William Scranton
William Scranton
William Warren "Bill" Scrantonwas an American Republican Party politician. Scranton served as the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967. From 1976 to 1977, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth19 July 1917
CountryUnited States of America
auxiliary basement building except floor happened looked nuclear power saw
When I started walking and I looked down and I saw on the floor this water, which looked like, you know, water in your basement except it happened to be in the auxiliary building of a nuclear power plant.
amount enormous generates plans talking unknown
We were talking about radiation, which generates an enormous amount of fear. This was unknown and so there were no plans for that.
cut government increasing instead state taxes
We need to cut taxes instead of increasing taxes and put the state government on a diet,
considered core source
Obviously, I'm not looking in the core of the reactor, but I am looking at what, at that time, was considered the source of the trouble, which was the water and where it was.
edison information needed rely
And it was at that point that I realized, in fact, our whole administration realized, that we could not rely on Metropolitan Edison for the kind of information we needed to make decisions.
releases worked
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and EPA, et cetera, had worked out what allowable releases are.
calling early sources washington
They're calling their Washington sources at the NRC or in Congress and they're not hesitating to give their opinion, but their opinion, frankly, in those early days was not very well informed.
radiation
There are allowable limits for radiation going - I mean there's radiation all around us. There's radiation from your television set. There's radiation from your computer. There's radiation actually occurring in the ground.
issue
But the issue became, how long do you keep the press waiting so that you can gather more information?
knew minutes putting radiation took
It took me 45 minutes to get in all of the suits and putting all the dosimeters on me so that they knew how much radiation I got and the protective boots and everything.
breach core information knew likelihood nuclear people time
All of the information that we were getting up to that time from the NRC people, from our people who knew something about nuclear power, was that the breach of the core was not a likelihood to happen.
lieutenant people responsibility
You're feeling the responsibility for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people on your shoulder in a way that I couldn't feel as lieutenant governor.
knew looked none power
None of us knew what this power plant looked like. We had no schematic drawing.
breach none odious
None of us are nuclear experts, but we know that if there is a melt-down and breach of containment, that's clearly the most odious thing that could happen.