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 '