Rev. Jonathan Rehmus

Facing ‘it’

How smart are we to risk continued operation of an aged nuclear reactor whose spent fuel rods are stored 70 feet above the ground

Following the March 24 demonstration in Brattleboro protesting the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, I talked with a shopkeeper about the issue.

“No tsunami is going to hit VY,” he said when the topic turned to the costs faced by Japan in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. (Estimates range from $50 billion to $200 billion.)

This same sentiment was echoed by a supporter of the plant quoted in newspapers the next day: “They say they don't want a Fukushima here. We're not in a tsunami zone, so I don't think that's a problem.”

This tendency of people to narrow their scope when they think about possible disaster is understandable. A nuclear accident at Vermont Yankee is horrible to contemplate.

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