NH #769: Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown at 37: Restart? Radwaste? Bill Gates/Microsoft AI? TMI Alert’s Eric Epstein Explains the Bad Ideas

This Week’s Featured Interview:

Eric Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA monitors the Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations. He is also coordinator of  the EFMR Monitoring, Inc., a nonpartisan community based organization established  in 1992. EFMR monitors radiation levels at Peach Bottom  and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations, invests in community development, and sponsors remote robotics research. 

For more than 35 years,Mr. Epstein has specialized in research, litigation and providing expert testimony on the decommissioning, decontamination, environmental safety, rate recovery and waste isolation at nuclear reactors. No one knows the ins and outs of legalities surrounding Three Mile Island better than him. We spoke on Saturday, March 21, 2026.

Second Feature: Audio History of Meltdown As It Happened PLUS: Mary Stamos-Osborn and the Three Mile Island Mutated Plants

Mary Stamos-Osborn

Mary Stamos-Osborn (r) and helper showing gigantic mutated dandelion leaves
found growing shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown.

• Mary Stamos, also known as Mary Osborn, was a long time Middletown resident, TMI survivor, and Three Mile Island Alert member. Mary, who had no previous history as an activist, became involved in issues immediately after the accident when she noticed gigantic plant mutations – known as fasciation – that can be traced to radiation exposure. Her collection of mutated plants and flowers was accepted by the Smithsonian Institution in 2019 to be preserved, digitized, and made available to the public. 
  
  Mary Stamos-Osborn passed away on February 19, 2024. This interview is from the 40th anniversary of the TMI accident as first reported on Nuclear Hotseat #405, March 25, 2019.

Our thanks to filmmaker Robert (Robbie) Leppzer, producer of the two-hour audio documentary Voices from Three Mile Island, for permission to use excerpts from that work in this program. 


Links:

• Three Mile Island Alert
• TMIA Newsletter
• Nuclear Hotseat #405 – 40th Anniversary of Three Mile Island Meltdown It includes information from:
  • Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Energy Education. Watch a video of Arnie Gundersen speaking about the accident at the 40th Anniversary of the founding of Three Mile Island Alert.
  • Peter Bradford, who was a Commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner  during the TMI accident.
  • Eric Epstein, Chair of Three Mile Island Alert at TMIA.org.Three Mile Island Alert’s Radiation monitoring at EFMR.org
  • Mary Stamos (Osborn), long time Middletown resident, TMI survivor, and TMIA member, whose collection of mutated plants and flowers has just been accepted by the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Walter Cronkite, anchor for the CBS Evening News at the time of TMI and known as “the most trusted newsman in America. 

Libbe’s Book: YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK!
One Mile from Three Mile Island
to Fukushima and Nuclear Hotseat

A Nuclear Memoir and an Activist Chronicle

Available through your local independent book dealer or through Amazon

A leaking, out-of-control nuclear reactor only one mile away
No available transportation
Even the phones have stopped working.
What would you do?
What would it do TO you?

That’s what Libbe HaLevy faced during the 1979 Three Mile Island radiation-spewing meltdown near Harrisburg, PA. Now, the full atomic story is told, from 1950’s Duck-and-Cover nuclear bomb exercises and Disney’s “Our Friend the Atom” through the harrowing nuclear accident and decades of denial before Fukushima snapped her into action>

YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! tells the story of the making of an activist — how one victim of TMI learned to fight back against nuclear perpetrators with facts, sarcasm… and a podcast. HaLevy’s colorful life gets its due, with side trips through Broadway, Hollywood, network TV and “Bozo’s Circus;” recovery from childhood sexual abuse; and her successful media work in three national movements.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott says of YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK!: “Absolutely fascinating. This book must be read by all people who care about the future of the planet and their children.”