Even given the fact that the investigation proved the maximum exposure that any one person had as a result of the meltdown was no more than one x-ray would create there were more than 2,000 law suits filed in court with claims that the exposure to radiation caused varying health issues for individuals (Three mile island (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html).
The court chose ten test cases on which to decide the outcome of all 2,000 cases. Those cases took 15 years to resolve and in 1996 the lawsuits were dismissed in favor of the defendants (Three mile island (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html).
It should be noted that the operators and emergency operating procedures (EOPs) did not recognize the accident as a classic LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident) since they had no dependable instrumentation to indicate the loss of primary water or non-ambiguous reactor level indication (Three mile island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island)."
CONCLUSION
The accident at Three Mile Island which was later classified as a core meltdown quickly woke Americans up from a previously held belief that there was no danger in building nuclear power plants on U.S. soil. President Carter and his advisors sent spokespeople to the site and he appeared there with his wife to demonstrate that the areas was indeed safe five days following the accident....
People in the area were evacuated based on age and pregnancy status but were quickly allowed to return to their homes once it was found the problem was halted. Later studies discovered that the exposure to radiation for those in surrounding areas did not exceed a higher dose of radiation that getting a single x-ray causes. While the exposure was minimal, the accident itself provided a wake up call to government agencies and the public that nuclear power plants, while extremely useful in the development of power, comes with risks. Those risks were taken much more seriously following the melt down at Three Mile Island. Investigations provided the chance for sweeping changes to occur in procedure for the future building, monitoring and handling of nuclear power plant issues.
References
Three mile island (accessed 5-20-06)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html
Fact Sheet on the Accident at Three Mile Island (accessed 5-20-06)
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
Three Mile Island (accessed 5-20-06)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island
Meltdown (accessed 5-20-06)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/filmmore/description.html
Three Mile Island: 1979 Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 48 March 2001(accessed 5-20-06)
http://www.uic.com.au/nip48.htm
