As a 19-year-old, I've spent the majority of my life living 11 miles away from Vermont Yankee.
Growing up, my awareness of what that meant was admittedly limited - it wasn't until I was about 16 that I realized why my dad mockingly called me “Yankee girl” when I left too many lights on. I started reading about the leaks and lies almost every day in the Brattleboro Reformer, but I was not yet ready to confront the issue.
Then I moved away from home. As a student in Middlebury, I started to notice that Vermont Yankee was a big deal not only in my small community, but across the state and even beyond.
I began to discuss the issue with my peers from Ohio and South Carolina and Washington, D.C. and found that they cared about our state's clean-energy future just as much as I did. We all imagine ourselves graduating from college and moving into a sustainable workforce, breathing clean air, drinking clean water, and enjoying Vermont's four wonderful seasons.