Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

In 1979, Tower Two at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant had a meltdown. This is an incontestable truth. What has been a big fight over the forthcoming decades was how many of the people who lived near Three Mile Island were actually injured by this terrifying nuclear accident. It is the central question of exploration in Heidi Hutner’s first documentary, Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island.

Hutner, a professor at SUNY Stony Brook, has been researching this incident for some time. I recall the meltdown well, as the various congressional inquiries into Three Mile Island were a regular feature of Public Television’s programming when I was a boy. For most of the time since the accident, the Nuclear Radiation Commission (NRC) and the State of Pennsylvania have been fighting hard to prevent anyone from knowing what actually happened to the people of Harrisburg who lived near Three Mile Island.

So we come to meet the band of Moms who are our protagonists. Beth Drazba, Linda Braasch, Paula Kinney, and Joyce Corradi have been fighting the good fight against the fascist forces of the NRC and the energy company that owned and operated Three Mile Island. For many a year, they have visited the accident site to commemorate the event and recall all the damage it has caused to their loved ones. As Linda Braasch relates, there was never a case of cancer in her family. After the meltdown, there is nothing but cancer affecting her family; from her parents down, everyone has experienced one form of cancer or another.

“…how many of the people who lived near Three Mile Island were actually injured by this terrifying nuclear accident.”

Realizing they were just ordinary folks, they hired Joanne Doroshow to represent them and their community in court. Working Pro Bono, Doroshow butted heads with the NRC and the state of Pennsylvania for many years. Eventually, Doroshow brought in a courtroom litigator, Lynne Bernabei, to handle any courtroom procedures, of which there were many motions. To this day, the case has not had a day in court. The NRC and the PA Energy company continue to stonewall a trial. As far as anyone knows, no actual harm came to anyone exposed to the meltdown at Three Mile Island.

When you watch such documentaries, gentle reader, you must take a moment and pause. Here, we have a terrible accident that occurred at a privately owned energy company’s nuclear power plant. And does the State or Federal government swoop in to punish them? No. The state and federal governments protect energy companies. The meltdown officially has caused no harm. They will stonewall, obfuscate, and invest as many resources as are required to prevent a trial on the nature of the Meltdown and its lasting aftereffects from ever having its day in court. On every level, our government is geared to lie to us, gentle readers. And yet we go and continue voting for Democrats or Republicans, somehow expecting that if we put different people in, this will somehow make a real and lasting change.

Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island is here to burst that bubble. No change is possible so long as the government and big businesses continue to protect and fundraise for each other. These four mothers have spent their lives trying to fight Big Energy and its Governmental Cronies. It is, as Hutner unflinchingly demonstrates, a losing proposition.

I encourage every American to watch this wonderful and engrossing documentary. Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island is a powerful piece, and its story needs to be told. It’s only a shame those four brave mothers will likely never have their day in court.