country
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5 and even in some other countries conjure up vestiges of the 6 passing of a plague here with man and beast likely to drop 7 at any moment like flies; and speaking of flies, there has 8 been ever. rumor that flies in the area are having a premature 9 death. 10 That is partly true; I talked to some agricultural 11 extension people, but the situation is a widespread occurrence
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, 12 because a particular specics of that fly is being subjected 's 13 to a bacteria. 14 Now these kinds of occurrences, 4.he deaths of flies, 15 and so on, are reported in the me.dia, but rarely are the 16 findings, and if they are, they a re buried somewhere back on
. 17 page 10.
18 Our older daughter was in basic training at Fort
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19 Leonard Ubod way out in Missouri at the time, and on the Sunday 20
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immediately following the incident, she opened the Sunday 21 paper, which was the first time that the recruits had been 22 privileged to news from the outside world, so to speak, and 23 the headlines actually read that Harrisburg was a ghost town 24
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and the smell was chocolate was gone from Hershey. 25 Well, you can imagine the reaction that she had. A
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I few weeks later, a Harrisburg businessman was sharing a cab 2 with another lady in the Bahamas, andwhenshefoundoutwhere'l 3 he was from, she could not get out of that cab fast enough. 4 Several families who now have children living out 5 on the West Coast -- and we all know what kind of environmental 6 situation the people in the. San Francisco and Los Angeles area 7 are living in -- were actually calling their parents almost 8 in hysteria urging them to get out of the area because of the , 9 kind of publicity and the scene that was being projected to f to them about what was happening here. 11 We have had businesses within and well beyond the 12 20-mile radius that we hear reference to from time to time,
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13 which have had orders canceled by outside buyers, and in some 14
, cases buyers have required area firms to certify that their 15 products are radiation-free, and that even gets as close to 16 us as the trailers setting behind the building here. Ck l
17 There was a buyer of those trailers who insisted
. la before he would take delivery that that firm provide him with 19 a certificate, that the materials that those trailers were 20 made out of were not radioactive because 'of the incident.
21 Local warehousing and distribution firms, most of 22 which are just across the river, handle millions of dollars 23 worth of commodities daily, and they saw their volume drop
) 24 to one-half of what it normally is because people were simply 25 afraid even to ship products through the area that were going 1445 (LO
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1 to just pass through the area. It is one of those things
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2 where it is in and out. It is not something that is kept in 3 an area for a period of time. . 4 Uho knows how many people will decide to take their 5 vacations at Disn9.y World this year instead of our area. We
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6 will never be able to measure that because of the added unknown 7 factor of what kind of impact is the gas situation going to ,
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8 have on travel patterns. We will never be able to get a 9 really good idea of that.
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10 With all of this -- and this, I think, has been 11 reported -- that the radiation levels experienced within, say, 12 roughly the five-mile area of TMI were only about one-seventh i i 13 of the level of radiation that we all experienced, not just ! 14 here but most of the country experienced for many days as a
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15 result of that Chinese bomb test in October of 1976.
; ) . 16 Just speaking as a private citizen, out of all of 17 this, it seems to me that the best medicine for us, the best'
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18 thing that we can do for ourselves, is to just get back to
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19 business as usual as quickly as possible, because the longer 20 we carry on publicly, especicily publicly, about the injustice 21 that we have experienced -- and it has been truly an injustice 22 -- the longer we are going to suffer from the negative psycho-23 logical effects of that incident, and the greater our econcric 24 loss is going to be because as long as we keep the situation 25 before the public,. the longer t or is going to see this t
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( 1 area as a place to avoid, and we don't want that, I am sure. 2 That is essentially what I have to say. '
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3 MS. MANFRED: I would like to comment on -- you were l 4 talking about food and that. I heard the rumor that when the j 5 government men were down at Three Mile Island, every day they 6 sent their men to Embers in Carlisle for their food. Why? 7 Were they afraid to eat here? $12,000 a day?, 8 MR. FEATHER: I think their food was trucked in from 9 Mt. Gretna. I know the man who supplied them. It was the
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11 MR. MANFRED: Someone said the Embers. 12 MS. PETROSKY: Do you really think that people can 13 settle down to normal as long as Unit II is sitting over there li and learned scientists have not resolved how to handle the 15 aspects that they are presented with in getting it to a cold
. 16 shutdown, and they still have not resolved the question as to.jm 17 what to do with all of that highly' radioactive waste?
18 Do you think that as long as.this is going on that I9 it is easy to settle down to normal? 20 MR. MC KELVY: No. What' I was rying to say, though, 21 i that because of the difficulty of that, it is something that ! 22 we have to work at in our own best interests. 23 We have to work at thinking of things as normally as
) 24 possible and not dwell on the danger.
1445 512 25 MR. SHUTT: Are there any other comments? If anyone
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2 MS. IIEPNER: Are they going to put the water into 3 the Susquehanna as they say? , 4 MR. SHUTT: I don't know. 5 MS. MANFRED: They have no place to put it. 6 MS. CRUMLEY: I was here earlier today. I was a i little flabbergasted at the style of presentation, and I a certainly did not have my wits, too, all about me. 9 But I missed several things that I very much wanted 10 to say, and I also was short in my statement because I am not 11 really a local resident except in the summertime on an island 12 in the river.
) 13 But I ran home and wrote a few things down that I 14 would like to say. I am Jeane Crumley, again. I did do a 15 little more clear thinking, I think.
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16 I was giving my background as having had a college 17 educe ton, not because I am an expert, or anything, because I
- 18 have .ot even worked as a chemist since I was first married:
19 only for a little less than a year, and that was a long tire 20 ago. 21 But at the time -- these people weren't here -- I 22 worked in a laboratory that was also very dangerous, and at the 23 time, I did not know just what I was getting'into, but it was ' 24 the beginning stages of nerve gas. 25 That was extremely dangerous, and you had to be i.-
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{ 1 very good physical shape, andyouhadtohaveyourteethfill) 2 and you had to use cn awful lot of care.
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3 _ So, I think I have some idea of what is required I 4 certainly in a nuclear reactor situation, although I don't '
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5 know anything more than anybody else except for the theories, i
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6 and I too looked at diagrams and pored over things. i 7 My husband was invited on a tour, and I was supposed 8 ! to go as a guest, but there were so many members of that par- ' 9 ticular professional society there or available that Inever[) 10 really got to go, which was probably just as well. C : 11 Anyway, my idea of telling you that background is i 12 that I think that you just nimply have to be aware when you (' 13 are handling dangerous materials or situations or systems, or f
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14 that sort of thing, that you are under a real strong compunc- ^ s . 15 tion -- or you should be -- to think of the public good, and '
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16 that should.be. primary. {j 17 But'I am not really sure that we have had that in
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18 this' case, I mean just judging from the performance of Met Ed, 19 and there chould be a reasonable level of mature judgment and . t 20 knowledgeability among those who are doing the work, and I 21 think that that should be all around the clock on something 22 that important. 23 Once again, I am not an expert, but I have done sone
, 24 reading recently. I have been rather occupied in family 25 affairs, too, so I am planning to do a lot more. 1445 514
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2 about the work at Three Mile Island, it seems to me that with 3 the PUC giving a sort of a cost-plus basis for the production
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4 of the electric power for us consumers, that it would be most '
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. 5 reasonable to think that they .:culd surely afford to work 6 some other way than having extr.nmely long hours for some of 7 the employees.
8 I don't know whether there is some state or govern- : t 9 ment thing that would be able to investigate or perhaps limit l; 4 10 the number of hours sort of dictatorially but for the good 11 of the workers and the good of the plant, so that you wouldn't 12 have people working 50-hour weeks or 60-hour weeks, or who l 13 knows how much overtime or ten hours at a time. 14 It seems to me that everybody's mental and physical 1 15 capab'ility or strength for that sort of activity -- and there
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16 again, we only know of one person in particular. We ~only heard! 1 i 17 of other people who were working that way; the technicians, ! 18 I assume -- it seems to me that if you get some degree of 19 feeling that a company or a system, or whatever, is really 20 honest and shows real forthri.ghtness and-is willing to give ! 21 facts, that you will sort of automatically get back the public's 22 confidence, and people will get over their problems if they , 23 are properly assured that something positive and worthwhile
24 is going on. l 25 L445 515 I am not sure how that can occur, but I think that i
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2 perhaps someone that would be a state safety engineer; and I 3 don't mean just this particular plant, but I mean for anything 4 in the state that has such a degree of danger, it seems to me 5 that the state could surely afford to staff this for our pro-6 tection. I would hope so. 7 I have several ideas. I think one of the most a critical ones is that people who live in the immediate area, 9 I believe that everyone assumed that they were going to be $b
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10 warned in case something really bad was going to happen, and
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11 I personally thought that some sort of sirens would 90 off. 12 Here we are living on the island, and a lot of 1
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13 people stay there all summer, and they work real hard on the 14 cottages after floods, and they are rather occupied, and they 15 don't really listen. They don't have telephones. They don't 16 listen to radios that much.
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- 18 something bad happened that we would be warned by some sirens, 19 like a fire siren, or something.
20 So I have a suggestion that some kind of warning 21 system, perhaps rather distinctive from fire or something that 22 at least the local people would be accuainted with, should be 23 used, and I think that that should be used, say, when they know 24
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( 1 something of that sort. That seems only reasonable to me. 2 I realize that with some of-those rays, you are not 3 going to be protected from being indoors, but it seems to me 4 that you should at least have an option of taking shelter and 5 closing your doors and windows and listening to the radio. 6 I also think that there should be a hotline, not 7 just to the NRC, but why not to the state, some state board, 8 or something that you could have news sent to the local govern-9 ment people. 10 By heavens, I think that is the thing that irks me
11 most about this; that people in the most immediate area were 12 not given any real warning or given any real facts other than,
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13 of course, when the Governor suggested that women and children 14 should leave as a precautionary measure. I am sure that a lot 15 of people interpreted that quite properly that there was danger. 16
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I also think -- and this is not original with me 17 because other people have said that there should be a plan for 18
, evacuation.-- but I think that you should have such a plan and 18 you should practice it, and I think that public notice should 20 be given and I think maybe run through it two or three times 21 and see -- I don't know where I heard this, but they said 22 why not make it fun at the end, like head for a picnic at 23 Hershey or at least have an element of not having real fear in
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1445 717 COMMONWCALTH REPORTING CCMPANY #717 761 7150
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( 1 I don't know exactly what that means, because I , 2 think perhaps in spite of the wind direction having an effect 3 on it, you probably need to have sort of a set in concrete 4 plan, a basic plan, because you can't really tell people at 5 the last minute, I would think, that you must go either here or 6 there, or somewhere. 7 There should be some way to be directed, I think. Ij 8 would say do that with sort of planning ahead notice and see 9 how long it took. Ei - 10 There is your opportunity for Civil Defence and all
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11 of the other organizations to work with the different groups 12 such as the disabled, the elderly, or whatever.
) 13 But I really think -- I have to interject this
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14 remark that personally I think that this area has had quite 15 enough suffering, and it would be to everyone's interest if 16
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they simply closed it down af ter making it decontaminated; bu ) 17 just in case the economic factors and the political factors do i
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18 strong element, and I think that a humane government would not f 20 ~ subject people to this again, not willing1y. That is just my 21 feeling. 22
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But anyway, after you have had this practice, I 23 think you should just have a warning and a signal and treat it (
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2 plant, but I think that that is really going to prove to be 3 necessary wherever you have reactors at all. 4 They said that this could never happen or that this 5 was so unlikely. They obviously were not prepared for it. Sc, 6 I think that we should prepare because they are obviously not
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7 going to close all of the reactors down immediately, but the 8 problem will remain no matter what kind they are. 9 I think there should be a constant monitoring of 10 the air and water on a 24-hour basis, and I have no idea how 11 you could achieve that up in the air. I don't know whether la you would fly helicopters all of the time. But there should be
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13 some degree of monitoring, I think. 14 You can put different chemicals -- let me see -- whe 15 you have gas, it has no odor, so they put in the substance te
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16 smell. It just seems to me that anytime they were going to 17 have wastewater, for instance, whether it is industrial waste
,' 18 or the officially reactive water, perhaps they could ha ce some 19 dye or some fluorescent thing, or something, which would make 20 it possible for anybody to see that this-kind of water was 21 being put into the river.
22 I don't know whether you could have physical Icniter-23 ing by people all of the time, but it seems to me you could 24 ') have some kind of monitoring; and you should have'more en :he
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1 just have residual type readings so that you would know how / ,
2 much had happened. l 3 - I think that if they know that they are likely to 4 have emissions at c,rtain stages of their operation, that I *
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5 can't imagine why they couldn't just simply have the state -- 6 I don't believe we could trust Met Ed to do this -- but have i sehe state function something lf.ke telling you how much pollen 8 is in the air or what is the river stage, but simply have a , 9 periodic -- I don't know if you would want it daily -- but 2 10 periodic reading of how many rems or millirems -- certainly
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11 not rems, I hope, but millirems that have been accidently 12 or just as a matter of course emitted. I think that would
) 13 help people if they knew what they were dealing with.
14 I don't know that these things are all that worth-15 while, but I did put my mind to it just a little bit. 16
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MS. PETROSKY: I had a question, but you answered itf A( 17 I was going to say do you really think that the people in this
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19 "I don't think that we ever can trust Met Ed again." 20 MS. CRUMLEY:
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I think if they show that they can 21 be trusted. 22 MR. PETROSKY: Monitors won't do it. 23 MS. MANFRED: How can we trust the state? I
.; 24 MR. MANFRED: We need someone to cet the state -- we 25 have to look to our Governor for guidance, which we are not ;
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s 1 setting. 2 MS. CRUMLEY: I think it is highly technical, and l 3 I really don't know that much about it, but I do know that I 4 have heard of the hydrogen embrittlement of metals, which 5 occurs, I believe, at even just the landing wheel supports forj 6 big planes, which have to be checked periodically. !, 7 I personally have not done that much reading
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8 because nuclear reactors are not my favorite thought or subject,. I 9 But it is startling to think that all of this time they were !
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10 supposed to be setting aside a certain amount of money yearly 11 1 to retire the reactor after 30 years or thereabouts, and so i i 12 you wonder about whether this accident has really sped up the '
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13 aging process; for instance, all of that hydrogen and all of 14 those high temperatures has perhaps -- I don't know, but , i 15 perhaps it has had a very deleterious effect on the wells and l
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16 the reactor itself. 17 It may be that when they open it.up, whenever they
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18 can possibly do it, they may have no' hope whatever of reusing 19 it, but it is still sort of a sitting time bomb, it seems to
20 me, as long as there is radioactive material in it, whether : 21 it is just the water or the rods. Who knows what it is. Who 22 knows what the rods are doing. 23 Of course, it is sort of a sitting duck for any . I 24 plane, which is what has been worrying an awful lot of the 25 residents, anyway. gg z}} .
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3 it seems to an awful lot of people that they are not really 4 trying real hard to get back into the public's confidence. 5 I haven't read any statements ~that lend too much to 6 that idea that they really want to be honest with the people 7 or maybe even willing to do any of these things that I have 8 suggested here. 9 I called a lot of people, and a lot of people are )5
*+ 10 simply a little ostrich-like, and no matter what they think or 11 how many ideas they have, they don't want to talk in public.
12 It is a little like Californians, I am sure, which ()' 13 is where I came from, and I was happy to leave the earthquake 14 probability. 15 I hope I have at least given you something to~ think
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[) ! 17 MS. PETROSKY: You said that you hope they would I 18
. place people with engineering backgrounds in the control room.
19 The chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission answered one 20 of the Legislators on that question. ! He'said that if they 21 were to expect to get people to work in the control room who 22 had college educations or engineering backgrounds, this would 23 phase out the nuclear industry. They could not afford this s 24 type of personnel. 1445 322 25 In other words, he felt that our lives were i
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i 1 expendable to the extent that he would get inferior type -- 2 not inferior. I take that back; I didn't mean that. 3 . MS. CRUMLEY: I didn't say that.- I don't know wh2t 4 I said. My notes were rather brief. I think I was trying 5 to say that perhaps you could have someone who is employed by 6 the state as a safety engineer since it is in the state. 7 I don't know that much about the NRC. 8 MS. PETROSKY: The requirements are that the operator 8 have a high school education only, and this Legislator is
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proposing legislation to the effect that they require more 11 education and batter education, and have these people be 12 examined periodically, and whatnot. 13
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I think this is a very good idea, and I think that 34 this legislation should be sponsored and the public should 15 really go ahead and voice their opinions in this respect. 16
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I do think that they need better training for the II control room personnel. 18
, MR. MANFRED: They say that the control room is 18 monotonous work, and anyone with a college education could get 20 more money elsewhere and work regular hours rather than work ,
21 three shifts down there. 22 MS. CRUMLEY: I don't think you necessarily have to e,
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s I which way the wind would be blowing whare they are going to i ) i 2 send you, and you would have to make last minute decisions. !
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3 In the first place, with an evacuation of that magni-4 tude, there should be no nuclear plants near'any large popula-5 tion centers. 6 MS. PETROSKY: Or airports. '. 7 MR. MANFRED: If it is out in the country somewhere i 8 out a couple hundred miles, they wouldn't have to worry about 1
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9 evacuating many people. Me 10 MR. PETROSKY: I have a solution for those Harrisburg
11 characters: stop all pensions and payment. Chase them all
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12 home until we settle our problem here. )' 13 Up until now, they haven't even budged. According 14 to this paper here, we are supposed to have Legislators, county 15 Commissioners, Congre s sraen. Where are they? 16 MR. FEATHER:
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I am here. 17 MR. PETROSKY: Are you a Congressman?
- 18 MR. FEATHER: I am a County Commissioner.from 19 Lebanon County.
20 MR. SHUTT: I am here for Congressman Ertel. - 21 MR. PETROSKY: You are not doing anything for us. 22 Actually we should have a nuclear physicist si.tting right 23 there so'he could explain the problem, and we should have
) 24 medical men. You don't know anything about it. 1445 524 25 MR. SHUTT: I would like to thank you all for coming.
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2 submit to the Health Resources Planning and Development i 3 pommittee, you may do so at their Camp Hill address, which is i
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209 Senate Avenue in Camp Hill, 17011. 5 That office will also be able to supply you with i 6 copies of the written testimony of the hearings as well as j i ! 7 the recommendations once they are finalized. ' 8 MS. PETROSKY: Would it be possible for us to 9 sign our names and addresses so we would not have to contact
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to you, those of us here who would like a copy? 11 MR. SHUTT: Yes, that can be done.
- 12 MR. KING: If you will sign your name on cards, we
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13 will send a transcript to you. 14 (Whereupon, at 8:10 p.m., the hearing was closed.) 15
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2 ~ hereby certify, as the stenographic reporter, 3 that the foregoing proceedings were taken stenographically 4 by me, and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under 5 my direction; and that this transcript is a true and accurate 6 record to the best of my ability.
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