(June 7, 1996) "There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay the price of development." How often have we heard this from those who pay no price at all for anything. But that is a different tale. To the victims, development is not a commodity whose price is paid once but an unending nightmare which demands an undefined, unbounded payment which goes on and on.
(453.4484) WISE Amsterdam - Take the Three-Mile Island accident for example. On 31 March 1979, a stuck valve started a series of events which culminated in a partial meltdown of the nuclear reactor. Fortuitously, the accident did not result in a huge explosion with a large release of radioactivity into the environment. Nevertheless, there was radioactivity released into the environment in excess of prescribed "limits". People living near the reactor did suffer harm. Infant mortality and spontaneous abortions, congenital deformities in both humans and animals in the region rose significantly. But to the nuclear authorities, these were of "no concern to the community". More than 2,000 victims of this disaster have filed court cases against the owners and operators of the plant, but they are still waiting to get their chance to tell the Court about the injuries and sicknesses they have experienced.
In June of this year, that is fully 17 years after the disaster, the first 11 cases are scheduled to go to trial in the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On 27 February, 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the argument of the nuclear industry, put forth by the owners of the reactor with the support of their nuclear "experts" in the industry, that even though the radiation exposure of the people was above federal limits, no one was actually exposed to "excessive" radiation and therefore no one experienced radiation detriment. Most of these court cases involve leukemia, or other cancers, and most of the victims are destitute - the inevitable result of having lost employment and health insurance.
Nevertheless, the nuclear industry has relentlessly pursued the loophole it saw in the Supreme Court's decision, namely, an earlier Court ruling that for expert testimony to be admissible in the court, its scientific basis had to be generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. Using this criterion, the nuclear industry challenged all the expert witnesses the victims had found willing to assist them in their suit against the nuclear management which had caused the disaster. In pre-trial hearings, the nuclear industry has managed to have the court eliminate almost all of the victim's expert witnesses. The nuclear "experts" who work for this industry were considered by the court to be the "relevant scientific community", and only the documents produced by nuclear promoters such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "authoritative".
Source: Surendra Gadekar, Anumukti, India
Contact: Three Miles Island Alert, 315 Peffer Street, Harrisburg, PA 17102,
Tel +1-717-233 7897, Fax: +1-717-233 3261