Series Review: "Meltdown: Three Mile Island" (2022).

From the director of The Most Dangerous Animal of All comes Meltdown: Three Mile Island. This documentary directed by Kief Davidson. This gripping four-part documentary series tackles the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania through the lens of chief engineer and whistleblower, Richard Parks, as well as the community it impacted. Insiders recount the events, controversies and lingering effects of the worst nuclear incident in U.S. history.

At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, The Three Mile Island accident, took place. The accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 – Accident with Wider Consequences. The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system that allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). TMI training and procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation. During the event these inadequacies were compounded by design flaws, including inconveniently arranged instruments and controls, the use of multiple similar alarms, and a failure of the equipment to clearly indicate coolant inventory level or the position of the stuck-open PORV. The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, and resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry. It has been cited as a contributor to the decline of a new reactor construction program, a slowdown that was already underway in the 1970s. The partial meltdown resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident did determine that there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of cancer, while other studies did not. Due to the nature of such studies, a causal connection linking the accident with cancer is difficult to prove. In August 1979, cleanup at TMI-2 started and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cost of about $1 billion. Meanwhile, in 2019, TMI-1 was shut down due to operating losses and is being decommissioned at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. The decommissioning is expected to be completed in 2079.

The informative but disturbing four-part docu-series reveals how close the Three Mile Island accident came to becoming a horrific catastrophe. The series delivers an absorbing cautionary tale about the partial nuclear reactor meltdown, the flawed response and the investigation that was critical of TMI management. Instead of a rehash of an event that could be easily researched, the series takes a familiar event from the past half-century and fills in people’s gaps in information and debunks commonly held beliefs about the event.

Simon says Meltdown: Three Mile Island receives:

Also, see my review for The Most Dangerous Animal of All.