This  column was written by  my friend Steve Brooks:

It was a muggy spring morning in Pennsylvania, thirty years ago, when my mom jostled me awake.

“They’re leaking uncontrolled radiation from Three Mile Island,” she said. “I think we’d better evacuate.”

On the radio, a spokesman for General Public Utilities was insisting we were in no danger. The next moment, the Governor was advising pregnant women and preschool children to get out. I started packing.

As we rolled through the woods and pastures of home, I was wondering whether I would ever see them again. It all looked normal, but we were fleeing poisons we could not see. 

On March 28, 1979, a stuck valve at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant leaked enough water to expose the uranium fuel rods and begin a meltdown. Up in the control room, no one was aware, until alarms started going off – so many that operators could make no sense of them. Two hours and 22 minutes into the accident, someone closed another valve and stopped the leak. Sixty minutes more, and I would not be here to tell my story.

One disaster was averted. Another one was just beginning – a disaster of democracy.

Within weeks, GPU announced plans to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, a twin reactor untouched by the accident at Unit 2. No one asked Pennsylvanians for permission to risk our lives a second time. No one had to. Uncle Sam licensed nukes, and he pre-empted all state and local laws. Nuclear power was radiation without representation.

It was also lemon socialism. Not only had the U.S. government paid for the R&D, but taxpayers would pick up most of the tab if one of the plants blew itself up. Under the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, a utility had to cover only the first $60 million of damages. Today, it’s $300 million.

Several groups of citizens challenged the license for Unit 1. Against long odds, we delayed the restart for six years – with unwitting help from GPU, which found the reactor’s tubes riddled with pinhole leaks, like a car with a bad radiator. 

While we were buying time, local officials tried the ballot box. In 1982, two-thirds majorities in Dauphin, Cumberland and Lebanon Counties voted to keep Unit 1 closed. But thanks to pre-emption, the referendums were ignored.

One year after election day, I joined eight other activists to blockade the gates of the plant. A jury found us guilty of obstructing a public highway, but announced that we had convinced them that Three Mile Island should stay shut.

Unit 1 finally reopened in 1985. A year later, natives of the Ukraine were not so lucky as we had been. Seven years later, the cleanup of Unit 2 was pronounced complete.

I consoled myself that we had lost the battle of Three Mile Island, but we had won the war. After the accident, no new order for an American nuclear plant was ever placed again. 

Until this decade. After a couple of generations, every bad idea comes back around, whether it’s invading small Asian countries or building nukes. Some of the same companies have profited from both, like Bechtel and KBR.

Thirty years later, the industry has new designs, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has streamlined the licensing process, so that no citizens can slow the steamroller. The sales pitch has changed. Instead of too-cheap-to-meter, it’s no-greenhouse-gases. One thing hasn’t changed. There’s still no permanent place to put the waste.

But the biggest change in thirty years is that renewable energy has come of age. Wind turbines match or beat nukes in cost-per-kilowatt-hour, and solar prices are dropping. Conservation is cheaper still. Utilities are paying customers to insulate houses and buy better light bulbs instead of building new power plants. 

Today, I live in Austin, on the cutting edge of clean energy. City Council has voted down a new nuclear reactor – so far. But the nuclear industry counts on our memories being lethally short. In retelling those terrifying days of 1979 and their agonizing aftermath, I’m hoping we never forget Three Mile Island. I was there, and I will always remember.

Steve Brooks is an Austin musician and journalist, and former Assistant Director of the Three Mile Island Public Interest Resource Center. (steve@stevebrooks.net)