HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A federal study says radiation from the Three Mile Island nuclear accident is not responsible for animal deformities, barnyard stillbirths and a 'glowing fish' reported in the area.
In the study released Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviewed animal health problems reported at 22 farms and the alleged stunted growth of vegetation following the March 1979 accident.
Also Wednesday, TMI officials began releasing radioactive krypton gas into the atmosphere in preparation for today's scheduled 13-man entry into the contaminated Unit No. 2 reactor building. Metropolitan Edison Co. spokesman John Fidler said the release would have no adverse health effects on the general public or persons working at the plant.
The NRC report discounted theories that radiation released from the plant during the 1979 accident was a cause of animal health problems. The agency instead blamed the deformities on 'nutritional deficiencies and infectious diseases.'
Worst-case radiation exposures calculated by health officials after the accident were 'less than one-thousandth of that which might have caused clinically detectable effects in the animal population' within 20 miles of the reactor, the report said.
Even if radiation releases were greater, it said, reports of animal health problems would have occurred in a different pattern.
'There would have been many anemic animals ... more frequently, in the path of the radioactive plume (from the damaged plant); this was not the case,' the report stated.
The report also discounted allegations that radiation could have caused various animal deformities or mutations. 'The deformed animals that owners called mutants were most likely victims of infectious disease suffered in the womb,' it said.
Among the animal health problems reported were:
--A county agricultural agent said a housewife bought a fish at a local supermarket. When her husband took the shad into a darkened basement to put it in a freezer, it 'glowed.' The report said the glow was more likely caused by marine bacteria.
--A poodle wasborn without one eye socket. 'This was probably a developmental malformation, cause unknown,' the report said.
--A commercial collection of 500 pet birds, such as parakeets, canaries and cockatiels, died in a two-hour span on May 2, 1979. The report said no signs of radiation sickness or disease were found in the birds. Cause of death was believed to be overheating or toxic fumes.
--Deformities were noted in ducks and kittens. The report determined them to be developmental malformations.
Reports of stunted vegetation growth centered on dead branches, or leaves on many trees, and, more specifically, reduced fruit production on two pear trees, one of which was dying.
'In regard to injury to vegetation,' the report said, 'lethal radiation doses for plants are usually hundreds of times larger than those for mammals.'
The report added that surveys of plant life nearby Three Mile Island showed that 'vegetation stress was attributable to natural causes.'
