Radio interview with Three Mile Island disaster eyewitness now online

David Bear -- who monitored radiation at Three Mile Island following the 1979 meltdown and who went on to co-author a critique of the official account of the disaster that we reported on earlier this month in our special TMI investigation -- was interviewed last week by KGO-AM 810, San Francisco's largest news/talk radio station.

Bear is a veteran of the U.S. Navy nuclear training program who went on to work as a radiation monitor at commercial nuclear power plants across the country. He worked at TMI in the wake of the meltdown along with Randall and Joy Thompson, subjects of our report into what really happened at the plant.

Host Pat Thurston contacted me recently about coming on the show to discuss my Facing South investigation. While I'm always happy to go on the air to talk about my work, I thought her listeners would prefer to hear from one of the eyewitnesses to the disaster. The Thompsons were not available, so Bear volunteered to step up to the mic.

He did a terrific job of covering a lot of ground in a short time and breaking down highly technical information. Bear also discussed important points that we didn't get to in our Facing South investigation, including problems with TMI's reactor fuel, which was manufactured by Kerr-McGee -- the same company that Karen Silkwood was investigating when she was killed in a mysterious car wreck in 1974. (Readers of our investigation will recall that Randall Thompson was injured and his brother-in-law killed when they were run off the road while working on a book about their experiences at TMI.)

To listen to the full interview with Bear, click here.