As with most other articles relative to 3-Mile the biggest in accuracy is the fact that the political entities both nationally and state had no truly rational reason for most everything that was done. Decision making was based on lack of facts, gut instincts versus facts, bad communications with the political oriented site management who were only concerned about their jobs and how they looked to the stakeholders, bad press (not looking for truth but more to sell their news (which is what they are in business for)), caring more for the views of dissenters versus the reality of the situation, and it goes on and on. With the fact that the off-site releases were primarily noble gas releases and the plume dispersion clearly not in large concentrations, the public received little to no dose from it. Unit 1 could have been started up to 100% during the incident but was not because of the political focus rather than the logical. We as workers at the plant received slightly above normal exposures due to the increased radiation levels in the auxiliary building but we were on the spot. General Public people were, in most cases miles aware, and even those living across the street in Londonderry Township, exposed to little to no dose from the releases. No one died, not on site or off, no one was injured as a result of the situation and the local environment was not affected. The issues related to continued construction or new construction of new facilities was primarily based on political motivation rather than logic. Like the rest of the Government suppliers realized that with the media hype of new plants they could raise pricing based on the really bad decisions of the NRC. Granted an increase in depth of review and approval for new plants was a necessity but it also drove the demand pricing of components and material through the roof, kind of like buying a screw that was made of stainless steel that you could buy from a local supplier to one that required all of the manufacturing history and QA/QC that raised the price from $0.25 to $25.00. Now multiply this a thousand fold to build a new nuclear plant. The lobbyists drive the money and profits of manufacturers. Best examples are the VC Summer and Vogtle facilities. This article did not address this.
