A24-Lancaster Farming. Saturday, July 10,1993 GPU Nuclear Initiates (Continued from Pago A 1) munity during the incident remains contested. GPU officials said there are about 2,300 lawsuits filed against GPU Nuclear relating to the inci dent and. there are currently efforts underway to deal with them the U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo has, selected 12 test cases which are to be heard starting next July, and then the outcome of those cases is to be applied in settling the remainder of the cases, in an effort to expedite the judicial process. However, the event continues to be remembered with some detail by a number of people. “I was out in the field sowing oats with a helper. My wife heard (about the accident and advisory) on the radio and. came out to tell me,” Byers said. “You know, no one will believe me, but Oust before his wife told him of the incident) we got a coat ing over our lips (while in the fields) and nobody will believe that. “I told the fella to go home. He lived eight miles away. But we didn’t know what to do. We were thinking about shipping the cattle out of the area,” he said. “Our daughter went to work and said, ‘lf you leave, call me so I know where you are at’” At the time, GPU Nuclear Corp., headquartered in New Jersey, had only a part-time public relations person working at Three Mile Island. That person quickly became overwhelmed by inquires from media around the world. In addition, the media was rela tively unused to dealing with nuclear energy, and a great deal of speculation and conjecture was disseminated. GPU was in no position to quickly educate a public with a limited knowledge of fission. And yet, even a visit by then- President Jimmy Carter to the crippled reactor didn’t seem to put to rest public fear or conjecture. Last week, for the very first time, the GPU Nuclear Corp. spec ifically sought out farmers to dis cuss the presence of the accident and the existing nuclear reactor. During a previous meeting between GPU Corp. and county agricultural agency leaders, it became apparent that farmers would be interested in learning more about the facility, according to officials. Tom Kauffman, spokesman for GPU, had contacted Dauphin County Extension agent Jim Wel shans and county ASCS director Ruth Hagy to get together a small Dauphin County farmers look over an aarial photograph of Hum Mil* Island and tha surrounding farmland. group of county farmers who would be interested in understand ing more about the island in the Susquehanna River where nuclear energy is made. “The whole reason for having this forum is because the local farming community is a large com munity that we haven’t communi cated with well in the past,” Kauff man said, adding that he and no one else really knows why there had been no effort to reach out and specifically address the agricultur al community. Kauffman said that perhaps the reason has been that mostpeople at GPU Nuclear are intensly con cerned with making electricity using nuclear energy and, while knowledgeable about how to run a power plant, have not been as knowledgeaUe or aware of how to conduct good public relations as they should have been. That is changing, he said. GPU Nuclear Corp. is attempting to be more responsive to the fears and questions of the surrounding community. He said that currently, there are 13 people employed by GPU who are concerned with public relations in several different forms. And, Kauffman said, the recent effort to “be good neighbors” is completely unrelated to the pletho ra of lawsuits the corporation faces. The Unit I reactor is sche duled to be online for years to come and a number of issues need to be addressed. Nationally, Kauffman said the federal government’s failure to site a national high-level radioactive waste facility is a big industry con cern. According to Kauffman, the facility was supposed to be built by 1986, but a site is still pending. In the meantime, he said the more than 100 nuclear power plants operating in the United States are on a timetable and all should be decommissioned by 2050, requiring an adequate policy and facility to handle the waste. Kauffman’s own backround is heavy with actual hands-on opera tion of TMI. He’s been employed for IS years. Prior to that, for two years at a southcentral Pennsylvania school, he was a teacher. However, his interests were elsewhere. In his years with TMI, Kauff man has been an operator eight years as a reactor operator and, for a portion of that time, a senior operator. That means he was, at times, soley' responsible for the control of the process of atomic splitting, also called fission. More than three years ago. he At a round table discussion, members of the Dauphii ty agricultural commun ity discuss with GPU Nuclear Corp. officials their feelings and attitudes about the company and the use of nuclear energy. was given an opportunity to switch over into public relations within the company and he said he enjoys it, teaching again. And while he has had school groups and civic groups and politi cal groups and entities through the facility, he said he finally recog nized that fanning groups, as one group, had been ignored all along. The'day consisted of a logical introductory briefing of GPU Nuclear Corp. a meeting and However, officials said that the overview discussion in a large con- difficult-to-understand break-in ference briefing room located may have actually been a blessing south and across from the actual in getting scurity awareness island, then entering a simulated increased before any problems plant operations room accompan- could occur, ied by a discussion of the hours of In addition, Hoffman said that ongoing training the operators the blast used to rock the World receive, followed by a bus tour of Trade Center would not have the island reactor facility and wild- damaged the reactor, nor would a life preserve, and a return to the direct impact of a Boeing 747, nor conference room for a round-table an earthquake of less than 6.7 on discussion on GPU Nuclear, » the Richter scale (a logarithmic nuclear energy, and any fears or scale for measuring earthquake concerns that die farm community disturbances). representatives may have held. Kauffman also ‘ detailed the recent attempt by a Berks County man to break into the island facili ty, while on the bus tour, pointing to the specific place where events occurred and explaining the path of the driver’s autombile. According to Kauffman, the driver went past the main gate guard, past the open fence gate, into the compound, left onto what appeared to be a work vehicle access road, and then crashed into a large access door to a building adjacent to the reactor building. According to Kauffman, there was never any danger to the reac tor, but the corporation has intensi fied security for the facility as a result of die unexpected action. During the round-table discus sion, which followed a lunch, sev eral of the guest farmers expressed concern about the attempt to break into the facility, especially in light of reports of the close proximity of an alleged firing range and possib ly training grounds used by Moslem international terrorists. The effectiveness of security against such types of terrorism were questioned. During the tour of the wildlife preserve, several species of heron were visible on a wetlands, and twin fawns were spotted along the roadway. Kauffman also mentioned the facility’s four environmental monitoring gardens and how, when he was working as an opera tor, people would bring bags of fresh vegetables from the garden into the operators to eat Related to that, during the round-table discussion, the farmer-group was introduced to Tim Bradley, GPU’s environmen tal scientist who produces an annu al Radiological Environmental NDB Study Shows Potential For Whey, Lactose Exports WATSONTOWN (Sun Area) This is your SUN area Dairy Princess, Michelle Dugan, to tell you some ways to budget fat in your diet A diet high in fat is linked to the development of several chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Health professionals recommend that adults consume no more than 30% of daily calo ries from dietary fill, and no more than 10% from saturated fat. Unfortunately, translating this recommendation into daily food choices is easier said than done. How does fat budgeting work? It involves four concepts; 1. Calculate your daily fat budget The fat budget is deter mined by how many calories you eat Multiply your calorie intake by 30%, or 030. Then divide the total by 9. Hie result is the total number of grams of fid you can eat in a day to meet current dietary recommendations for fin. For Monitoring Report. However, Kauffman said that many of those farmers present may have known of Bradley, because be selects cer tain farms in the surrounding area to test for possible radiological changes. Bradley has been checking for the possibility of radiation prob lems eminating from the nuclear facility for years and issues an annual report of his findings. During the round-table discus sion. among a number of issues, suggestions were made that GPU Nuclear Coip. use its some of its stable of public speakers to address people attending agricultural meetings and events, and to target more farmer-specific publications for news releases and information updates. The result of the first meeting was a success for both parties, according tdfßyeta, iftfteee farm is located between Middletown and Hummelstown. “I thought the meeting was very informative. I thought it was good. I can see that they want to work with the community and also see they didn’tknow how to do it,” Byers said. The dairyman said that when the accident occurred, "I said, ‘Man made that and I don't know if he knows how to handle it,’ and I don't know if he did at that time either.” But he said his opinion has changed. “Current has to be made some how and this is a g00d... I believe they can handle it now. Today has helped me to feel that way.” example, if you cat2ooocalories a day. you can allot 600 calories for your Cat budget Divide this num ber by 9; the result is a daily fat budget of approximately 67 grains. 2. Determine the fat content of foods you eat Some people mis takingly eliminate entire food groups, with the belief that those foods are all too high in fat How ever, there are low fat options in each food groups. Read food labels of packaged foods. 3. Understand serving sizes. Serving sizes play an important rale in controlling fat intake. For food that contains fat the larger the serving size, the higher the fct Tty measuring portions for a short time to familiarize yourself with standard serving sizes. 4. Make food trade-offs. For example, you can substitute turk ey on whole wheat bread Cor ham on a croissant *nd have a scoop of icecream for dessert '
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers