The Michigan Daily-Tuesday, July 17, 1979-Page 9
Reporters
MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (AP) - Fif-
teen reporters donned red hard hats,
radiation detection badges, and
name tags yesterday to take part in
the news media's first tour of Three
Mile Island since an accident at the
nuclear plant shook the world March
28.
"We've been working ourselves up
to a point where we thought it was
timely to brief the news media,"
said Bob Arnold, vice-president of
General Public Utilities, the holding
company that owns the crippled
plant.
WHILE REPORTERS accom-
panied three earlier tours by
President Carter and investigating
panels, this was the first time visits
were arranged just for the press.
The reporters chosen for yester-
day's tour boarded a bus that ferried
them through a chain-link gate and
across a bridge leading to the island
in the middle of the Susquehanna
River.
Plant spokesman Bill Gross ser-
ved as tour guide, leading the
visitors around the grounds
dominated by four huge cooling
towers.
"This is the infamous Unit 2 con-
trol room," said Gross, as he opened
a door to reveal a vast array of in-
struments, dials, and red and green
visit Three Mile Island,
Atmosphere
more relaxed
lights.
A harrowing series of human
errors and mechanical problems left
the reactor's 100 tons of uranium
fuel uncovered by cooling water for
nearly an hour, allowing radiation to
leak into the atmosphere and raising
the possibility of a disastrous melt-
down.
A second unit was shut for refuel-
ing at the time ind will be idled for
at least another year to allow the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
hold public hearings.
SHIFT FOREMAN Fred
Scheimann, who ran the control
room when the crisis erupted 110
days ago, pointed at two dials on one
of the control room's instrument
panels.
"Those were the initial ones," he
said, singling out controls that
should have alerted workers that
auxiliary feedwater had been cut off
from the damaged reactor.
"That's where we've had most of
our questions up to this point," said
Scheimann. "It's been a busy three
months," he added.
ADORNING BOTH dials now are
crumpled yellow tags that say,
"Only to be opened by approved EP
(emergency procedure) or shift
supervisor ...
There were no surprises or sub-
stantially new information gleaned
from the tour, except perhaps that
the atmosphere on Three Mile Island
is considerably more relaxed than it
was this spring.
Workers went about installing in-
sulation on huge pipes in much the
same manner any factory worker
acts - although the pipes carried
cooling water from the world's most
famous and most mangled nuclear
reactor.
REPORTERS SAW two extensive
construction endeavors, both
necessitated by the accident and
both completed in a fraction of the
time that such projects would take
under less pressing conditions.
One was a new system to clean
250,000 gallons of contaminated
water now stored in tanks insideean
auxiliary building adjoining the
reactor building.
The other was a maze of plum-
bing, in the basement of a turbine
generator building. which now ser-
Auto talks
begin at
GM despite
2-hour delay
tContinued from Page 3
conspiracy at the facility in violation of
an agreement with GM that cleared the
way for union organizing efforts at the
company's Southern plants.
GM's top negotiator, George Morris,
denied that plant level officials were
aiding the distribution of anti-union
literature and said the company will
stand by its neutrality agreement and
national labor relations law.
Negotiations covering GM's 460,000
UAW workers were recessed until
Friday. Opening contract talks will
begin at Ford Motor Co. today and
Chrysler Corp. tomorrow.
LAST LAUGH
KETTING, England (AP)-Arthur
Wood was rejected by the British army
at age 40 because he had a bad heart
and was told he did not have long to
live.
Wood recently celebrated his 103rd
birthday.
Regulations
should raise
Midwest
gas prices
prevalent in the West, so many prices
there should fall to meet the 15.4-cent
profit limit.
HARPER'S GROUP had sought
greater relief - an estimated 16.5-cent
ceiling. "The change lets dealers hang
on but it doesn't enable them to rebuild
the profits they have lost due to in-
flation," he said.
Many independent dealers in Pen-
nsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey
closed stations to protest the old profit
margins, which had been frozen since
1974. Many of those in Pennsylvania
and Delaware ended their three-day
strike yesterday.
"It's too early to tell whether they
will be placated," Harper said. The
key, he added, will be the reaction of
governors.
"THE ENERGY Department has
passed the buck to the states ... many
dealers are worried the governors
won't help," Harper said.
Also designed to help the smaller, in-
dependent stations are new allocation
rules issued yesterday.
These rules will reduce gasoline now
going to new service stations, certain
priority users and their suppliers, and
wholesalers that have lost customers
but continue to get volumes based on
past business. Some allocation rules
will not go into effect until after this
summer.
But retroactive to July 6, no new
station will get more than 50,000 gallons
per month, the Energy Department
said. Officials acknowledge this will ef-
fectively prevent more high-volume
station.s,[rjom springin .upsawhile the
current gasoline sfiortage continues.
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Paul Freeman',
conductor
Martha Naset,
pianist
On its first U.S. tour, this young
orchestra has already earned a name
for itself in Europe. Paul Freeman,
u-eli-known to Southeastern Michigan
concertgoers, is guest conductor,
and piano soloist is U-M Music School
graduate Martha Naset.
8:30 pm, Hill Auditorium '
CONCERT PROGRAM
"Impresario" Orerture'............ Mozart
Svmphoneyv No. 4............ Mendelssohn
Piano Concerto No. I...........IBeethoren
Dances of Galantae................ Kodaly
Tickets are $4, $5.50 and $7 at
Burton Tower, weekdavs 9-4:30,
Sat. 9.12 or at the leox office
which opens at 7. Telephone
665-3717.
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