Fooling With Disaster?

Startling new evidence about Three Mile Island disaster raises doubts over nuclear plant safety

Thirty years ago this week, Randall and Joy Thompson were hired to monitor radiation releases after the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown. What they saw didn't match what officials say happened -- but, fearing for their lives, they gave up trying to tell their story. Now, Facing South shares their account -- and their warning about the dangers of a nuclear revival.

by Sue Sturgis
Facing South
April 2, 2009

It was April Fool's Day,1979 -- 30 years ago this week -- when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant's Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River.