Beyond Nuclear - NUCLEAR POWER

POWER STRUGGLE – A Film About A Successful Grassroots Citizens’

Effort To Shut Down A Nuclear Power Plant — Now Available

POWER STRUGGLE, an 86-minute feature-length documentary film, which chronicles the successful grassroots citizens’ effort to shut down a nuclear power plant in Vermont, is now available to watch or order on DVD at www.PowerStruggleMovie.com.

POWER STRUGGLE will receive its official national broadcast premiere on Free Speech TV this Thursday, March 28 at 8pm ET, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and then will be re-broadcast throughout the spring. Free Speech TV is available on DISH Channel 9415, DirecTV Channel 348, and streaming on Sling TV, Roku, Apple TV, and at www.freespeech.org. For additional broadcast dates, visit www.Freespeech.org/PowerStruggle.

The film prominently features nuclear watchdogs Arnie and Maggie Gundersen, along with an array of grassroots activists and elected officials, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, who joined forces to achieve a rare grassroots victory in closing an aging nuclear power plant.

The film has a newly re-vamped website: www.PowerStruggleMovie.com, where you can watch a 2-minute trailer, read reviews about the film, see additional video excerpts, and order POWER STRUGGLE on DVD, Blu-ray, HD digital download or streaming.

In addition, you can download a PDF Community Screening Organizing Guide for organizing local screenings at: https://www.powerstrugglemovie.com/screenings

Director Robbie Leppzer comments, “After 8 years in the making, I feel very proud to be the storyteller for a national audience of this inspiring story of anti-nuclear activists not only making a huge difference, but actually winning!”

Screening POWER STRUGGLE in your local community can be used as an educational and organizing catalyst to inspire increased citizen awareness and renewed activism about aging nuclear plants and the long-term hazards of radioactive waste.

As the film’s director, Robbie Leppzer is available for speaking engagements – in person or via an online video link – with POWER STRUGGLE at colleges and universities, and at community premieres. Please contact him at: robbie@turningtide.com.

"POWER STRUGGLE is the remarkable story about how people power overcame corporate power and government cover-ups to finally shut down an aging and dangerous nuclear plant. We see how small town citizens were transformed into tenacious anti-nuclear activists who triumphed against the odds. POWER STRUGGLE is a hopeful story that reminds us that citizen activism is not just possible, it is essential to saving our endangered planet."

— David Goodman, best-selling author, journalist and radio host, THE VERMONT CONVERSATION

“David and Goliath battles always need to be documented so people understand the power they have to achieve a desired result even against ridiculous odds. POWER STRUGGLE documents the acts of ordinary people, many of them senior women, who brought down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant by focusing their energies, intellects and actions in a unified way. The filmmaker’s timing proved serendipitous in the footage he was able to capture, the sense of people and place. Infuriating, deeply moving, and ultimately uplifting, POWER STRUGGLE provides an important record of what it takes to successfully battle a nuclear reactor into shutdown.” – Libbe HaLevy, Producer/Host, NUCLEAR HOTSEAT

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Update on March 28, 2019 by

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VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND Announcement 3.28.19

VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND:

A Two Hour Radio Documentary and Oral History

of America’s Near Catastrophic Nuclear Accident

40th Anniversary Release

Directed by Robbie Leppzer
(Director of POWER STRUGGLE, www.PowerStruggleMovie.com)

• Free MP3 Audio Download at: https://www.powerstrugglemovie.com/voices-from-three-mile-island

Originally entitled, EARLY WARNINGS: VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND, this two-hour public radio documentary was first broadcast nationally on 65 public radio stations across the United States in March 1980, on the one-year anniversary of the near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island. An expanded version of this oral history, VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND: The People Speak Out was published as a book in 1980 by the Crossing Press.

“Robbie Leppzer's chilling, powerful and amazingly thorough compilation of interviews from Three Mile Island pierces the veil of secrecy that has surrounded this disaster for forty years. What Leppzer's devastating series of first-person interviews tells us is what really happened, from the people it really happened to. And they spell it out in horrifying detail that we as a nation and a species can ignore only at our direst peril. These voices from Three Mile Island make for harrowing but utterly compelling listening."
— Harvey Wasserman, co-author KILLING OUR OWN

On March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of the commercial nuclear power program in the United States occurred at Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, twelve miles outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The most feared reactor accident, a core meltdown, which the nuclear industry has continually assured the public could never happen, almost did happen. A report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded that the Three Mile Island plant came within thirty to sixty minutes of a full meltdown. In fact, the core of the reactor did undergo partial melting.

What are the consequences of a nuclear meltdown? In the mid-1960’s, the Atomic Energy Commission reported that, should a meltdown ever happen, it would kill thousands of people outright from a lethal dose of high level radiation; expose hundreds of thousands of people to low level radiation which would bring dramatic increases in leukemia, cancer and birth defects; and contaminate a land area the size of Pennsylvania for over one hundred years.

This audio documentary is not about statistics and figures — it is a very personal one. It is an oral history of America’s near catastrophic nuclear accident as told by the people who lived through it. A montage of voices expressing the human side of this traumatic experience — fear, anger, frustration, and betrayal. Presented in this public radio special are the accounts of residents who lived within the 5-mile evacuation zone around the plant: farmers, doctors, business people, small town officials, and parents. It is told in their own words, without editorial comment.

In Part One, residents describe the first day of the nuclear accident, including experiencing a distinct metallic taste in the air, and dealing with conflicting reports from the local and national media, and government and utility officials concerning the level of danger posed by the nuclear plant. They talk candidly about their fears when the government advised residents to evacuate the area, as well as in the months following the accident, as no one knows how much radiation they were exposed to.

In Part Two, dairy farmer Jane Lee reveals evidence she had collected from local farmers which shows a dramatic increase in birth defects, stillbirths and miscarriages among farm animals. While these incidents peaked directly following the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Lee’s testimony, along with interviews with other farmers, shows a disturbing pattern of significant health problems among farm animals, which started appearing after the nuclear plant first began operation.

In light of the 160,000 people who were forced to evacuate their homes in Fukushima, Japan, the experiences of residents who lived through the Three Mile Island nuclear accident are more relevant than ever.

• Free MP3 Audio Download at: https://www.powerstrugglemovie.com/voices-from-three-mile-island

• For more information about Robbie Leppzer’s latest film, POWER STRUGGLE, an 86-minute feature-length documentary film, which chronicles the successful grassroots citizens’ effort to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, visit: www.PowerStruggleMovie.com.