ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the evolution of public attitudes toward nuclear power in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, from the time plans for the construction of the Pilgrim-1 plant were announced in 1967 until after the accident at Three Mile Island in March 1979. The full-scale operation of Pilgrim-1 and the announcement in 1973 of Boston Edison's plans to construct Pilgrim-2 marked a second phase in the evolution of Plymouth residents' attitudes toward the siting of the nuclear plant. The Plymouth County Nuclear Information Committee was founded in 1974, and since that time has served as the local voice of opposition to nuclear-power development in the South Shore area. The nuclear-power-plant licensing process is one that has tended to exclude public input, despite the clear mandate for public participation as prescribed in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. A growing body of social science literature on the local-community impacts of rural industrialization, western boom towns, and nuclear-power plants exists.
