BRATTLEBORO — This is an open letter to Evan Twarog, who is 14 years old and lives in Keene, and whose dad works at Vermont Yankee.
Evan wrote a letter to The Commons [“What is my family going to do if VY shuts down?” Nov. 16] in which he said that his dad isn't “the monster that the media and anti-VY groups make him and other VY employees out to be.”
Evan said that if VY closes, their life will change, and that right now their lives are very uncertain. Evan said we people on different sides of the VY issue all may have misconceptions and that we need to open our minds and really listen to each other.
Evan, allow me to introduce myself. I have a son a few years older than you. We live in Brattleboro.
Clearly, you understand that good, smart people can come to very different conclusions about things and that it can be hard to listen to both sides. I think you can be proud of being that mature.
I want VY to close. I don't agree with you that it is safe, but it's not because I think the workers like your dad are monsters. Far from it. I am grateful that they work hard to keep us all as safe as we can be.
It's just that some forms of radioactivity created by VY are extremely toxic for a very, very long time, and no matter how careful your dad and everyone else at VY are, people make mistakes, and bad things can happen, just like at Fukushima.
It's just that the company that owns VY doesn't seem to be doing what it needs to do to keep radioactivity out of our water or to invest money in the facility so that things like cooling tower collapses or transformer fires don't happen. Plus they lied to the state of Vermont, and I just don't trust them.
Everybody who signed on to work at VY, including your dad, knew that its license expires in March 2012. Now the owners of VY want to change that, but there's no guarantee they'll get their way.
Instead of helping your dad plan for your family's future, they are putting their energy into fighting a democratic decision of the state of Vermont that says VY will stop operating in March.
I don't want your life to be uncertain. As I said, I have a son just about your age, plus I moved a lot when I was growing up, so I have some sense of what you may be feeling. Also, I think we have something in common: We think this is a good place to live, and we want to stick around.
Here's where I want you to think about me and my son with a really open mind.
We think that the radioactivity from VY is dangerous, and we are scared all the time. That makes our lives very uncertain.
When the sirens went off right here in my hometown a few weeks ago, no one knew for quite a while that it was just a VY technician's mistake and not a real emergency at the plant.
What would we have done if it was a real emergency? You don't live near VY, but I know that the evacuation plans for us here are totally unrealistic.
So in the end, it seems that we are both scared, but about different things.
I hope you can believe me that I know your dad and you are not monsters.
Neither are my son and I.
We're all just people trying to figure out the best way to make a good life for ourselves. We disagree, but we still deserve to be heard by the other.
It's not easy, is it?