Nuclear and Coal in the Postwar US Dissertation Presented in Partial

Power From the Valley: Nuclear and Coal in the Postwar U.S.

Dissertation

Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University

Megan Lenore Chew, M.A.

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2014

Dissertation Committee:

Steven Conn, Advisor

Randolph Roth

David Steigerwald

Abstract

In the years after World War II, small towns, villages, and cities in the Ohio River

Valley region of Ohio and Indiana experienced a high level of industrialization not seen since the region’s commercial peak in the mid-19th century. The development of industries related to nuclear and coal technologies—including nuclear energy, uranium enrichment, and coal-fired energy—changed the social and physical environments of the

Ohio Valley at the time. This industrial growth was part of a movement to decentralize industry from major cities after World War II, involved the efforts of private corporations to sell “free enterprise” in the 1950s, was in some cases related to U.S. national defense in the Cold War, and brought some of the largest industrial complexes in the U.S. to sparsely populated places in the Ohio Valley. In these small cities and villages— including Madison, Indiana, Cheshire, Ohio, Piketon, Ohio, and Waverly, Ohio—the changes brought by nuclear and coal meant modern, enormous industry was taking the place of farms and cornfields. These places had been left behind by the growth seen in major metropolitan areas, and they saw the potential for economic growth in these power plants and related industries. Some locals argued that this type of industrial development hurt the environment. They organized into anti-nuclear, anti-plant, environmental movements, and as consequences of both nuclear and coal technologies became increasingly clear in the later decades of the 20th century, environmentalists gained power in guiding the futures of these industries. The failure of the coal and nuclear industries to ii

adapt to growing environmental regulations and increased costs in the 1970s and onward affected the communities of the Ohio River Valley. In these Ohio River Valley cities, villages, and towns, the local environment, local economic development, and local social values were influenced by federal regulations and the often pro-industry efforts of state politicians. The story of U.S. industrial development in the postwar era to the present can best be told through the actions and experiences of people who lived in these places, small towns in the U.S., far away from centers of economic and political power.

Grassroots movements bubbled up in these Midwestern and rural areas, and demonstrated the strength of environmentalism in small towns far from urban centers. But, politicians, workers, and others concerned with losing industry countered environmentalists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The story of the Ohio Valley in the post-World War II era provides a counter-narrative to discussions of deindustrialization in the Midwestern

U.S. focused on loss of industry in the 1950s and beyond, and provides an important local social and environmental context for understanding how people negotiated the economic benefits of industrial development and the potential consequences of pollution. This narrative demonstrates the difficulties of maintaining small town environments when they faced increased pollution, acid rain, economic decline, and major industrial transformation.

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Dedication

Dedicated to my family.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of a number of people and institutions in completing the research and writing of this dissertation. First, thank you to my dissertation committee members for their helpful responses to my ideas, chapters, and writing. I am grateful to my fellow graduate students who have responded to parts of this draft in seminars, as well as faculty at Ohio State who have provided feedback. I would like to thank graduate students, faculty and staff, past and present, in the Department of

History and the administrative staff and students I have worked with on the Appalachian

Project and in the Literacy in Appalachia GradGroup for their academic and personal support. In addition, I extend thanks to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, the

Washington County Historical Society (Ohio), the Jefferson County Historical Society

(Madison, Indiana), the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, the Ohio

Congressional Archives, and Hanover College’s Duggan Library, among the number of archives and libraries that have provided me sources and guidance. Thank you to those who provided helpful feedback to part of this dissertation at the American Society for

Environmental History conference in Madison, Wisconsin in 2012 and at the Graduate

Student Writing Workshop in Toronto, Canada in 2013, and at the Appalachian Studies

Association conference in Boone, North Carolina in 2013. I would like to thank the

Department of History at Ohio State University for funding opportunities and scholarship grants to complete this dissertation, as well as the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library

Association for grant funds to complete research in Iowa. Thank you also to the friends and family who have provided support, feedback, and patience through the years.

Vita

Biographical Information:

June 2002……………………………………………………………….Perry High School

June 2006………………………………..B.A. History, B.S. Journalism, Ohio University

December 2009………………………………………M.A. History, Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………..… iv

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………..……. v

Vita…………………………………………………………………………….……….. vii

List of Maps…………...……………………………………………………………..….. x

List of Photos……………………………………………………………………...……..xi

Introduction: Making the River Useful: Power, Connection, and the Small Town in The Ohio River Valley………………………………………………………………..…….… 1

Chapter One: Power of Connection: Coal, Electricity, and the Ohio Valley after World War II………………………………………………………………………………….... 30

Chapter Two: Power for Defense and Development: Free Enterprise, National Security, and the Atomic Energy Commission--Ohio Valley Electric Corporation Project, 1950- 1965…………………………………………………………………………………...… 54

Chapter Three: Smokestacks Over Main Street: Historic Preservation, Environmentalism, and the Threat of a Power Plant “Concentration” on the Ohio River, 1957-1981…….... 84

Chapter Four: Marble Hill and the Failure of a Nuclear Alternative in the Ohio Valley, 1970-1991……………………………………………………………………….…….. 119

Chapter Five: Smoke On the Water: The Future of Nuclear in the Ohio Valley……… 154

Chapter Six: Acid Indiscretions: High Sulfur Coal, Environmental Policy, and Negotiating Coal’s Future, 1980-present……………………………………...………. 180

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Conclusion: The Twenty-first Century Comes to the 19th Century Town……………. 209

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………... 221

Appendix A.: Power Plants developed in Ohio Valley adjacent to Ohio and Indiana 1944- 1965. ……………………………………………………………………………………243

Appendix B: Power Plants developed in Ohio Valley adjacent to Ohio and Indiana 1965-

1991.……….………………………………………………………………………….. .245

List of Maps

Map 1. Map of Marietta and surrounding area……………………….………...………. 36

Map 2. Map of Waverly and surrounding area………………….……...…………….. ...54

Map 3. Map of Cincinnati to Louisville area…………………………...... …………….. 84

Map 4. Map of Madison and surrounding area…………………...………...…………. 119

Map 5. Map of Clermont County and surrounding area………………...…………….. 154

List of Photos

Photo 1. Image of Shrewsbury-Windle House, Madison……………………...…...…..100

Photo 2. Image of Downtown Madison, Indiana…………………………..………….. 210

Photo 3. Image of Clifty Creek Power Plant……………………………………..……. 212

Photo 4. Image of Cheshire Baptist Church with James Gavin Power Plant……….… 214

Photo 5. Image of Clifty Creek Power Plant from Madison Riverfront………….…… 220

Introduction: Making the River Useful: Power, Connection, and the Small Town in The

Ohio River Valley

I. Towns, Villages, and Small Cities of the Ohio River Valley and Power Growth

Sitting on a bench next to the Ohio River watching the barges float by is a common pastime in Madison, Indiana. The barges glide along the Ohio River, with mountains of coal stacked and pushed by tugboats, and birds appear small flying over the river. It is a peaceful scene, fitting of the name Ohio, which is an adaption of an “Iroquois term, ‘O-Y-O,’ which means ‘the great river.’”1 The Ohio River and the lovely riverside cities that line it, like Madison, have not always been peaceful or beautiful. The Ohio

River’s purpose in the 20th century could not simply be a dramatic backdrop or a place to lose track of time. Rather, as the barges remind onlookers, this is a working river.

Alongside the Ohio River sit a number of cities, villages, towns, and rural spaces.

These places are often bypassed by travelers on the Interstates and are not as familiar as large river cities like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. But these places helped transform the

Ohio River into a center of power in the mid-20th century.

In the early to mid 19th century, the Ohio River was a center of commerce, with industries including meat-packing, but by the mid-20th century it was a center of heavy industry and home to a number of steel mills, power plants, and chemical plants. A number of industrial cities were involved in this production, including Wheeling, West

1 Ohio History Central, “Ohio,” accessed April 13, 2014, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Ohio. 1

Virginia and Portsmouth, Ohio. The Ohio Valley was also home to a number of small

19th century towns that did not see major industrial development until after World War II.

These smaller towns, like Madison, Indiana, retained the appearance of 19th century commercial cities but were on the cusp of change.2 Madison and other small towns saw the development of huge power plants in the years after World War II, in an era of massive suburban growth in metropolitan areas. The development of the Ohio

Valley power towns was part of a reorganization of the landscape after World War II that created rural industrial spaces in addition to those metropolitan areas.

Most of these small towns and cities had seen their best days during the 19th century boom eras for coal mining and river commerce. In the mid-20th century these places saw a wave of redevelopment through power plant construction. These were not all small municipal plants, but some of the most impressive industrial sites of the postwar era. The concentration of these coal-fired power plants along the Ohio River set a series of events in motion that connected nearly forgotten rural towns to national narratives of atomic defense, coal power, the failure of nuclear power, and the damaging effects of pollution on nature, climate, and health.

The Ohio Valley was viewed as a potential engine for the U.S. economy and defense state, and was referred to as “an industrial aorta” or the “American Ruhr Valley” in the years after World War II.3 It had all of the ingredients—coal for fuel, water for

2 The United States Census considers these types of places “micropolitan” rather than metropolitan, as they are outside of the major city and its suburban reaches. United States Census Bureau, Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas Main, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.census.gov/population/metro/.

3 Robert L. Reid has argued the 20th century incarnation of the Ohio River is as “the nation’s industrial heartland.” This study recognizes this identity in the postwar period, but focuses on the peculiarities of communities in an “industrial heartland” that accept power plants but do not experience much economic or political growth as a result. Robert L. Reid, “Introduction,” in Always a River: The Ohio River and the American Experience, ed. by Robert L. Reid (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), xiv. The 2

transportation, people to labor, available land, and proximity to major cities of the

Northeast, Midwest, Upper South, and mid-Atlantic. Exploited in the years after World

War II for energy development, these natural resources had long been at the center of the

Ohio River Valley’s economy and development.

Rather than considering the Ohio Valley as a whole, this study focuses on southern Ohio and southeastern Indiana and on the region’s major postwar industries in the 20th century—electricity generation and uranium enrichment. It focuses on the small towns chosen to be sites of these industries. This allows for greater understanding of both coal and nuclear industrial changes in the Ohio Valley region and in small towns after

World War II.

The cities of Madison, Indiana, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Gallipolis, Ohio, as well as the villages of Cheshire, Waverly, and Piketon, Ohio are in focus in this study, as they were sites of large nuclear or coal industries. Also, they continue to be small places largely disconnected from metropolitan areas and Interstate highways, and somewhat invisible even to the residents of their states. Decentralization of industry, which helped boost these small towns, did not just kill urban industrial centers; it disrupted some historic small town and rural communities.

These new industrial sites inspired hope for economic success that had eluded a number of these places in the first half of the 20th century, but these industrial sites also

region’s “Ruhr Valley” image began in the late 1940s, when the Ohio Valley saw a surge of chemical, energy, and aluminum development. John F. Kennedy invoked the “American Ruhr Valley” nickname in a campaign speech in Youngstown, which is actually located in the Mahoning Valley. See: John F. Kennedy, “Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Youngstown, Ohio, Public Square,” October 9, 1960. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Wooley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25745. William J. Mitsch cites a New York Times article calling the Ohio River the “industrial aorta” of the U.S. Mitsch, “Foreword,” Ohio Journal of Science 89 (December 1989): 116-117. Original article: Richard Rutter, “The Ohio Becomes Industrial Aorta,” The New York Times, November 20, 1955, F1. 3

created concern about the effects of industrial pollution on health and the environment.

The industrial growth in rural areas helped to nudge along modern social movements, both anti- and pro-industry, in these historic areas in the Ohio Valley.

These places also experienced the ups and downs in the nuclear and coal energy industries in the U.S. Power plants and a uranium enrichment site grew in the area from the 1950s to the 1980s. But in the 1970s the Valley was at the center of debates over air quality and acid rain and in the 1980s it was also at the center of major decline in the U.S. nuclear power industry.

Nationally, the challenges to nuclear and coal-fired power plants appeared in headlines. But locally, the challenges cut deeper. While the decline in nuclear energy in the 1980s represented failure for many committed to “cleaner” energy production and low energy costs, in the Ohio Valley it meant a loss of jobs and property taxes, and a loss of an alternative to nearby coal-based air pollution.

The nature of this industrialization has created an intriguing history in the Ohio

Valley and adjacent areas, and it is a history with ties national narratives of the Cold War, decentralization, environmental activism, nuclear energy, coal, and small towns. The story of coal and nuclear energy in the Ohio Valley reveals some of the complexities of environmentalism in small places.

But, the story of industrial development in the Ohio Valley in the mid-20th century to the present also reveals the resilience of small towns and rural communities in the face of major regional industrial expansion, and the ways local people, politicians, and business leaders negotiated the creation of rural-industrial environments in the boom- and-bust decades following World War II.

II. Literature Review

This story takes place at the intersection of social, environmental, and industrial history. It has drawn from important studies in a number of fields, and this section will discuss the innovations in these fields that have made this study’s approach possible. The following section begins with the role of social histories in shaping this study, then considers relevant studies in environmental history, and next follows with a discussion of relevant studies in industrial, economic, and defense or diplomatic histories, and concludes with a discussion of the regional studies that have informed this narrative.

Urban, Suburban, Rural, and Main Street

A great deal of work that considers social environments in the post-World War II era has come from urban and suburban historians, who have looked at the ways daily life changed as migration patterns in the U.S. moved from center city to suburb in the mid-to- late 20th century. Important studies on suburban history include Kenneth Jackson’s

Crabgrass Frontier, which considers the influence of the physical environment on daily life in the U.S.4 Jackson’s study, which considers suburban life as typical of modern

American life, inspired a number of studies of these communities across the U.S. His study puts place at the center of his narrative, but unlike this study, the narrative is primarily concerned with suburban migration from the city.

Historians have considered the political, social, environmental, and cultural power of the suburbs, and the suburban histories of the post-World War II era provide important insight into how attention in the U.S. shifted to these sprawling communities. Many of

4 Starting with Kenneth Jackson’s Crabgrass Frontier, a number of suburban and metropolitan histories spun off to consider the role of the wider city area in development in the late 19th century and 20th century. See: Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

these studies consider how political and economic power shifted away from center city to suburbs in the mid-20th century. In addition, a number of urban-suburban historians have considered the ways suburban growth altered the physical structure of cities, particularly after World War II, and land surrounding cities, including through the growth of freeways, new housing, schools, and business districts. These important physical changes to the landscape have provided greater understanding on how many Americans’ lifestyles and living spaces have evolved across the 20th century. In this study, the work of urban historians provides context for the type of larger social changes underway as the Ohio

Valley small towns, villages, and cities industrialized.5

The effects of industrial decentralization after World War II could be seen in rural areas after environmental regulations and globalization shifted local industries out of cities. As Allen J. Dieterich-Ward and Andrew Needham have contended, the relationships between cities and the “metropolitan hinterlands” are far more complex and related to regional identities rather than easily compared across the U.S.6 Their interest in looking at the “‘metropolitan region’” and rejecting the “frontier” model of Kenneth

Jackson, who looked from center city outward, provides space to consider places like the

5 Metropolitan, urban, and suburban histories have provided excellent frameworks for considering the reorganization of the environment in the postwar era both socially and through physical environmental changes. Their ideas provide part of the foundation for looking at non-metropolitan environmental changes at this time. For studies of the infrastructural transformation of metropolitan areas as related mainly to highways, see: Zachary Schrag, “The Freeway Fight in Washington, D.C.: The Three Sisters Bridge in Three Administrations,” Journal of Urban History 30 (July 2004): 648-673. Raymond Mohl, “The Interstates and the Cities: The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Freeway Revolt, 1966-1973,” Journal of Policy History 20 (No. 2, 2008): 193-226, and Owen Gutfreund, Twentieth Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

6 Allen J. Dieterich-Ward and Andrew Needham, “Beyond the Metropolis: Metropolitan Growth and Regional Transformation in Postwar America,” Journal of Urban History 35, no. 7 (2009): 945.

Ohio Valley small towns alongside the events happening in the metropolitan areas of the post-World War II era.7

Needham and Dieterich-Ward argue, “while urban decentralization removed factories and residents from central cities to suburbs, it also served to reorganize the populations and resources of the landscape beyond the suburban fringe.”8 This study follows Dieterich-Ward and Needham’s model of considering activity beyond the urban core and suburban sprawl, but also considers how industrial and defense plans reinforced this pattern of decentralization, and that the centralization of industry in the Ohio Valley

This expansion of urban and metropolitan history has played an important role in understanding the relationships between people and the environment, but another group of scholars has considered the role of the small city or Main Street in the recent American consciousness. Main Street histories have come in and out of vogue since the mid-20th century, and often researchers approach Main Street and small towns using a declension narrative. Richard O. Davies’ work on Camden, Ohio, provides a personal and local study of a small town in the Midwest facing a shrinking population and declining local economy.9 He presents a declension narrative of Main Street and notes that “Camden’s story is not especially exciting or special, but it is one that is replicated throughout the

United States.”10 Though declension narratives fit many small towns in the U.S. in the post-World War II era, the small towns of the Ohio River Valley faced a series of

7 Dieterich-Ward and Needham, “Beyond the Metropolis,” 945.

8 Ibid.

9 Richard O. Davies, Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small-Town America (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1998).

10 Ibid., 2.

changes in this era making them sites of economic, political, and environmental negotiation rather than simply places in decline.

Earlier studies of the American small town include Richard Lingeman’s 1981 study, Small Town America, which provides a comprehensive study of these types of communities from the 17th century onward. Classic accounts include Lewis Atherton’s

Main Street On the Middle Border, which also told a tale of small town decline in 1954.11

Changes in infrastructure, including highways and power lines, also influenced small towns and rural areas just as much as they altered central cities.12

The future of the small town in U.S. history should be broadened beyond the focus on small town character and small town populations in decline. Considering the industrial developments of small towns in the years after World War II allows for a far more complex narrative of the small town to be seen. As industry decentralized from center city, it did not simply reappear in places without strong histories. In addition, small towns did not simply shift from vibrant commercial centers to ghost towns. Rather, industries related to private capital and defense transformed some of these places into industrial small towns and industrial rural spaces.

Environmental History

In addition to making the connection between innovations in urban history and practices in small town history, the histories of these places in the Ohio River Valley provide important opportunities to consider how environmental history intersects with

11 See: Lewis Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border (New York: Random House, 1954) and Richard Lingeman, Small Town America: A Narrative History 1620-The Present (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).

12 Richard Contosta’s study of Lancaster, Ohio has merged Main Street histories with recent histories of metropolitan sprawl. See: Richard Contosta, Lancaster, Ohio, 1800-2000: From Frontier Town to Edge City (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999).

social and industrial history. A key study that opened up the field of environmental history to social history is Andrew Hurley’s Environmental Inequalities, a study of socioeconomics and environment in Gary, Indiana.13 His work considers the exposure of non-white and poor residents to pollution, and provides an important urban study of the experience of living in a dirty, industrial space and one located in the Midwest. Hurley’s study also considers environmentalism and puts the environment at the center of the narrative—allowing for diverse voices to emerge from the surrounding community.

While Hurley’s work primarily considers the role of urban and suburban residents in the Gary region, a number of social and environmental historians have recently looked to changes in the “hinterlands.” Adam Rome’s Bulldozer in the Countryside is a pivotal work in this area of study, as he considers the physical changes of rural spaces as development moved far outside the city.14 His environmental history makes clear the important connections between this field and social history and adds an understanding of the consequences of wanting to live the “suburban dream” in a more natural environment.15 People did recognize the negative effects of suburban development, as

Rome notes, and he makes important connections between consumerism, environmental change, and activism in formerly rural spaces. This study considers the people living outside of this metropolitan migration, but like Rome’s study, it is concerned with the ways post-World War II life transformed the environment.

13 Andrew Hurley, Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

14 Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

15 Ibid., 13.

Rome considers the rural space as outmigration negatively affected it. The discussion of the hinterlands by Rome and by Needham and Dieterich-Ward has strong connections to the work of William Cronon in Nature’s Metropolis. His study of the growth of Chicago and the city’s effects on its hinterlands has inspired a number of environmental, social, and economic historians. Cronon’s work also influenced the formation of this study, as he looked at Chicago as an early example of the “century-old economic and ecological transformations that have continued to affect all of North

America and the rest of the world besides.”16 Unlike Cronon’s work, this study picks up after the 19th century, but the futures of small towns in the Ohio Valley were dimmed by some of the changes that put Chicago at the center of the Midwestern economy.

In addition to considering the hinterlands, environmental historians have provided large-scale context on the path of U.S. environmentalism and attitudes toward the environment.17 Samuel P. Hays in Beauty, Health, and Permanence considers the post-

World War II evolution of environmentalism, and this study considers the smaller stories underlying Hays’ broad narrative. He also splits the U.S. into “regions,” consisting of,

“Urban,” “Wildlands,” and “Countryside.”18 Of interest to this study is the

“Countryside,” which Hays argues saw different conditions “after World War II,” as

16 William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1991), xvi.

17 Hal Rothman argued the concern with environmental destruction detoured in the 1980s and 1990s as “Americans saw the decline in their standard of living as more than a temporary setback.” Hal Rothman, The Greening of a Nation?: Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945 (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), 4.

18 Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955- 1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

“lands that nobody wanted were increasingly in demand.”19 The local effects of developing the countryside varied, and in the case of southern Ohio, had strong attachments to what is often referred to as the “military-industrial complex.”

Part of this demand for land came from the growing defense state. The investment into the Ohio Valley related both to Cold War defense and to private industrial interest in locating industry in rural environments where cheap land, water, and natural resources were available in the mid-20th century. J.R. McNeill and Corinna Unger’s collection,

Environmental Histories of the Cold War, provides an important context for understanding the utilization of environments for development and financial gain in the early and mid-20th century. They focus on the role of “war” in the environment, and describe the profits from growth the “technocratic view of the environment.”20 McNeill and Unger connect Cold War environmental histories to earlier 1920s and 1930s technocracy, and this type of development could be clearly seen in the Ohio River Valley in the postwar era as metal, chemical, and polymer industries developed in conjunction with power plants.

Industrial, Economic, and Defense

National political and economic forces shaped the environment of the Ohio

Valley, though many of the effects of these forces were felt locally. This study follows recent precedent set by historians of industry, economics, and defense industries and considers the local effects of federal regulations, defense policy decisions, major trends in industry, and national environmentalist concerns.

19 Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence, 137.

20 J.R. McNeill and Corinna R. Unger, “Introduction: The Big Picture,” in Environmental Histories of the Cold War, ed. J.R. McNeill and Corinna R. Unger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 4 and 17. 11

Though this is a study focused on the social and environmental effects of industry, because of its subject matter it is strongly influenced by histories of science and technology. The electric power industry has been studied from business-economic and legal approaches, and has also been investigated thoroughly by Richard Hirsh. Two of his studies, Power Loss and Technology and Transformation of the American Utility

Industry, have provided important contributions to this work and others that mix social and environmental history with changes in technology in the postwar era.21 Hirsh’s work focuses on larger trends in management of electrical utilities. In Power Loss, he considers the role of and the long history leading to deregulation in electric utilities. In Technology and Transformation of the American Utility Industry he provides important insight into the top-down transformation of the industry and its failures, in the post-World War II era.

This study seeks to add social dimensions to Hirsh’s studies and to locate the people influenced by the decisions of powerful utility executives.

While Hirsh’s work deals with technological, management, and regulatory changes, social histories of the recent U.S. build on these more technical studies by adding the social context of industry. Andrew Needham’s discussion of Phoenix and coal-fired power plants in the Colorado Plateau shows how Sunbelt growth was related to the environmental sacrifices of those in distant areas. As he notes, “the power lines created intimate, if unacknowledged, connections between metropolitan residents and

21 Rome utilizes Hirsh’s work in The Bulldozer in the Countryside. Hirsh provides the type of technical narratives that are necessary to tell stories of infrastructural changes in the postwar era. Hirsh, Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) and Hirsh, Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Native Americans living on the Colorado Plateau.”22 Needham’s study has provided an excellent example of how to approach the technical field of electric production while also locating the political, economic, and social forces intersecting with the development. He makes a direct connection between the consumer use of electric power in an urban area and the production of that power in a rural setting, making clear that decisions to produce power in large-scale coal-fired power plants have local effects not felt by all those benefitting from electricity. The connection between production and consumerism in his

Sunbelt narrative provides an important element of exploitation of local physical and social environments for growth elsewhere.

As with Needham’s social history, historians studying nuclear industries have recently considered the social and environmental effects of power industry growth.

Thomas Wellock’s work has shown the ways people responded to the threat of nuclear power plants entering their areas. Wellock’s Critical Masses brings attention to the role of the activists fighting nuclear power, and he argues that historians have pushed them to the “periphery” and looked instead to “structural factors in regulation, the internal dynamics of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the peaceful atom’s poor economics” to locate the causes of nuclear energy’s failure in the early 1980s.23 Many nuclear histories have focused on the western U.S. because of the strong histories of nuclear weapons testing and of storage and nuclear power in this region. Bruce Hevly and John

22 Todd Andrew Needham, “Power Lines: Urban Space, Energy Development and the Making of the Modern Southwest” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2006), 3.

23 Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 6.

Findlay have argued in The Atomic West that “America’s nuclear programs” need to “be perceived in terms of the places they affected—places that in turn affected them.”24

The relationship between federal regulation and local social and environmental changes explored by these historians also took place in the nuclear Ohio Valley. These types of social and regional accounts of the effects of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons production and siting have often taken place in the West. However, the midwestern U.S., including areas already established as small towns and rural, farming communities, saw the same type of development and transformation from the nuclear industries. This study looks to expand the vision of the nuclear U.S. beyond the coastal regions and to expand the vision of the nuclear weapons production beyond familiar western locales and beyond familiar eastern sites like the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

This study also seeks to add to the growing number of studies on coal in the recent U.S. Coal-based studies often focus on the coal mining industry, and include a number of studies by journalists and academics considering the social impact of coal industries like mining.25 Coal-fired energy has garnered more attention as contemporary environmental problems—acid rain and climate change—have been connected with power plant emissions.26 It is important to consider the development of the industry in

24 Bruce Hevly and John M. Findlay, “The Atomic West: Region and Nation, 1942-1992,” in The Atomic West, ed. Bruce Hevly and John Findlay (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1998), 16.

25 For social histories and other cultural studies of coal near the Ohio Valley see:, Jeffrey T. Darbee and Nancy A. Recchie, Images of America: Little Cities of Black Diamonds (Charleston: Arcadia, 2009), Geoffrey L. Buckley, Extracting Appalachia: Images of the Consolidation Coal Company, 1910-1945 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), William Faricy Condee, Coal and Culture: Opera Houses in Appalachia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005).

26 Important works considering environmental opposition to coal mining include Shirley Stewart Burns’ Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2007) and Chad Montrie’s To Save the Land 14

addition to the negative effects of its pollution. This study looks at an extended period— from 1945 to the present—in order to complicate the image of the Ohio Valley as a production center. Considering the defense, technological, and political decisions to site power plants in the Ohio Valley allows for a better understanding of how these small towns with power plants produced so much air pollution. Rather than simply a straightforward narrative of exploitation or a narrative of excessive development, the process of creating power towns in the Ohio Valley reflected both exploitation and conscious development of power plants for economic benefit.

In considering coal and nuclear industries in one study, the specific environmental concerns, economic problems, and social effects of these two industries can be teased out.

Reactions to these industries differed, and a local study reveals the important differences between environmentalism related to coal and nuclear projects. In addition, the regulatory and industrial changes facing these industries also differed. The transformations in these industries during the post-World War II era of the 20th century and into the early 21st century are quite different, though both industries were intended to provide low-cost and readily available electricity to Americans.

These industries cannot really be discussed separately at this point in the Ohio

Valley, as they intersected in a Cold War defense project. This project, a uranium enrichment plant, plays an important role in this study in connecting a number of threads, including coal and nuclear industries, as well as private industry and national defense.

A recent diplomatic history, Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, also addresses the relationship between the defense state and different international

and the People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 15

environments and provides important context for understanding environmental change as it relates to international relations. Catherine McNichol Stock’s chapter in this volume,

“Nuclear Country: The Militarization of the U.S. Northern Plains, 1954-1975,” provides insight into the relationship between “rural people” and “the military” and the ways locals navigated this relationship.27

This recent scholarship adds to a growing number of public and academic studies of the Cold War nuclear environment.28 In the Ohio Valley, the need for Cold War defense provided an impetus for the uranium enrichment industry and for the power industry. However this Cold War defense development also fit into business plans for decentralizing industry, and conservative plans for producing power privately rather than relying on public power production through the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The elements of decentralization and also the conservative efforts to push for

“free enterprise” can be seen in newspaper articles and other documentation related to the growth of the Ohio Valley’s power plants and southern Ohio uranium enrichment plant.

These business concepts of “private enterprise” represent similar notions to “free market” conservative ideals, and developed in reaction to New Deal policies favoring public power. The “private enterprise” notion characterized much of the post-World War II

Ohio Valley development, and became especially important with the OVEC plants.29 The

Ohio River Valley’s privately-financed development contrasted with the publicly-

27 Catherine McNichol Stock, “Nuclear Country: The Militarization of the U.S. Northern Plains, 1954- 1975,” in Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, ed. Jeffrey A. Engel (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2007), 266.

28 These include: Matthew Glass, Citizens against the MX: Public Languages in the Nuclear Age (Urbana- Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1993).

29 For a relevant study, see: Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 16

financed development of the Tennessee River Valley with the Tennessee Valley

Authority to the south. This is especially seen in the development of the Ohio Valley

Electric Corporation (OVEC), a collective of private utilities working together to supply electricity via new coal-fired power plants to the Atomic Energy Commission’s uranium enrichment plant in southern Ohio. Promoters and local observers noted the tax benefits of private power in contrast with the tax losses of public power. Though the specific context of “private enterprise” as a political tool was primarily seen in the 1940s and

1950s, the development of the Ohio River Valley for private companies’ benefit had long-term consequences to the region.

Private industrial development in the recent U.S. must also be considered in regard to industrial decline. Studies have considered the benefits to industries locating in rural areas in the mid-to-late 20th century, as part of the complex history of deindustrialization. Jefferson Cowie in Capital Moves notes the continuing movement of industry away from urban and high wage populations at this time.30 Like Cowie, this study locates an industrial growth narrative in Indiana in the 1940s, in contrast to the deindustrialization narratives of larger cities in the Midwest at the same time. Cowie and

Joseph Heathcott argue for a more flexible understanding of deindustrialization in their edited collection, Beyond the Ruins. They note deindustrialization may have been “one episode in a long series of transformations within capitalism.”31

30 Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves: RCA’s 70-Year Quest for Cheap Labor (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999). He notes the importance of “limited industrial culture, low levels of unionization, and most important, the destruction of the local economy made Bloomington a dream town for a capitalist in search of workers for labor-intensive electronics production.” Cowie, Capital Moves, 48.

31 Cowie and Heathcott’s discussion of the industrial landscape as contradictory informs this discussion of the Ohio Valley: “the solidity of factories and tenements and steeples masked a fundamental impermanence; it obscured the forces that both created this world through investment and broke it apart by 17

One of these transformations brought industry to the Ohio Valley’s small towns in

Ohio and Indiana. While the power industry in the Ohio Valley exploited new technologies in transmission and production allowing for central growth in small river towns, it also was part of a larger-scale decentralization of U.S. industry. This decentralization never transformed the Ohio Valley into a series of major cities, but it did provide boosts in population for small cities like Madison, Indiana. More importantly, it reshaped the physical environment by creating industrialized rural spaces where farmland and quiet valleys previously existed.

Region

The progress of the Ohio River Valley in the years after World War II depended on technological advancement, an understanding of the environment as a place to be utilized for natural resources and geographical advantages, and on the regional growth of the coal and nuclear industries, all within a context of decentralization of industry. In order to understand the nature of the Ohio Valley in a regional context, and how social life in the local areas of the Ohio Valley proceeded, it is important to contextualize the role of this region within Ohio and Indiana, as well as the Midwest and Appalachia.

This discussion adds to the relatively sparse research on the Ohio River region’s recent history. One of the most comprehensive studies of the river’s culture, economy and geography is the collection, Always a River, edited by Robert L. Reid.32 The writers

withdrawing investment.” See: Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, “The Meanings of Deindustrialization,” in Beyond The Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization, ed. Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott (Ithaca and London: ILR Press and Cornell University Press, 2003), 3-5.

32 Selected Ohio Valley histories include: Kim Gruenwald, River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850 (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), Amy Hill Shevitz, Jewish Communities on the Ohio River: A History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), Darrel E. Bigham, On Jordan’s Banks: Emancipation and Its Aftermath in the Ohio 18

in this volume address the culture of the Ohio River, the commercial and industrial developments along the river, the improvements made to the river, and histories of the

Valley’s cities. In Always a River, Boyd J. Keenan’s work discusses the interrelation of the metals, chemicals, polymers, and energy developments in the Ohio River Valley and the pivotal role this region played in industrial development in the U.S.33 He worked on a government and university study of the Ohio Valley’s electricity generation in the late

1970s, and his chapter in Always a River considers the international effects of the Ohio

Valley’s industrial production.

Always a River was published over twenty years ago, in 1991, and a more recent study expands on the Ohio River’s industrial development. Allen J. Dieterich-Ward’s dissertation, Mines, Mills, and Malls, considers the transformation of the northern Ohio

Valley—in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He notes that, “large parts of

Appalachia serve during the postwar period as de facto hinterlands to those east coast cities and residents tied to the Ohio Valley’s coal-fired power plants,” but his study focuses on the complexities of suburban development in a steel region—greater

Pittsburgh in the postwar era.34 This further consideration of the Ohio Valley’s local industrial growth within the context of its contribution to national economic development provides an important recent foray into considering the Ohio Valley’s national significance in the 20th century.

River Valley (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), and Don Wallis’ All We Had Was Each Other: The Black Community of Madison, Indiana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).

33 Reid, “Introduction,” in Always a River, xiv. The book was published at the height of concerns about acid rain and during the aftermath of the Clean Air Act of 1990, making his discussion relevant for the time period. The benefit of hindsight—and knowledge of the effects of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments— enables this dissertation to take a more measured approach.

34 Dieterich-Ward and Needham, “Beyond the Metropolis,” 953. See also: Allen J. Dieterich-Ward, “Mines Mills, and Malls: Regional Development in the Steel Valley” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2006). 19

The Ohio Valley can be considered a region unto itself, but this study considers its connections to the Midwestern U.S. and Appalachia, as parts of the Valley in focus here cross these distinctive regions. Twentieth century histories of the Midwest include comprehensive studies and more niche studies of states, cities, and regions. The character and relative homogeneity of the Midwest has guided a few of these studies, as has the late

20th century decline of the Great Lakes area of the Midwest.35 The Ohio Valley power towns’ narratives take place within the context of Midwestern industrial life, but some also take place within the context of Appalachian economic struggle.

A few of the cities and towns discussed here sit within Appalachia, a region set apart within the state of Ohio as economically struggling and falling behind the industrial and social growth of non-Appalachian Ohio. Geoffrey Buckley, Timothy G. Anderson, and Nancy Bain have written about the geography of southeastern Ohio and its social and environmental connections to the Appalachian Mountains in Pittsburgh and the

Appalachians and they consider the region to be Appalachian, though “fringe.”36

Important studies of the mining industry and of greater industrial development— including TVA—by Crandall Shifflett, Ronald Eller and others have shown the ways industrial development rearranged the Appalachian landscape. 37 Appalachian historians

35 James H. Madison, The Indiana Way: A State History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press and Indiana Historical Society, 1986) and James H. Madison, ed., Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988). Heartland is a collection of articles about each Midwestern state.

36 Geoffrey Buckley, Timothy G. Anderson, and Nancy Bain, “Living on the Fringe: A Geographic Profile of Appalachian Ohio,” in Pittsburgh and the Appalachians: Cultural and Natural Resources in a Postindustrial Age, ed. Joseph L. Scarpaci and Kevin J. Patrick (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), 178-190.

37 The most significant study related to this work is: Ronald Eller, Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008). See also: Crandall Shifflett, Coal Towns: Life, Work, 20

have a longer tradition of considering the effects of industrial development—most often related to extraction industries—on local environments and considering the roles of local activists in shaping environments.38 This study continues in this tradition, though focuses on industrial development and environmental history in conjunction with activism.

Another important aspect of Appalachian history in the 19th and 20th centuries— closely related to the consequences of the boom-and-bust economies common in

Appalachia—is the strong trend of migration out of the region to industrial cities in states like Ohio.39 Areas like northeastern Ohio, dense with industrial cities, saw waves of

Appalachian migration in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The outmigration from

Appalachian, and especially southeastern Ohio, reflected the lack of opportunity for employment in this region and the need for further economic development. This narrative of outmigration is not of primary concern in this study, but it provides important context for the economic and social challenges faced by the small towns in this study.

The struggles of the small towns in the Ohio Valley can be seen as related to decline in the industrial Midwest, or the continuation of economic problems in

Appalachia, but they should also be considered as places with specific histories and methods of reacting to industry and economic struggles in the 20th century.

III. History of the Towns

and Culture in Company Towns of Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991).

38 For further related reading on Appalachia, see: John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

39 Some recent accounts of Ohio history discuss this migration pattern. See: Carl E. Feather in Mountain People in a Flat Land: A Popular History of Appalachian Migration to Northeast Ohio, 1945-1965 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998) and Andrew Robert Lee Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002). 21

The towns and cities that are the focus of this project—Madison, Indiana and

Gallipolis, Cheshire, Ohio, Portsmouth, Piketon, Waverly, and Moscow, Ohio—represent places that developed because of the Ohio River and its hinterlands. While Portsmouth,

Ohio grew into an industrial center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the other towns remained quiet river cities and villages after the Ohio River lost its dominance to railroads in the 19th century and development slowed in southern Ohio. These areas also had agricultural economies, and shared some common geographical features.40 However, they developed in much different ways, and the success of these places by the early 21st century reflected years of development, the success of adjacent areas, their relationships with the new, mid-20th century nuclear and coal industries, and attitudes toward the local environment.

Madison grew quickly in the 19th century to become a commercial center on the

Ohio River. One account noted, with “the coming of steamboats in the 1820s the town blossomed into a major river port.”41 In the mid-1800s, “pork processing brought riches and fame.”42 Tobacco markets grew in Madison, and the riverfront developed into an

40 The Ohio River’s turbulent waters transformed but did not destroy these towns, as David Welky has discussed in his recent history of the 1937 flood. Welky, The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

41 Madison, The Indiana Way, 80. John T. Windle and Robert M. Taylor credit the early arrival of “a group of men and women of culture and education from the southeastern states, mainly from Virginia, who chose to build their homes in the style which had become popular after the Revolution, the Federal or New Republic,” with providing Madison its attractiveness and architectural significance. John T. Windle and Robert M. Taylor, Jr., The Early Architecture of Madison, Indiana (Madison and Indianapolis: Historic Madison, Inc. and Indiana Historical Society, 1986), xv, 3, 7.

42 Camille Fife-Salmon and Ron Grimes, et al., Madison on the Ohio, 1809-2009: Remembering Two Hundred Years (Virginia Beach: The Donning Company Publishers, 2009), 40. Madison shared this industrial identity with nearby Cincinnati, which saw its early success eclipsed by Chicago in the late 19th century. Cronon describes this in his history of Chicago’s commercial development: Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 228-230. This important study provides some insight on the tug-of-war between older cities and those more favored by infrastructure and environment. 22

industrial center, with agricultural and manufacturing businesses crowding the sloping area from the downtown to the riverfront.43 A public library, earliest in the Northwest

Territory, opened in 1818, and Hanover College opened just down the river in 1827.44

But while successful on its own, Madison never challenged its larger neighbor to the east,

Cincinnati’s, “supremacy” along the river, nor did it grow to the size of Louisville,

Kentucky to the west.45

The mid-19th century was the Ohio River’s “peak as a force in regional and national economic development.”46 At this time, changing modes of transportation dogged Madison, particularly the shift away from water transportation to railroads.

Historians have pointed to the development of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad as a turning point for the city.47 Rather than continuing its dominance in the area, the new

Madison railroad lacked the economic significance the Ohio River had in the early 19th century.48 The city never regained the status it enjoyed during the riverboat years.

Despite this short-lived prominence, the built environment of Madison has reflected this era’s significance for over a hundred years. Madison’s buildings reflect its

19th century wealth. Its bricks attest to German settlers’ influence on the city, and

43 Madison, The Indiana Way, 90.

44 Harold K. Gossman, Madison, Indiana: Where The Historic Past Meets The Dynamic Future (Madison Area Chamber of Commerce, 1982), 11, 25. Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

45 Jon C. Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: the Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 14.

46 Darrel E. Bigham, “River of Opportunity: Economic Consequences of the Ohio,” in Always a River, 153.

47 Donald H. Zimmer, Madison, Indiana, 1811-1860: A Study in the Process of City Building (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1974), xviii and 9.

48 Gruenwald has called railroads a “mixed blessing” for Madison. Gruenwald, River of Enterprise, 152.

Madison’s rich architecture and design sets the city apart from other Ohio River cities.49

Madison’s lack of later industrial development after the mid-19th century left it “literally caught in a time warp from which it did not break out until after World War II” and the city’s lack of funds maintained “the architectural characteristics of its antebellum ‘golden years.’”50 This left the city from the late 19th century to the 1930s “reposed in relative seclusion fostered by its topography and economic stagnation.”51 This stagnation became a badge of honor in the 20th century. A 1930s travel pamphlet celebrated Madison’s limited growth: “If you are looking for rest, peaceful recreation and a delightful week or week-end come to Madison, Indiana, away from the noise of the city, and yet near enough that you can watch the movements of a busy city without the noise and dust.”52

This description speaks to an image of the lively American small town. But Madison, like many American small towns, faced an uncertain future by 1950.

Gallia County, Ohio, which sits in the far southeastern reaches of the state and borders the Ohio River, faced similar problems by the 1940s.53 The county’s largest city,

Gallipolis, was established in 1803 and got its French name from a series of early settlers.54 These French settlers were disappointed with the area. One local history

49 Hubert G. H. Wilhelm differentiates Madison from the “ ‘company’ town” of Portsmouth, Ohio, which developed a more sustaining industrial economy through steel and shoe production, but had little physical beauty. Hubert G. H. Wilhelm, “Settlement and Selected Landscape Imprints,” in Always a River, 82.

50 Wilhelm, “Settlement and Selected Landscape Imprints,” 82-83.

51 Taylor, “Historical Background,” in The Early Architecture of Madison, Indiana, 33.

52 Madison, Indiana: The Playground of the Middle West (Madison: Democrat Printing Co.), Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

53 James P. Averill, History of Gallia County (Chicago and Toledo: H.H. Hardest & Co. Publishers, 1882), I and VI.

includes this vignette: “a French general touring Gallipolis in 1794 wrote, ‘the present appearance of the place is dirty and it seems to be the abode of wretchedness.’”55 The mineral-rich, rural area was a disaster for these French settlers from urban areas. Other settlers, some Welsh in origin, helped develop a strong local iron ore industry in the 19th century.56 Despite this industry, agriculture continued to dominate the local economy.

Gallia County, like most of southeastern Ohio, had limited commercial development, strong connections to mineral-based industries, and visible remnants of 19th century development. In the wider region in the 19th century and early 20th century, clay and sand resources contributed to a brick making industry, and iron ore supplied industries in the 19th century and later a booming steel industry, and by the mid-20th century the area would have a strong group of industries drawn by the natural resources in the ground and the Ohio River.

Neighboring Portsmouth and Piketon, in southern Ohio, were similar in some ways to southeastern Ohio’s Gallia County by the mid-20th century, though Portsmouth had a stronger industrial base. Portsmouth’s red brick buildings radiating from the Ohio

River’s shores housed a strong manufacturing hub along the southernmost reaches of

Ohio at the turn of the 20th century. Detroit Steel’s mill operated in the city, Ohio Stove

Company manufactured iron pieces, and the city’s shoe manufacturing industry, which

54 There are a few different local accounts of Gallia County’s history that deal with the French colonization, including: William G. Sibley, The French Five Hundred (Gallipolis: The Gallia County Historical Society, 1933).

55 Gallia County Ohio: People in History to 1980 (Paoli, Pennsylvania: Taylor Publishing Co. and Gallia County Historical Society, 1980), 5.

56 Anne Kelly Knowles, Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio’s Industrial Frontier (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997) details the migration of Welsh from industrial areas in Wales to the Gallia County and Jackson County areas of southeastern Ohio. 25

developed in the 19th century, was at its peak.57 Far more successful than the other small cities of southeastern Ohio, Portsmouth prospered in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Portsmouth “was envisioned to rival Pittsburgh some day in both size and function” due to its water, “iron furnaces,” and proximity to “the southern end of the Ohio-Erie Canal which linked the town with Cleveland.”58 The city’s moderate success never challenged

Pittsburgh, but helped attract an atomic plant to the area following World War II.

Clermont County, in southwestern Ohio, was the birthplace of President and

General Ulysses S. Grant and home to the small village of Moscow. This small town was also in a largely rural area that saw little development in the early 20th century.59 The placement in a metropolitan area, as well as the late success as a feeder county to

Cincinnati set Clermont County apart from Jefferson County, Indiana, home to Madison, and from Scioto County, Ohio, home to Portsmouth, and Gallia County, Ohio. Unlike the other counties, Clermont’s population boomed in the decades after World War II.

All of these places saw major coal or nuclear developments in the decades following World War II, and for most of these places the early reception was positive.

The ways these places responded to these industries after the initial developments of farmland into industrial plants demonstrates the significance of altering even the most outlying and isolated places for economic, defense, and industrial agendas.

IV. Conclusion: Power From the Valley

57 Andrew Lee Feight, “Sole Choice & The Portsmouth Shoe Industry,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://sciotohistorical.org/items/show/44?tour=5&index=12#.UuW9dGQo4y4.

58 Wilhelm, “Settlement and Selected Imprints,” 81.

59 Richard Crawford, “Local History,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.clermontcountyohio.gov/history.aspx. 26

The following chapters trace the narrative of the rural areas of the Ohio Valley regions of Ohio and Indiana and the coal and nuclear industries from 1945 to the present, and provide insight into the connections between local events and national narratives in industries, environmentalism, and the preservation of small towns. The events in these chapters illuminate experiences of rural-industrial areas in the post-World War II era and beyond, and provide further understanding of the development of coal and nuclear power industries.

Chapter One discusses the Ohio Valley’s industrial growth from the end of World

War II to 1965. It deals with private development that brought major corporations to small cities like Marietta, Ohio, as well as a number of huge power plants to the region.

The corporate industrial development in the Ohio Valley resulted from efforts to decentralize industry and to exploit local resources and local and state economic and political support for industrial growth in the Ohio Valley. The power plant growth, though part of this trend in decentralization, was a major centralization of energy production in the Ohio Valley.

Chapter Two deals with the construction of an atomic plant and two coal-fired power plants in the Ohio River Valley in the 1950s. This national security development caused economic growth, or “The Boom,” in the small villages and cities nearby the plants, and fueled hope for reinvigoration of these small Ohio River communities.60 It connected the private industrial growth of the Ohio Valley to a Cold War defense agenda.

Chapter Three deals with a subsequent massive coal-fired power development in southeastern Indiana in the 1970s. It also examines the historic preservation and

60 The characterization of “The Boom” is noted in: Carol Rainey, One Hundred Miles from Home: Nuclear Contamination in the Communities of the Ohio River Valley: Mound, Paducah, Piketon, Fernald, Maxey Flats and Jefferson Proving Ground (Cincinnati: Little Miami Press, 2008), 65. 27

environmental activism that resulted from a proposed power plant concentration. Living next to a major power plant proved uncomfortable and undesirable for a number of local residents in Madison, Indiana, who used a 19th century community identity to fight against industrial encroachment into local spaces.

Chapter Four also deals with the area surrounding Madison, Indiana, where an enormous nuclear power plant, Marble Hill, was constructed in the 1970s and early

1980s. The failure of Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station marked the end of the hopes for the Ohio Valley to become a nuclear center, and it also coincided with the national failure of the domestic nuclear industry to flourish.

Chapter Five follows the nuclear industry’s path in two directions. First it examines the transition of the W.H. Zimmer power plant in southwestern Ohio from nuclear to coal—the only transition of its sort in the nation. Second, it looks at the failure of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, and its site, to prosper into the 21st century. This chapter considers local and state political efforts to continue the viability of coal energy and uranium enrichment, amid national regulatory and economic challenges to these industries.

Chapter Six traces the coal-fired energy industry from the 1980s to the recent past, focusing on Ohio and the state’s difficulty in maintaining its regional coal industry in an era of environmental regulation of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other coal- fired emissions. Competition from cleaner western coal made the dirtier, high sulfur coal of Ohio a difficult fuel to use. This chapter ends in the early 21st century and considers the role of Ohio’s politicians, laborers, environmentalists, industries, and utilities in

shaping the futures of power plants—and one power town—in the Ohio Valley region of

Ohio.

In the 1940s and 1950s, coal reserves, Ohio River water resources, and local available land provided the perfect natural enticements for power companies and industries to the Valley’s small towns. The actions of local people and politicians and the actions of utility executives and government officials merged in this era to bring major industry to this rich Valley. During these sixty-plus years since this process began, the power towns in the Ohio Valley experienced industrialization of environments, growth and decline in the coal and nuclear industries, and growth of activism around environmental pollution and job protection. The efforts to decentralize industry from cities led to concentration of industry in sections of the Ohio Valley, and created the types of problems and disruptions to daily life that industrialization caused in urban centers. It also came with economic benefits that were hard to come by in rural areas and small towns in the mid-to-late 20th century. The stories of these towns reveal the resilience of the small town, the complexities of developing “clean” alternatives to fossil fuel burning, and the difficulties of negotiating economic improvement without sacrificing environmental health and attractive built and natural environments.

Chapter One: Power of Connection: Coal, Electricity, and the Ohio Valley after World War II

I. Introduction: Big Power and the Small Town: Electricity, Industrial Development, and

Rural, Small Town Life in the Ohio Valley in late 1940s and early 1950s

People bustle around the farmers’ market, children race into a brick school building, black smoke pours out of a steamboat as it glides down the Ohio River, and people stream into church on Sunday morning. The small town buzzes with activity, as the paper is printed and a farmer carries eggs. The camera focuses on the eaves, columns, and roofs of buildings that stand watch over this activity, and a narrator compares the city to Italian, English, and other European communities. The narrator emphasizes how the town is made up of immigrants and their descendants, their architecture and traditions.61

This place is special because it has an American capitalist system with relatives of

European immigrants and the physical and social markers of European culture brought from the home country. This narrative comes from the Office of War Information film simply titled, The Town, in 1942. Intended as a piece of propaganda to ease the differences between U.S. and Europe exaggerated by World War II, the film’s star is

Madison, Indiana, a small town on the Ohio River overflowing with the best of European and U.S. architecture, social life, ideas, and economy.

61 Joseph von Sternberg, The Town, film, directed by Joseph von Sternberg (1944; U.S. Office of War Information), film. 30

The Town celebrated the beauty of the built environment of Madison, Indiana, a small city on the Ohio River once at the center of commerce connecting the Ohio River to the Mississippi in the 19th century. In the mid-1940s, the film “was produced to be shown overseas to remind troops what they were fighting to preserve and to demonstrate

American cultural values to foreigners” and was “created as part of The American Scene series” and “translated into 32 languages.”62 Downtown Madison had the perfect image for this film, as it was beautiful but had the appearance of a commercial and agricultural market center. Tucked into a bend on the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Louisville,

Madison sat outside of the growth areas of these cities and was mainly visible to those traveling down the Ohio River. The narrator in The Town claims there is “plenty of room here,” and “room for the individual to expand, to plan for himself and his children. Room for initiative and enterprise” on Main Street.63 The film outlines the future of American enterprise in the post-World War II era, when the small town could be a vibrant, industrial center. Madison just needed industry; it was ready and willing to accommodate economic growth.

The small town image of bowling alleys and soda shops increasingly became an

American fantasy for Americans in the decades after WWII.64 In the years following

62 National Park Service, Twentieth Century, Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary: Madison, Indiana, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/madison/Twentieth_Century_Essay.html.

63 The film “was to be shown in distant countries to demonstrate how Americans in a small town lived.” History Rescue Project, “1943 The Town: WWII government propaganda film,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.mjcpl.org/historyrescue/timeline/the-town.

64 The type of socializing shown in the town is part of the “social capital” that dwindled in years following WWII that Robert D. Putnam has noted. The type of community organizing flourished in Madison in the 1960s and beyond. See: Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 15-19. 31

World War II, this was not how a majority of Americans lived—they lived in growing metropolitan areas and increasingly in suburban communities. Small towns, villages, and cities like Madison, though they looked quite functional and ideal in a short film, needed to adapt to changing times.

This use of Madison as an ideal place, a center of energy and ideas, and a place able to create nostalgia in The Town was unusual, as the city had lagged in growth in the past fifty years in 1944.65 The years after World War II brought a different reality. The narrator of The Town uses words that mirror the actions of bureaucrats, private industrialists, and community members in the years following World War II in historic cities in the Ohio Valley region. These small towns, villages, and cities that saw major industrial growth did not become “company towns,” like those that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, but they were industrialized rural places.66 Their development was part of a national effort to make the land pay through utilization of its natural resources and development of infrastructure, what J.R. McNeill and Corinna J. Unger have termed the

“technocratic view of the environment.”67

In addition, the Valley’s growth benefitted from movement away from the industrial centers of major cities in Ohio and Indiana. Not simply empty spaces that companies fled expensive, unionized markets to colonize, these places existed before the

65 Bigham has discussed how “a paucity of public and private capital, as demonstrated by the low level of its industrial development” determined Madison’s downward trajectory in the late 19th century and beyond. Bigham, “River of Opportunity: Economic Consequences of the Ohio,” 150-151.

66 Recently, geographers have characterized Cheshire as “a hybrid of sorts—a ‘company town’ not owned by a company.” Geoffrey L. Buckley, Nancy R. Bain, and Donald L. Swan, “When the Lights Go Out in Cheshire,” Geographical Review 95 (October 2005): 540.

67 McNeill and Unger, “Introduction: The Big Picture,” 17.

industrialization and in the case of the Ohio Valley, had much longer commercial histories than the industrial cities.

In the mid-20th century rural places in the Ohio Valley saw major growth in electric power production.68 The Valley already had a number of utilities in its vicinity, and a large holding company, American Gas & Electric (AGE). Led by President Philip

Sporn, AGE expanded dramatically in the late 1940s and 1950s, and it focused on developing the Ohio River Valley for coal-fired power.69

Electric power and industries with high energy demands, like aluminum and chemicals, transformed parts of the Valley. The story of these places in the Ohio Valley, as parts of an important but largely ignored, industrial, environmental, and social transformation in the 20th century U.S., is examined in this chapter.70

This chapter follows the changes that happened in these small places from 1945 to

1960. The first section traces the new infrastructure and improvements along the river in the 20th century that enabled growth. The next section discusses the industrial growth of the Ohio Valley, and the corporations that established themselves in the Ohio Valley region of southeastern Ohio and southwestern West Virginia near historic Marietta, Ohio, in the 1940s and 1950s. The third section considers the role of coal in the Ohio Valley as

68 A number of cities in the Ohio River Valley region of Ohio and Indiana already had industrialized by the late 1940s, including the large metropolitan areas of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Evansville, Indiana. Smaller cities like Portsmouth, Ohio, Ironton, Ohio, Weirton, West Virginia, and Wheeling, West Virginia, had developed iron and steel industries.

69 For details of this expansion, see: Luke Feck, American Electric Power: A Century of Firsts (American Electric Power, 2006), 111-136.

70 Boyd Keenan has called this coal, chemical, power, and aluminum center an “ecopolitical system of global significance,” because the name “reflects a growing societal conviction that ecological and political systems are now inextricably linked.” Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” in Always a River, 210-211.

well as the power plants that were popping up through the Ohio Valley and nearby river valleys in the years following World War II. The next section considers how the Ohio

Valley’s development was related to the growing “military-industrial complex” and how the region benefitted from industry decentralizing in the postwar era. As the Ohio Valley as a whole grew into an industrial valley, the 19th century small towns, villages, and small cities along the Ohio River became something between rural and urban, between agricultural and industrial.

II. Making Growth Possible in the Ohio Valley

Before the rural places in the Ohio Valley could attract major industry, the environment needed to be controlled. The Ohio River’s infrastructure grew in the 20th century, aiding “an unparalleled march of industry to the river.”71 The efforts to organize the Ohio River into a useful transportation link stretched across the 19th and 20th centuries, and changed the way the Ohio River flowed and looked, as well as how it interacted with the local residents and environments. The project to control the Ohio

River’s water levels and to protect “a six-foot channel” using dams was first completed in

1929.72 These “developments—especially canalization, accompanied by technological improvements in river transportation—produced a renaissance after 1930.”73 The Army

Corps of Engineers added “flood control” methods in the 1930s in response to a series of major floods along the Ohio River.74

71 Letter from Paul B. Mason to Philip Sporn, August 27, 1954; Folder: 10-18-54 Development of Ohio Valley Helped Much by its Rich Resources of Electric Energy; Box No. 10: Philip Sporn Papers Writings, Addresses & Statements Series Professional Papers 1949-1961; Hoover Library.

72 Welky, The Thousand-Year Flood, 27.

73 Bigham, “River of Opportunity: Economic Consequences of the Ohio,” 164.

74 Leland R. Johnson, “Engineering the Ohio,” in Always a River, 204-205. 34

The expensive and time-consuming renovation of the Ohio River, as well as the continuous worries about potential floods, made the Ohio River cities strange survivors.

According to historian David Welky, “justifications for living along the Ohio faded when steamships yielded to railroads, but once rooted, cities are nearly impossible to relocate.”75 These cities were still in place in the mid-20th century, but were undergoing major changes to make life along the river safer and more agreeable.

Safe drinking water was a necessity for any modern city or town, and to ensure it, sewage treatment plants were added to the riverside communities of the Ohio River

Valley. The Ohio River Sanitary Commission (ORSANCO) formed in the 1930s “as the first intergovernmental effort committed solely to the effort of improving water quality.”76 In the vicinity of Marietta, Ohio, access to sewers and clean water became a selling point for industry.77

Marietta sat in southeastern Ohio, a region of the Ohio River Valley in desperate need of revitalization. A 1955 report on Ohio’s economic changes noted the state’s major growth in industry in the years after the war.78 The “problem area” of southeastern Ohio saw population loss in the 1940s, but saw some of its fortunes changed after World War

II.79

75 Welky, The Thousand-Year Flood, 226.

76 Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” 215.

77 Marietta Chamber of Commerce (MACC), “FACTS,” in S. Durward Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp- Eyed Camera: 1947-1962 (Marietta, Ohio: Motor Hotel Lafayette, 1962), Washington County Historical Society.

78 Paul G. Craig and James C. Yocum, Trends in the Ohio Economy: Industrial Composition and Growth (Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1955), 7.

III. New Industry on the Ohio

In the years after World War II, industries redeveloped rural areas of the Ohio

River near southeastern and southern Ohio and spurred enthusiasm for potential economic success. Industrial growth was centered in Marietta, Ohio and Parkersburg,

West Virginia.

Map 1. Map of Marietta and surrounding area80

Before Marietta grew into a city of post-World War II industry, it was an important 19th century commercial city. The original settlement in the Northwest

Territory, Marietta was a lovely city of 19th century brick architecture set at the

79 “Southeastern Ohio should have special attention in industrial development. The outlook for the labor force in the next decade suggests that this area may be one of the few to offer abundant labor.” Craig and Yocum, Trends in the Ohio Economy, 57-62, 64.

80 National Atlas of the United States, March 1, 2014, http://nationalatlas.gov. 36

confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers. In Marietta, the handsome churches and buildings attested to the city’s earlier wealth in the mid-19th century, when Marietta was at the center of regional development.81 The Marietta region’s revival was noted in local promotional materials with a wink at its age: “modern industry discovered a new land that had already been known to them for years.”82 Marietta was at the center of the “Mid-

Ohio Valley,” along with the rest of southeastern Ohio, western West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky.

The Cold War era brought big changes and investment to this area. Major corporations developed the Ohio and Muskingum riversides into industrial sites. Union

Carbide, DuPont, American Cynamid, and B.F. Goodrich all had plants in the area by

1953.83 DuPont Washington Works opened in 1948 and became a central location for the corporation’s manufacturing and grew to be important to the development of Teflon, a material that helped cooks more easily clean pans.84 Union Carbide opened a “ferro- alloys and calcium carbide” manufacturing site in Marietta in 1951.85 The Marietta plant

81 Gruenwald discusses Marietta in the early 19th century as a “sub-regional hub” that “grew into the hub of a busy hinterland in less than a decade, linking area farmers to the Atlantic trade world.” Gruenwald, River of Enterprise, 59.

82 “Industry Discovers the Great Ohio Valley,” in 38th Annual Meeting of the Marietta Chamber of Commerce,” (Marietta, Ohio, 1953), in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

83 “Marietta is in the Center of an Industrial Empire,” in 38th Annual Meeting of the Marietta Chamber of Commerce,” (Marietta, Ohio, 1953), in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

84 West Virginia Department of Commerce, An interview with Karl J. Boelter, Plant Manager DuPont Washington Works, Washington, W.Va., accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.wvcommerce.org/business/devo_promos/speed_of_life/success_stories/dupont.aspx. See also: Callie Lyons, Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof, and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C8 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 22.

85 The corporation was able to “write off about 65 per cent of the plant’s value, for tax purposes, over a five-year period instead of the usual twenty to twenty five years,” with a “certificate of necessity for a $78,585,000 plant to be built at Marietta, Ohio.” UP, “$78,585,000 Plant Slated: Government Agency Approves Union Carbide Project,” The New York Times, August 7, 1951, 40, ProQuest (111892923). 37

responded to “demands for alloy metals by the steel industry expansion program but also because of the increased use of alloys in both peacetime and national defense products.”86

The Union Carbide site, which also had a “plastic division,” sat on 1,100 acres near the

Ohio River.87 Chemical sites, including Bakelite, Goodrich, and American Cynamid provided jobs in 1955 for “more than 4,300 men and women” in the area around

Marietta.88 In publications, Marietta’s local boosters touted the city and the “Mid-Ohio

Valley” as “an Industrial Empire,” and the development was evident in the region.89

Other nearby locations also saw industrial growth. In southern Ohio, Portsmouth’s mill, then part of Wheeling Steel Corporation, expanded in 1950 after being purchased by

“Detroit Steel Corporation.”90 Unlike Marietta, Portsmouth enjoyed recent industrial success but was not able to compete with cities like Cleveland and Akron.91 Southeast of

86 “Electro Metallurgical Expects Big Output Of Alloy for Stainless Steel at New Plant,” The New York Times, April 22, 1951, 136. ProQuest (111798839).

87 “Union Carbide Plastics Division of the Union Carbide Corporation,” in Marietta Area Chamber of Commerce, “Portfolio of the Early Birds: Look Who’s Here Now!” (Marietta, Ohio) in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

88 This article, from a local Ohio paper, discusses the everyday uses for rayon and phenol, which were locally manufactured. “Chemical Progress and You,” St. Marys Oracle, May 19, 1955, 5, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W60kAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8g4GAAAAIBAJ&pg=1909%2C230864.

89 Marietta’s Chamber of Commerce called the local changes “the great Mid-Ohio Industrial Empire.” See: “42nd Annual Meeting, Marietta Chamber of Commerce. Marietta, Ohio,” February 22, 1957, in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

90 Portsmouth Public Library Local History, “Early Iron and Steel Industry,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://yourppl.org/lh/histories/early-iron-and-steel-industry/.

91 One of the most notable losses Portsmouth suffered was in the 1930s, when its local professional football franchise, the Spartans, was sold to Detroit and turned into the Lions. See: Carl M. Becker, Home and Away: The Rise and Fall of Professional Football on the Banks of the Ohio, 1919-1934 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998), 299-303. 38

Portsmouth, Ironton, Ohio housed a Dow Chemical Company plant, under operation by

1948.92

This region of Ohio had strong connections to a large number of major corporations by 1953. The expansion in this area shows the reality of decentralization in the post-World War II era, and how the environment of a relatively small area could change dramatically in a short period of time—5 to 10 years. Many of these corporations had already redefined the environmental landscapes of cities to the north like Akron and now were utilizing the resources of rural regions for production.

Nearby areas also saw major post-World War II development, in industries directly related to the booming Cold War era growth. To the east, the Kanawha River, which reaches the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, became the “chemical valley” and the location of “the highest concentration of chemical manufacturers in the

United States.”93 The regional chemical industry was partially spurred by the salt reserves nearby, such as those existing underground at Ben’s Run near Marietta.94 These major changes pointed to the continued value of rivers in the 20th century, and the ways old transportation routes could now be used to grow modern industry.

Expansion in the mid-Ohio Valley continued to the south of Marietta. In 1956,

Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation announced plans for a massive aluminum

92 “The Upper Ohio Valley: Industry Discovers a New Area,” Business Week, December 11, 1948, in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

93 Nathan Cantrell, “West Virginia’s Chemical Industry,” West Virginia Historical Society XVIII (April 2004): 1, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvhs1821.pdf.

94 “A Vital Resource: Unlimited Reserves Deep Down Below the Valley Floor!” in “FACTS,” (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta Area Chamber of Commerce, Industrial Development Committee) in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera. 39

plant to be built in Ravenswood, West Virginia, on 1,300 acres.95 The aluminum reduction plant and fabrication plant required such a massive input of power that Kaiser

Aluminum signed the “largest single contract ever negotiated between two private firms.”96 Kaiser made this deal in 1955 with Ohio Power, and its Beverly, Ohio

Muskingum River Power Plant, which received coal from Central Ohio Coal Company’s nearby mine and provided power to Kaiser.97 A Time Magazine profile declared the

“Rebirth of the Ohio” on the heels of the Kaiser development.98 This connection between power development and a vital Cold War resource—aluminum—demonstrated the significance of the Valley’s industrial strength.

Social changes followed these big industrial developments. In Ravenswood, “the impact of converting this primarily rural community of only 1,175 persons into an industrial center overnight inevitably created, along with sudden prosperity, a number of problems.”99 The company needed to contribute to the construction of social infrastructure like schools and medical facilities to support its new employees. Kaiser’s

95 “The Shining New Aluminum Corridor,” in “Portfolio of the Early Birds: Look Who’s Here Now!: A Photographic Essay on Industrial Plants Washington County and Marietta, Ohio Area,” (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta Area Chamber of Commerce Industrial Development Committee) in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

96 “Power Agreement Between Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation and Ohio Power Company,” December 2, 1955. Folder: American Electric Power: General Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Company 1948-64, Box No. 2: PHILIP SPORN PAPERS Professional Activities & Interests Series AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER: GENERAL East Central Nuclear Group 1957-67 TO AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER: GENERAL Ohio Valley Electric Company 1965-55; Hoover Library.

97 Ibid.

98 “Industry: Rebirth of the Ohio,” Time Magazine 69, February 4, 1957, 83-84, accessed March 23, 2014, http://proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=54187638&site=eho st-live.

99 The Kaiser Story (Oakland: Kaiser Industries Corporation, 1968), 64.

experiences show the difficulty of using rural areas for industries, as lower costs in land and labor had to be balanced by costs in growing social infrastructure.

The success in the Marietta area and at Ravenswood showed the extremes of diverse industrial investment in these rural Ohio Valley places, while other places simply saw major development of coal-fired power plants.

IV. Making the Ohio River the Regional Center of Coal-fired Energy Production

While salt reserves and the Ohio River drew development to Marietta, coal reserves drew power plants to the entire Ohio Valley. Plentiful bituminous reserves existed in Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, and Indiana.100

Marietta’s local boosters emphasized the “power production” of Ohio and West Virginia in 1953, as West Virginia was the eighth biggest state in “power production,” while Ohio ranked number two in electric power.101 This power came from those local reserves. In the 1950s, central Appalachia was still the heart of the coal industry in the U.S., with

West Virginia and Kentucky as well as eastern Ohio being major producers.102

100 Bituminous coal has a long history of energy use, and this softer coal was important for energy production in London, the city most associated with coal burning. A few books consider the role of London’s smoke in coal’s history: Peter Thorsheim, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006) discusses how bituminous coal was burned in London for energy and heat. Barbara Freese, Coal: A Human History (Cambridge: Perseus Books, 2003) deals with the long history of coal use for energy and for electricity. She also confronts the issue of climate change.

101 “Facts About Our New Aluminum Industries,” in “40th Annual Meeting Marietta Chamber of Commerce,” (Marietta, Ohio, Tuesday, February 22, 1953) in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

102 Harold H. Schobert, Coal: The Energy Source of the Past and Future (Washington D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1987), 47.

Production was lifted by the post-World War II prosperity.103 Though the Ohio coal industry “slumped” during the Great Depression, it “steadily increased” after the war until 1970.104 According to one 1955 study, coal consumption grew from 92 million tons for U.S. electric production in 1950 to 300 million tons in 1970.105 Power plants increased the demand for regional coal, which was a major regional economic benefit of the electric power industry along the Ohio River.

During the period from 1945 to 1965, a number of large coal-fired power plants arrived in the Ohio Valley, many of them owned by subsidiaries of American Gas &

Electric.106 The power plants constructed between East Liverpool, Ohio and Evansville,

Indiana on the Ohio River along with adjacent plants on nearby rivers, fueled the wider regional development of power plants surrounding southeastern Indiana, and southwestern, southern, and southeastern Ohio.

During the 1940s, American Gas & Electric added over 1 million kwh of energy to its system, which was largely integrated by 132,000 volt transmission lines, from the

1920s to the 1940s.107 This growth came in large part from huge power plants in the

103 Hirsh has discussed how utilities bounced back after the “Great Depression” and provided people with “ever-cheaper electricity.” Hirsh, Power Loss, 55.

104 Douglas L. Crowell, History of the Coal-Mining Industry in Ohio Bulletin 72 (Columbus: Division of Geological Survey, 1995), 6.

105 Craig and Yokum, Trends in the Ohio Economy, 45. This study utilized figures from the President’s Materials Policy Commission. The expansion of the power grid from the 1920s to 1950 included the construction of the modern Philo Plant in the AGE system near Zanesville, Ohio. Philip Sporn, The Integrated Power System as the Basic Mechanism for Power Supply (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), 136.

106 See Appendix A. for a chart of these power plants.

107 Sporn explained, choosing a site in southern Ohio involved “the availability of large electric utility facilities capable of supplying the large amounts of interim power required to start the operation and the development in a brief time of new facilities with a combined capacity to produce economically a quantity of energy 25% bigger than that used to supply all of Greater New York.” Philip Sporn, “Electric Power—A 42

quieter areas of the greater Ohio River Valley. Utilities building plants included Ohio

Edison, Monongahela Power, and Duquesne Light & Power in the eastern sections, as well as Cincinnati Gas & Electric, Dayton Power and Light, and Louisville Gas &

Electric in the western sections, carved up the riverfront with generating stations. AGE’s subsidiaries included Appalachian Power, Ohio Power, Indiana Michigan Power, and

Columbus & Southern Power.

The Ohio River housed power facilities before 1945, but saw great expansion in the post-World War II era because of industrial changes.108 Improvements in transmission and production, and increasingly distant customers, meant it was possible to produce tons of electricity in outlying areas. This was the goal of the “integrated power system” as discussed by American Gas & Electric president, Philip Sporn.109 According to Sporn, “it means the ability to use the largest units justified by the requirements of the system for any particular station or source, regardless of the requirements of the local area.”110 So the rural sections of the Ohio Valley, distant from major cities, could become major sources of power generation even without a large number of consumers or industries nearby.

Key Factor in the Growth and Development of the Ohio Valley,” Cincinnati Enquirer Special Edition, October 18, 1954. Dated October 4, 1954. Folder: 10-18-54 Development of Ohio Valley Helped Much by its Rich Resources of Electric Energy. Box No. 10: Philip Sporn Papers Writings, Addresses & Statements Series Professional Papers 1949-1961; Hoover Library.

108 Hirsh has characterized the era before regulation and disruptive forces like environmentalism and the oil crisis altered the utilities industry as the “utility consensus”—the power plants in this study were constructed during this era. Hirsh, Power Loss, 4.

109 For Sporn, the goal in the late 1940s and 1950s was the “integrated power system,” which would provide stable power from a variety of connected power sources. He noted that “applied to energy generation, this means the ability to develop all energy resources capable of economic exploitation and the development of all the resources to their maximum, as well as the elimination of all barriers to development such as local inability to absorb all the resources.” Sporn, The Integrated Power System, 20.

110 Ibid., 20.

Sporn was a pivotal figure in the Ohio Valley’s development as an energy center.

Sporn’s ideas and leadership of AGE defined this era of electrical production, as he focused on the production of electricity near natural fuel resources and the central production of energy in large power plants.111 The AGE network connected the Ohio

Valley’s small towns to trends in growth in electricity generation and to Sporn’s vision of economic growth through electric generation and access to low-cost energy.

The plants themselves grew quickly during and after World War II, as part of a larger expansion in the U.S. electric industry that Richard F. Hirsh has described as the

“grow-and-build strategy.”112 In the Mid-Ohio Valley and Upper Ohio Valley, a number of power plants grew, including the aforementioned Muskingum River Power Plant on the Muskingum River. Along the Ohio River, some grew from existing power plants, like

Ohio Edison’s Toronto, Ohio plant, and many new plants were constructed. Ohio

Edison’s R.E. Burger Power Plant, located in Shadyside, Ohio, between Wheeling and

Moundsville, West Virginia, opened its first unit in 1944.113 Ohio Edison’s W. H.

Sammis power plant opened in Stratton, Ohio, between East Liverpool, Ohio and

Weirton, West Virginia along the Ohio River in 1959.114 Ohio Power’s Tidd Generating

111 Brian Balogh notes Sporn’s caution on nuclear energy put him “ahead of his time.” See: Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and public participation in American commercial nuclear power, 1945- 1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 217. Andrew Needham’s work on Phoenix includes language related to power plant projects that resemble Sporn’s ideas in the 1950s. Andrew Needham, “Sunbelt Imperialism: Boosters, Navajos, and Energy Development in the Metropolitan Southwest,” in Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region, ed. Michelle Nickerson and Darren Dochuk (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 247.

112 Hirsh, Power Loss, 55.

113 First Energy, “Power Plant Profile,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://investors.firstenergycorp.com/PowerPlantProfile.aspx?iid=4056944&PlantID=5759.

114 First Energy, “W.H. Sammis Plant,” https://www.firstenergycorp.com/content/dam/corporate/generationmap/files/W%20H%20Sammis%20Pla nt%20Facts.pdf. 44

Station, near Weirton, began as a 120,000 kw plant in 1945 and in 1948 was already set for twice that capacity with a second unit to be built, and to be able to send power to both

West Penn Power Co. and Duquesne Light Co.115

Union Carbide’s power generating unit had an eventual capacity of 200,000 KW to feed its alloys plant outside of Marietta, Ohio, which the New York Times reported was

“enough for the domestic power needs of a city bigger than Philadelphia.”116

Monongahela Power opened the Willow Island plant in St. Mary’s, Ohio north of

Marietta in the 1950s.117 In New Haven, West Virginia, the Philip Sporn Power Plant was chosen for an additional unit of 450,000 kilowatts.118

Sporn’s explanation for choosing this site for the Philip Sporn Plant, spoke to the larger reasons for power expansion near southeastern Ohio: “Our decision was based on three important factors: the need for still greater generating facilities in the dynamic Ohio

Valley, the fact that the plant is situated near the geographical and load centers of the

AGE system, and the plant’s proximity to abundant, low-cost coal reserves.”119 But the coal-fired energy development in the area around southeastern Ohio depended on the

115 W.L. Russell, “Steubenville Power Plant Being Enlarged: New Generator Guards Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh Press, March 11, 1948, 20, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jPYaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IE0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6582%2C3869891.

116 Jack R. Ryan, “New Alloy Plant Operating In Ohio: Electro Metallurgical’s Works to Be Completed Next Year Is Already in Production,” The New York Times, May 21, 1953, 47. Proquest (112813747).

117 “Willow Island: One Year Later,” The News Center, February 8, 2013, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.thenewscenter.tv/home/headlines/Possible_Delay_In_Willow_Island_Plant_Closing_14734850 5.html.

118 “Sporn Plant To Expand Power Rate: 450,000-Kilowatt Generating Unit To Be Added In Valley,” Portsmouth Times, November 20, 1956, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=45lFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R88MAAAAIBAJ&pg=4271%2C461582.

119 Ibid. 45

massive private industrialization of the “industrial empire” stretching from Ironton to the area north of Marietta.

Some plants powered major cities and surrounding suburbs. Around Cincinnati, a number of huge coal-fired power plants were underway in the 1940s and 1950s. This includes W.J. Beckjord, now owned by Duke Energy, which went online in 1952 in New

Richmond, a town in Clermont County, Ohio.120 Indiana Michigan Power’s Tanners

Creek, on the border between Ohio and Indiana near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, opened its first unit in 1951.121 It was preceded in 1949 by another huge plant two miles away,

Miami Fort Generating Station, currently owned by Duke Power and also by Dayton

Power & Light.122

The same type of developments occurred further west in the Ohio Valley. In New

Albany, Indiana along the Ohio River across from the city of Louisville, Kentucky,

Public Service Indiana opened the first unit of Gallagher Generating Station in 1958.123 In

120 Duke Energy, “Beckjord Station (Coal),” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.duke- energy.com/power-plants/wholesale/beckjord-coal.asp.

121 The local newspaper in Lawrenceburg provided its “welcome” issue for Tanners Creek in its article in 2013 about the plant’s closure. See: “Updated: Power plant closing means 115 lost jobs,” Dearborn County the Journal Press & Register, September 17, 2013, http://www.thedcregister.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12387:115-employees- impacted-by-lburg-aep-plant-closure.

122 DBJ Staff, “Duke Energy to shut down unit at Miami Fort Power Plant,” Dayton Business Journal, August 9, 2011, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2011/08/09/duke- energy-to-shut-down-unit-at-miami.html.

123 Duke Energy, “Gallagher Station,” accessed March 25, 2014, http://www.duke-energy.com/power- plants/coal-fired/gallagher.asp.

the Evansville, Indiana area in the southwest corner of the state, F.B. Culley Generating

Station opened its first unit in 1955 under Southern Indiana Gas & Electric Company.124

Power plants cropped up on the shores of the Ohio across from Ohio and Indiana, in West Virginia and Kentucky at this time. This includes a number of plants completed in the same time period in other areas, such as Louisville Gas & Electric’s Cane Run, which opened along the Ohio River in 1962 outside Louisville, the Elmer Smith municipal power plant in Owensboro.125 In Moundsville, West Virginia, the Kammer

Power Plant served the Olin Mathieson aluminum plant near Marietta, with plans announced in 1956.126

The presence of these power plants did not completely oust the regional agricultural market, and in many cases farms existed alongside huge power plants in the

Valley. Still, the development brought major changes to farming communities and this included environmental deterioration. The creation of rural-industrial zones, from these farming communities, for the main purpose of electrical production in the Ohio Valley environment in the mid-to-late 20th century meant customers for regional coal and major changes to the air, water, and riverside.

The growth to come in the 1950s and beyond surpassed earlier ideas of what was possible for utilities, and saw the biggest power plants in the world come to the Ohio

Valley and its surroundings. But this did not result in the largest job growth. Reporter

124 Vectren, “F.B. Culley Generating Station,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.narucpartnerships.org/Documents/F_B_Culley_Generating_Station.pdf.

125 Stan Conn and John McDermott, “The Path to Profit Optimization at OMU,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.neuco.net/pdfs/OMU_Neuco_Coalgen_paper_2006.pdf.

126 UP, “Pitt Consol To Build Plant On Ohio River: 25-Million-Dollar Unit to Supply Coal For Power Station,” Pittsburgh Press, August 11, 1956, 12, section 2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N4QbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8E0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7345%2C291196 7. 47

William H. Hessler put it plainly in 1957: “Electric generating stations are notorious for their ability to run happily with no one much around.”127 Hessler’s mention of the smaller number of jobs created by power plants contrasted with the enthusiasm for the projects, the number of construction jobs created, and the jobs stimulated by an increased demand for coal.

These plants required an enormous influx of money, long construction times, and the construction of power lines, towers, and transformers among other needs. It created disruption and a permanent industrial fixture nearby, but did not necessarily change the community in the way Kaiser Aluminum altered Ravenswood. This does not mean power plants played a small role these communities, or that they did not have great importance in day-to-day life.

V. Decentralization and a New Reality for the Ohio Valley

Environmental changes in the Valley were a local manifestation of some major national and international trends in business. Industrial growth had pushed the U.S. out of economic depression and through a world war, but it had a different image in the years after World War II. One major change involved decentralization of the landscape, and shifting industries away from center cities. Decentralization is often discussed in relation to the growth of suburbs and the Interstate Highway System, which helped empty out aging city neighborhoods in the 1950s and beyond. However, “industrial decentralization” occurred simultaneously, and involved company efforts to look for

127 Hessler calls the Valley a “super Ruhr” and argues that “general industry is attracted by economical electric power, and in turn, capacity has been soaring along this valley during and since the war.” William H. Hessler, “Big Boom Along the Ohio,” The Reporter, September 19, 1957 in The Documentary Heritage of Ohio, ed. Phillip R. Shriver and Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 391- 394.

locations outside of cities to build new factories and plants to take advantage of cheaper land and labor. The Ohio Valley had strong resources drawing “industrial decentralization” and it was also close enough to population centers to make this reorganization a reality. The private industrial efforts to decentralize necessarily pulled populations away from city centers, as migration increased to areas of job creation, and these were shifting from traditional migration centers for the region like Cleveland and

Akron.

Living in a pleasant environment—quiet, with little traffic—sold suburban communities and it also sold industrial sites in the Ohio Valley. As a Marietta industrial advertisement noted: “Already a number of people and plants have discovered UTOPIA in the lush green Mid-Ohio Valley and there’s room for more. Just remember, people and plants are MARKETS. Marietta and the Mid-Ohio Valley are within a 500 mile radius of two-thirds of the population of the United States!”128 This was in addition to

“UNLIMITED POWER SUPPLY, WATER FUEL and all of the other important and necessary minerals and natural resources—all close-by and at the right cost!”129 This was a perfect location for decentralization, as it was far from polluted urban centers like

Pittsburgh, but still close enough for travel.

The prioritizing of the environment of the Ohio Valley as an advantage shows the important ways rural areas sold their assets. While decentralization related to housing was commonly sold along these lines—escape the congested city for the country—selling industry on the back of a pleasant, beautiful setting seemed counterintuitive. However,

128 Marietta Chamber of Commerce. “The Land of Great Opportunity!” in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera.

129 Ibid.

when considering that the business managers would have to relocate to live in the Ohio

Valley, it made sense to impress upon them the desirability of the location.

In a region that had been left behind by cities like Akron, there was a specific irony in suddenly taking away some of those industries. In his study of the

“Decentralization of the Akron Rubber Industry,” Ralph W. Frank included the new B.F.

Goodrich facility in Marietta, Ohio in his discussion of industrial decentralization, which was a process that began in the 1930s before World War II.130 The concept of “industrial decentralization” had a continuous nature.131 Frank also cites unionization as a factor in the process of “the rubber industry to decentralize.”132 This was not something simply cooked up by local boosters in Marietta, but local boosters grabbed onto a national trend.

Decentralization cannot be discussed without mentioning the ugly consequences of deindustrialization. Though the 1970s are often viewed as the height of U.S. deindustrialization, historians like Thomas Sugrue in The Origins of the Urban Crisis describe the process beginning in the years after World War II.133 Cities like Cleveland and Akron had cannibalized Appalachian and rural populations for years and now were

130 Ralph W. Frank, “Decentralization of the Akron Rubber Industry,” The Ohio Journal of Science 6 (January 1961): 39-44, accessed March 23, 2014, https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/4751/V61N01_039.pdf;jsessionid=6C7368F1EE615008E 2950197117095FC?sequence=1.

131 George C. Smith, Jr, “Lorenz Curve Analysis of Industrial Decentralization,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 42, (December 1947): 591-596, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2280015?uid=3739840&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=211031 90393781.

132 Frank, “Decentralization of the Akron Rubber Industry,” 43.

133 The city’s Packard plant closed in 1956. Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1996, 2005), 156. The movement of residents from Appalachia and other areas of the south to northern cities continued in the postwar era, despite these trends in deindustrialization. A study that considers southern migration to Detroit and its environmental and social effects is: James Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 50

experiencing outmigration to the growing suburban areas surrounding cities in addition to decentralization of industry. Unlike suburbanites who were exiting cities in some part to escape the ugly realities of industrial production of goods and power, the residents of the small town Ohio Valley areas were inviting that ugly industry home. For many living in a center city, the closing plants were more unattractive than the operating plants.

Industrial change altered the looks of the land, the smell of the air, and, close to power plants, often the temperature of the water, and this happened in the country as well as in the city. The growth in a place like Marietta did not happen everywhere in the Ohio

Valley region, and the growth brought by the industrial jobs did not turn Marietta into

Akron. The power plants, likewise, did not change the rural identities of these areas, but instead provided a new industrial reality for rural residents.

VI. Conclusion: Industrial Countryside in the Ohio Valley

The rural areas of the Ohio Valley became reinvigorated in the 1940s because the local environmental resources—an abundance of water and mineral resources, and a location close to a number of population centers—began to match the needs of Cold War industries and a growing energy industry. While the Ohio Valley already housed a number of industrial cities, including steel-making centers like Portsmouth and

Steubenville, Ohio, and Weirton, West Virginia, a number of rural areas industrialized in the Valley at this time by way of the power industry and other growing industries. This meant areas that missed out on that earlier development could now hope for the type of economic growth seen at the turn of the century, though locals were relying on some different industries—chemicals in Marietta rather than the shoes manufactured in

Portsmouth—to uplift the economy.

The development of the regions of earliest settlement in Ohio and Indiana once again in the mid-20th century emphasized the extreme reach of early Cold War industrial growth. Rural areas, forgotten villages, and quaint cities along the Ohio River faced major physical, economic, and social changes in this era. The problems that followed these industries would show the hazards of rapid development even in small towns hungry for investment.

These places faced boomtown conditions in established small town environments and rural areas and were illustrations of how old towns could reinvigorate in the early

Cold War era.

The strange mixture of pastoral and industrial in places across the Ohio Valley reflected the principles of many town leaders, but not all, in the years following World

War II. Changing Main Street had its hazards. Lewis Atherton ended his classic 1954

Main Street on the Middle Border with warnings about the hopes of small town leaders to grow and industrialize. He argued “the time has come to stress ends rather than means,” and that town promoters focused on “progress” were “captives of their own past.”134

The local boosters in Marietta may have disagreed, as they found new connections to the future through promotion and development. This small Ohio River city was so successful at boosting its profile in the 1950s, that with hard work by boosters like the “Chamber of Commerce, after having worked diligently for this designation,” the city managed to get Interstate 77 to pass through its area in 1957.135 Having a connection to

134 Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border, 352-357.

135 “Our New Interstate Highway! Marietta Will Be On The Main Line,” in “Marietta Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting, 1958,” in Hoag, Round and Round’s Sharp-Eyed Camera. Interstate 1977 stretches from Cleveland to Columbia, South Carolina today, but in 1957 it was planned to extend from Cleveland to Charlotte, North Carolina. 52

Cleveland and eventually to Charlotte, North Carolina put Marietta in an advantageous place—above its neighbors left off the main line. Getting the industrial investment was important, but an Interstate Highway brought the promise of growth through other means—tourism and other commercial means.

While Marietta was already a major industrial space by the mid-1950s, in

Madison a new industry was just settling along the Ohio River. Along the bends of the

Ohio River, water laps against muddy shores with the ripples of the wake of a coal barge.

Neatly piled atop the barge, coal is pushed quietly across the river by a white boat on route to the loading dock. In the distance, smokestacks rise high above the trees. Nothing in the landscape challenges the height of the smokestacks, not the surrounding bluffs or the trees or the homes dotting and topping the hillside. Smoke rises from the stacks, drifting with the wind away from the plant and dissipating in the air. The boat presses the stacked flats of coal onward, past a small town, its church steeples doll-like in comparison to the smokestacks. The town appears delicate and lovely in contrast to the enormous concrete structure just beyond its limits, with streetlights and power lines and fences in miniature from the river’s vantage.

The power plant grows in height as the barge nears, its hulking presence intensified by proximity; the mountains of coal, steel frames and concrete stacks more spectacular in detail and in scale up close. The barge’s haul represents more power, more potential for heating the plant’s enormous boilers, and eventually, more smoke to pour out from the stacks and disappear in the distance. This was the image coming to Madison,

Indiana.

Chapter Two: Power for Defense and Development: Free Enterprise, National Security,

and the Atomic Energy Commission--Ohio Valley Electric Corporation Project, 1950-

1965

Map 2. Map of Waverly and surrounding area136

I. Introduction: Cold War in the Cornfields

136 National Atlas of the United States, March 1, 2014, http://nationalatlas.gov. 54

It began as a huge hole. A flurry of construction workers, engineers, and electrical workers built, from the unassuming riverside, one of the two largest coal-fired power plants in the world. In the area around the village of Cheshire, Ohio, concrete smokestacks reached higher than the foothills of the Appalachians surrounding them; the plant made everything else look small in comparison.

This plant’s germination began at the highest levels of government, in response not to an energy shortage, but a defense-based energy demand. In order to produce fissionable material for necessary nuclear weapons, new power plants were built to generate massive amounts of energy. Soon, power lines cut through the air, running out of the area to another plant miles away. Heading westward, the power lines stretched through Ohio’s southeastern region. They led all the way to the Scioto River in the center of the state, to a quiet village where rose one of the most expensive, ambitious groups of buildings in the early Cold War U.S. defense complex. By the Scioto, the Portsmouth

Gaseous Diffusion Plant enriched uranium for bombs with power from that Cheshire power plant—Kyger Creek.

In early 1952, farmland still covered the plant sites. But a sudden power demand came early that year from the need for atomic weapons material to defend the U.S. from international threats. In his January 1952 State of the Union address, President Harry

Truman emphasized the need “to move full steam on the defense program,” including equipping the military with “the plants and tools to turn out the tremendous quantities of new weapons that would be needed if war came.”137 The solution to this defense problem

137 Harry S. Truman: "Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union," January 9, 1952. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14418.

came from this rural land of southern Ohio, southeastern Ohio, and an additional patch in southeastern Indiana.

This defense project occurred alongside private industrial expansion in the Ohio

Valley. The Ohio Valley utility developments already underway by 1952 reflected the

“technocratic view of the environment” in the 1950s, in which the environment was viewed as a place for extraction, creation, and processing of materials for profit.138

Private companies’ capabilities to expand coal-fired electric power production eased the efforts of the new Atomic Energy Commission to expand the defense state and atomic capabilities in the 1950s. As part of an expansion of U.S. atomic development, the Kyger

Creek Power Plant in Cheshire, Ohio and its sister plant, Clifty Creek in Madison,

Indiana, connected atomic development with the “free enterprise” efforts of utilities.

The phrases “private industry,” “private enterprise,” and “free enterprise,” popped up around these coal and nuclear projects. These phrases carried a message of the benefits of private industrial development over public, government-funded development.

Historian Elizabeth Fones-Wolf has connected “free enterprise” to the desire to take power away from unions that slowed business progress.139 Fones-Wolf notes the significance of “the struggle led by national business leaders and smaller employers at the local level to reshape the ideas, images, and attitudes through which Americans understood their world, specifically their understanding of relationships to the

138 McNeill and Unger, “Introduction: The Big Picture,” 17.

139 In Fones-Wolf’s study of postwar U.S. business and labor, Selling Free Enterprise, she discusses the specific national political and economic climate of this postwar development. At the time of the Ohio Valley’s “boom,” Fones-Wolf notes that business still lived in fear of unions disrupting the workplace and during this era “employers stepped forward to shape national social and economic policies” in part to head off labor. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise, 5.

corporations and the state” and she argues this was necessary to shift “workers from their new-found loyalties to organized labor and government.”140 A city like Akron had a better-established labor force and far more industrial plants than the small towns of southern Ohio.141 The language used by politicians and business people to support the plant growth in southern Ohio reflected interests in supporting private industrial development as a more “free” option.

The atomic plant and power plant project, while developed out of a federal need for national defense, had the same look of the private development discussed in Chapter

One. The environment around southern Ohio, in the views of Ohio’s Democratic

Governor Frank Lausche, gave laborers environments where they could live and have

“one foot in the factory and the other in a garden.”142 The Ohio Valley’s rural environments offered “natural security” for sensitive defense projects and provided the cheap land, water transportation, and natural resources for exploitation by private industry. This free-market ethos combined with the growing need for weapons to ensure

“national security” in the Cold War.143 Decentralization for security purposes guided the atomic project, as it was built in a separate location from its two power plants.144

140 Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise, 5.

141 Frank notes in his discussion of “decentralization” that the Akron area had strongly unionized population and workers earning higher wages than areas that were chosen for growth. Frank, “Decentralization of the Akron Rubber Industry,” 39-44.

142 “Ohio Valley Chosen For New Atom Plant: AEC Tells Of $1 Billion Project Plan: Lausche Stresses Value Of ‘Deep Desire’ For Plant,” Portsmouth Times, April 11, 1952, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BUxGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LtEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5386%2C57426 23.

143 McNeill and Unger, “Introduction: The Big Picture,” 17.

144 V.M. Marquis and Philip Sporn, “The OVEC Project: Economic, Engineering, and Financing Problems of the 2,200,000-Kw 18,000,000,000-Kilowatt-Hour Power Project of the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation,” “Paper 54-57 recommended by the AIEE Power Generation Committee and approved by the 57

This chapter focuses on the ways a government defense project altered the local landscapes, social life, and provided the same type of hope for economic growth piqued by the private power, chemical, and aluminum developments in the Valley. The first section addresses the agreement between private power companies and the Atomic

Energy Commission (AEC) that brought Kyger Creek Power Plant to Cheshire. The next section examines how construction reorganized everyday life in small town Ohio and

Indiana. The following section discusses how local residents anticipated economic prosperity in the wake of the plants’ construction. Finally, the chapter considers the changes brought by the new plants within the context of an electrifying Ohio Valley.

These new facilities became concrete examples of the strong relationship between the federal government and “private enterprise,” but beyond these political goals, the new plants permanently reorganized local landscapes. This project brought an important Cold

War agenda into southern Ohio, southeastern Ohio, and southeastern Indiana, and gave residents a front row seat to the production of fissionable uranium, electric power, and the eventual development of weapons.

II. Landing the plants in the Ohio Valley

In early 1952, sites still needed to be chosen for the plants. Atomic weapons grew to be one of the major pieces of Cold War policy in the 1950s, and the nuclear weapons industry was in need of massive industrial growth to sate this new appetite for defense.

Developing fissionable material was a must. Enriching uranium required huge buildings,

AIEE Committee on Technical Operations for presentation at the AIEE Winter General meeting, New York, N.V., January 18-22 1954.” Folder: American Electric Power: General Ohio Valley Electric Company 1953. Box No. 2: Philip Sporn Papers Professional Activities & Interests Series American Electric Power: General East Central Nuclear Group 1957-67 To American Electric Power: General Ohio Valley Electric Company 1965-55; Hoover Library.

massive amounts of power, and labor. It also required plenty of land for the process to enrich uranium, called gaseous diffusion.

Such a tremendous project went quickly from the planning stages to reality in

1952. In January 1952, the AEC began planning its third gaseous diffusion plant, adding to its facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and at Paducah, Kentucky.145 On April 10, 1952, the AEC announced the Ohio Valley as the site for the plant.146 According to AEC general manager M.W. Boyer’s statement: “the AEC wants to avoid constructing a government-owned and operated community.”147 Though Boyer did not provide explanation in his statement for wanting to avoid creating an Oak Ridge-style community in the Ohio Valley, the underlying message was likely tied to expense and oversight of a government community. Boyer also noted: “site studies presently are being concentrated in the Ohio River Valley area due principally to the availability of potential power at reasonable cost in quantities needed for construction and operation of a gaseous diffusion plant and to the availability of water.”148

But landing the atomic plant in southern Ohio involved some salesmanship on the part of Ohio politicians and local leaders. Ohio had a number of areas that could handle

145 The AEC “has been surveying potential sites since President Truman announced its expansion plans last January. It decided last spring to locate the plant in the Ohio River Valley because of the availability there of water, power and labor.” From UPI, “Atomic Plant Site Picked in Southern Ohio: Billion Dollar Project Near Portsmouth,” Pittsburgh Press, August 12, 1952, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Qz0dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lU0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=1463%2C389837.

146 “Ohio Valley Chosen For New Atom Plant: AEC Tells Of $1 Billion Project Plan: Lausche Stresses Value Of ‘Deep Desire’ For Plant,” Portsmouth Times, April 11, 1952, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BUxGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LtEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5386%2C57426 23.

147 AP, “Text of AEC Statement,” Portsmouth Times, April 11, 1952, 20, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BUxGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LtEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2115%2C59138 13.

148 Ibid. 59

an atomic plant, and Portsmouth, Ohio desperately wanted to defeat those competing places. In April 1952, Governor Frank Lausche emphasized to locals the need to show the atomic plant was wanted by a “deep desire” in the Portsmouth, Ohio area.149 Lausche’s reasoning, which he shared with the AEC’s Gordon Dean, reflected the importance of looking outside of the state’s major cities for economic growth: “On principle I stated to

Mr. Dean that I believe in the decentralization of industry and the need of Southern and

Southeastern Ohio’s getting industrial establishments to stop the trend of migration away from that area.”150 These types of places provided an important option, he explained: “the worker will have a double economic opportunity with one foot in the factory and the other in a garden.”151

Another Ohio politician pressed for the enrichment plant to locate in southern

Ohio.152 Representative James Polk, a Republican from Highland, Ohio in nearby

Highland County, corresponded with Gordon Dean and met with him to advance

“Portsmouth’s specific advantages as a site for the proposed new atomic energy plant.”153

149 He “served as governor from 1945 to 1947 and then from 1949 to 1957.” Ohio History Central, “Frank J. Lausche,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Frank J. Lausche. “Ohio Valley Chosen For New Atom Plant.”

150 “Ohio Valley Chosen For New Atom Plant.”

151 Ibid., 20. Lausche’s description recalls the late 19th and early 20th century Garden City Movement of suburban design, and specifically the English town of Bournville. Melani L. Motzkus has discussed the Garden City Movement and this particular town in “The New Urbanism: Repairing Twentieth-Century Suburban Sprawl With Nineteenth-Century Townmaking Principles” (MA Thesis, California State University—Fullerton, 1998), 19.

152 The state had one homegrown connection to the federal atomic projects, as Senator John W. Bricker served on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE). “Contractor Chosen For New A-Plant: Omaha Firm Hired To Advise AEC On Its Best Location,” Portsmouth Times, August 7, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5tBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2850%2C101569.

153 “Ohio Valley Chosen For New Atom Plant.”

Locally, Portsmouth prepared for the challenge of landing a major government project. Portsmouth formed an “Atomic Plant Development Committee” through its

Chamber of Commerce in April 1952 to determine local desire for the atomic plant and lobbying for the plant to locate nearby.154 The Committee traveled to Washington “to outline Portsmouth’s natural advantages plus a strong desire of local organizations to have the plant established here.”155 The group sold Portsmouth based on its desires and abilities to supply workers, and pushed for the area’s needs as well. This was necessary, as during the 1940s, “Portsmouth lost 3,668 of its people.”156 The Portsmouth group’s

“formal invitation presented to AEC officials” on the trip included this line: “We not only want the plant, but we need it.”157

Potential sites for the plant included Portsmouth, two other Ohio sites near

Hamilton County, a site in Carrollton, Kentucky, and “Cincinnati itself, Louisville,

Ashland, and Parkersburg.”158 Reportedly, Cincinnati was “bitterly divided” over the

154 “Committee Says Job Is ‘Just Begun’: Local Group Hails Site Selection, Says Many Things Needed,” Portsmouth Times, August 12, 1952, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4969%2C197915 8.

155 “A-Plant Group In Washington: Committee Calls On Congressmen,” Portsmouth Times, April 21, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ItVQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=StAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6428%2C894388.

156 “AEC Given City’s Plea For A-Plant,” Portsmouth Times, April 22, 1952, 11, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=I9VQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=StAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1384%2C107300 0.

157 Ibid, 1.

158 “AEC Nears End Of Plant Site Search: Last Data Checked For Selection Soon; Rumors Snowball,” Portsmouth Times, August 2, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4tBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2878%2C263107. Another article mentioned Point Pleasant, West Virginia as a candidate: “Pt. Pleasant Is Still In Running For Atom Plant,” Portsmouth Times, August 6, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3627%2C822240. 61

plant, with concerns noted about the “population growth” related to the plant.159

Louisville also had reservations.160

On August 12, the Portsmouth Times announced the impending arrival of the plant with a hopeful headline: “Huge New Project May Double Local Population.”161

Locals in Portsmouth touted the widespread desire to locate the plant nearby.162 The

Portsmouth Times credited a number of politicians with helping along the decision, including Lausche, Polk, and workers for Republican U.S. Senator Robert Taft.163 This major push for southern Ohio and for the Ohio Valley region by state and federal politicians demonstrated that political lines could be crossed for a public-private project in the 1950s.

The site of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site sat in Pike County next to the Scioto River about 20 miles north of Portsmouth and over 60 miles south of

Columbus. Ohio’s fourth-smallest county with an overall population of 14,607 in 1950,

159 “AEC May Select Site Next Week: Washington Report Eliminates Cincinnati As A Possibility,” Portsmouth Times, August 9, 1952, 1-2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=59BBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1375%2C160626 8.

160 Ibid.

161 “Huge New Project May Double Local Population,” Portsmouth Times, August 12, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3154%2C197792 1.

162 “Cooperation Gets Credit For A-Plant: Virtually All The Community Joined In Wooing Project,” Portsmouth Times, August 12, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3545%2C197917 0.

163 Ohio History Central, “Michael V. DiSalle,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Michael_V._DiSalle.

Pike County’s biggest village of Waverly had fewer than 2,000 residents.164 Like southeastern Ohio, southern Ohio needed a boost. Frank Lausche noted that “Sixteen out of 18 counties in Southern and Southeastern Ohio have been losing population in spite of the otherwise general population growth in the state and nation.”165 Industrial development in other areas of the state, particularly in the northeastern cities of

Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, trumped the development in largely rural southern and southeastern Ohio.

Conveniently, decentralization continued to address this issue in the region, as it had in the growth around Marietta, Ohio. While the machinations of locals in Portsmouth brought the plant to the area, the operation of such a massive plant required land more readily available in such a quiet area. The choice of the site in Pike County fit into

Lausche’s vision of decentralization, and was convenient to the water, coal, and power resources the atomic plant needed to operate. The Portsmouth Times noted the rural site of the new plant was in line with precedent: “The AEC, with such vast buildings, never has been able to build close to a community. The Paducah plant is 16 miles from

Paducah, the Savannah River hydrogen bomb plant in South Carolina is 24 miles from

Augusta, Ga.”166

164 “Report on Our Atomic Development,” The March of Time (Home Box Office, 2011; original date 1953) and Richard L. Forstall, OHIO: Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990, (Population Division, US Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC 20233, March 27, 1995), accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/oh190090.txt.

165 “Flies To Portsmouth: Gov. Lausche Hails Ohio A-Plant Site Selection,” Portsmouth Times, August 12, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2532%2C198177 9.

166 “Portsmouth Area Gets $1 Billion New A-Plant: To Be Near Piketon,” Portsmouth Times, August 12, 1952, 1 and 15, 63

This outlying area was conveniently placed in the center of a region of major electric power growth. The regional utilities had “interconnections” between their systems, making it easier for them to provide a large and reliable source of power to the new atomic plant.167 The utilities involved communicated with the AEC across 1952 and came together to make plans to energize the gaseous diffusion plant. These companies also provided power for the construction period—“400,000 kilowatts without hampering present customers.”168 This group of utilities became the “Ohio Valley Electric

Corporation” (OVEC) in October 1952 and created the subsidiary named Indiana-

Kentucky Electric Corporation (IKEC).

The decision was made to construct two coal-fired power plants away from the

Piketon site, one in tiny Cheshire in southeastern Ohio and one in historic Madison in southeastern Indiana, to be named Kyger Creek and Clifty Creek after local streams. The two plants required record-breaking amounts of capital, and OVEC sold $420 million in bonds to investors and provided $20 million of capital to finance the project.169 The funds

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6dBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3880%2C210634 6.

167 Philip Sporn, G.R. Armstrong, E.S. Fields, K.C. Long and W. H. Sammis to S. R. Sapirie, May 12, 1952 and Appalachian Power Company, et al., “Proposal For Supply of Power, Project D,” May 12, 1952, 8. Folder: American Electric Power: General Ohio Valley Electric Company 1952. Box No. 2: Philip Sporn Papers Professional Activities & Interests Series American Electric Power: General East Central Nuclear Group 1957-67 To American Electric Power: General Ohio Valley Electric Company 1965-55; Hoover Library.

168 “2,000 Due On A-Plant Job By Winter: C. Of C. Sets Up Group To Assist AEC: Lineup For Jobs Starts Early, But Men Urged To Wait,” Portsmouth Times, August 13, 1952, 1 and 8, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6tBBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3921%2C228317.

169 Merwin H. Waterman, The Ohio Valley Electric Corporation: A Case Study in Developing and Financing Private Power for a Public Purpose. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1966), 39 and 56. Waterman argued the influence of the TVA’s cheap electricity delivered to the AEC’s gaseous diffusion plants influenced OVEC to be economically efficient.

collected from investors were purported to make the process faster and less dependent on taxpayer dollars.

Despite the precedent for industrial development in the Ohio Valley, the

Portsmouth area was not quite prepared for the coming changes. To assist the locals,

Governor Lausche organized “a Southern Ohio conference of local and state leaders” in order to answer questions about the new atomic plant and he “described the state’s efforts as cooperative rather than any attempt to meddle in local affairs.”170

Sumner T. Pike, retired AEC member, visited Portsmouth in December 1952 and gave a speech called “Atomic Energy: Where Is It Going?”171 Pike told a crowd at a local high school to “be patient with the construction” and painted a positive picture of the coming atomic plant: “When the construction period is over you will have a community of 5,000 to 6,000 well paid, high-class people, most of whom will be as (sic) asset to your community.”172 This message was clear—the new residents would be not simply added population, but they would elevate the area population’s educational and economic levels and socially transform the region.

The combined project of OVEC and the AEC also added to an existing regional industry: coal. The plants’ strategic locations in Indiana and Ohio allowed for use of

170 “Lausche Gathers Up State’s Forces For Waverly Conference: Six Counties Represented,” Portsmouth Times, October 2, 1952, 1 and 7, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XwJCAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VKoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5329%2C22595 6.

171 “A-Bomb Film Features Town Hall Meeting,” Portsmouth Times, December 1, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VfpBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=X6oMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1848%2C658986 9.

172 George Stowell, “Sumner Pike Gives Town Hallers A-Insight: Eniwetok Film, Too,” Portsmouth Times, December 2, 1952, 2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VvpBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=X6oMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3766%2C68257 01.

regional coal, but no interference with the other coal customers.173 The power plant to be located in southeastern Ohio, Kyger Creek, received its coal from eastern Ohio via barge.

North American Coal Company of Cleveland and Pittsburgh’s Consolidated Coal

Company provided 1,550,000 tons of coal per year to Kyger Creek, with a large strip mine north at Powhatan Point providing much of the coal.174 The project stimulated regional businesses and industries as it reawakened the southern and southeastern Ohio and southeastern Indiana countryside.

Coal fed the atomic demands. The impulse to develop uranium and plutonium for the use in atomic weapons was explained by AEC chairman Dean in 1953: “we have launched recently a new $3 billion expansion program designed to help us reach the goal of maximum atomic strength and to reach it as soon as possible.”175 This demand drove the environmental changes underway in Pike, Jefferson (Indiana), Scioto, and Gallia

Counties, making these Cold War and defense-based environmental changes in the cornfields.

III. A Secure Environment: Building Industrial Complexes in Cornfields

Constructing a plant in a rural area, though simpler than rearranging an urban environment, meant changing quite a few things about daily life near the plant sites. Land was cleared, construction workers hired, services created and reshaped to accommodate local workers, one village created, homes and temporary homes constructed, and roads

173 Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corporation, “Twins on the Ohio,” (Piketon, Ohio: Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corporation), 7-8. Folder: I.K.E.C. Brochures & Publicity Items, MC—0097, Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

174 “North American To Help Supply Coal For Kyger,” Gallipolis Daily Tribune, February 11, 1955.

175 “Report on Our Atomic Development.” This included Piketon at $1 billion and Paducah at half a billion.

widened. But, this project also changed some of the fundamental social aspects of these villages and 19th century cities.

The biggest changes came to the area near the atomic plant, including to Waverly, a small community just up the road from the atomic plant site. These projects brought national attention to places unused to the gaze. Such fast and massive construction projects must have been impressive to locals and fed the notions that a major industrial renaissance was underway in the farmland around the Ohio Valley. This industrial development meant accommodating power lines over the clotheslines and steel towers alongside the cornstalks. It also meant removing residents.

The atomic plant required an enormous amount of land to accommodate the huge buildings needed for gaseous diffusion, and residents needed to depart the area. The

Department of Justice filed a “condemnation suit” in August to speed the process of purchasing land from those living on the site of the future gaseous diffusion plant.176 The

AEC displaced fifty families from over 5,000 acres of property, demonstrating just how sparsely populated the area was and the massive amount of land needed for the operation.177 In an interview with The March of Time news program, one of the residents,

Charles Noel said, “I am the first man that may be moved out of the AEC project. I’ve lived here for a good many years and I’m not happy to leave this nice home, but it seems we can’t stand in the way of progress.”178 As reported in the Portsmouth Daily Times, “in

176 “110 Owners To Sell Land For A-Plant: Government Files Condemnation Action To Acquire Site,” Portsmouth Times, August 14, 1952, 1 and 20, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=69BBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3550%2C247918 9. This article contains a list of all those being sent the “condemnation letter.”

177 “Report on Our Atomic Development.”

178 Ibid. This area was known as “Teays Valley,” and was transformed quickly. L.W. Burns, “Construction Work Moves Ahead On Atomic Plant,” Portsmouth Times, November 20, 1952, 1, 67

the first year, more than 35,000 tons of steel were erected; 190,000 cubic yards of cement poured; one and one-half million tons of crushed stone distributed, and seven and one- half million cubic yards of earth excavated.”179 Teays Valley, the name of the plant area, no longer looked like quiet farmland by late 1953.

“Progress” was sweeping through the area. An atomic area “welcome wagon hostess,” Fran Francis, described the process of accommodating workers with

“temporary” homes and more permanent homes: “there wasn’t any place to live” for the workers in the area.180 The narrator in The March of Time explained the massive changes underway: “The construction of a huge project, like the new Pike County Atomic Plant, completely changes the face of the countryside and the character of the community,” marking the “transformation of a peaceful farm and market area into what will be one of the most heavily concentrated industrial regions in the country.”181 This transformation included new phone lines and the expansion of U.S. 23, connecting Piketon to both

Columbus and Portsmouth into a four-lane “superhighway” at a cost of $42 million.182

Despite all the changes underway, the possibilities of up to 30,000 jobs in peak construction at Piketon and 4,000 permanent jobs made the project appealing to locals, as

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TPpBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=X6oMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3968%2C408818 6.

179 Deborah Daniels, “Site selected for uranium enrichment plant in 1952,” Portsmouth Daily Times, September 26, 1999, 8.

180 Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Virtual Museum, Fluor--B&W Portsmouth L&C and Department of Energy, Interview with Fran Francis, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.portsvirtualmuseum.org/videos.htm.

181 “Report on Our Atomic Development.”

182 “Telephone Co. Has New Lines,” The Waverly Watchman, October 23, 1952, 1 and “Atomic Ohio,” The Columbus Dispatch Sunday Magazine, November 28, 1954. Garnet A. Wilson Public Library local collection.

did promises the atomic plant would bring “no noise, no dust, no odor, or no hazard at least not any more than in an ordinary factory.”183 Locals hoped for residual growth from construction workers utilizing local services and buying goods in the area. Local wages also spiked in order to compete with the atomic plant’s wages.184

However, the labor benefits were limited, though the area had its charms. The

U.S. Department of Labor predicted that of the 38,000 possible plant jobs only 18,500 would come from the four county area of Pike, Ross, Scioto, and Jackson, Ohio.185 As reported in the Portsmouth Times, “Portsmouth Locals of the AFL have been granted jurisdiction of labor, except for bricklayers, on the A-Plant” and “labor peace” was expected before the project began.186 This made the area attractive to government leaders and business leaders looking to avoid major delays.

In early December 1952, ground broke on the atomic plant and the coal-fired

OVEC plants, Kyger Creek and Clifty Creek.187 Construction on the three plants proceeded simultaneously, and drew attention from around the state and nation. Huge numbers of workers constructed the plants and undertook the massive tasks, such as installing the plants’ Westinghouse generators that were able to “supply enough power

183 “Pike County Gets A-Plant: Pike Populace Remains Stunned,” The Waverly Watchman, August 14, 1952, 1.

184 “Atomic Ohio,” The Columbus Dispatch Sunday Magazine.

185 “Atomic Plant Payroll Reaches $200,000 Per Week at AEC Area,” The Waverly Watchman, January 8, 1953, 1.

186 L.W. Burns, “Some Like It, Some Don’t As Paducah Builds Its Big Atomic Energy Plant,” Portsmouth Times, October 2, 1952, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XwJCAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VKoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2509%2C22529 3.

187 The Goodyear Atomic Story, (Piketon, Ohio: Goodyear Atomic Corporation, 1973), 15. J.E. Westcott, “Initial Ground breaking,” (Photo caption) Portsmouth Times, December 2, 1952, 1.

for a city of 450,000 residents.”188 Tiny Cheshire now had electric production capacity far beyond the needs of its hundreds of residents.

Pike County and the surrounding area gained services through federal intervention. The federal government provided “professional counseling services” to those in “three of the four ‘defense impact’ counties” around the Piketon Plant, as part of

“United Community Defense Services and the Family Service Association of

America.”189 Such services indicated the federal government’s interest in making sure these facilities were accepted and understood as good neighbors. Waverly’s schools, as well as other area schools, faced an influx of students of a scale not seen in years.190

Representative Polk helped the area gain federal education dollars for the influx of new students and expansion of educational facilities.191

In Waverly, the construction brought a flood of workers with homes built to accommodate them, and then left empty. These housing projects included Bristol Village, which later was transitioned to a retirement home project.192 This type of housing transition resembled a “boom town” project, but also was a familiar site in the postwar era, as World War II veterans and others rushed to buy new homes. Construction workers needed “to settle for trailer courts and temporary housing” outside the city of Madison, as

188 “Two Generators to Kyger Creek,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 19, 1955, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U31IAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1271%2C352963 5.

189 “Professional Counselling (sic) Available in Pike, Ross, Jackson Counties Now,” The Wingfoot Clan, August 25, 1954, 5.

190 LaVern Krantz, “A Study of the Waverly School District Educational System,” (Athens: Ohio University 1958) 39. Garnet A. Wilson Library Local Collection.

191 “Polk to Ask For Federal Aid Here,” The Waverly Watchman, September 11, 1952, 1.

192 Interview with Fran Francis.

they did in Gallia County.193 While this type of low-cost housing does not typically inspire enthusiasm, in a city like Madison the reduced impact on the housing stock of its historic downtown would be appreciated in the years to come.

While the townspeople saw the major projects under construction daily, national audiences also got a glimpse of this huge undertaking. Clifty Creek, while it was under construction, appeared in a General Electric advertisement in Life Magazine.194 In the advertisement, a father and his children watched construction of Clifty Creek from the porch of the Clifty Falls State Park’s Clifty Inn and expressed wonder and excitement at the enormous power plant stretching across the Ohio River’s shore. Readers could imagine the great things accomplished by GE in providing national defense and perhaps be inspired to buy GE light bulbs and GE appliances at the same time.

They could not see the plant’s influence on the nearby Clifty Inn, which sat atop a bluff in the Clifty Falls State Park since the 1920s. Once visited by First Lady Eleanor

Roosevelt, the park and Inn benefitted from New Deal programs such as the Civilian

Conservation Corps in the 1930s.195 While that federal project increased the usefulness of the park, this atomic project abutted the park with a huge industrial project and smoke.

Once placed perfectly for a lovely view of the Ohio River below, the Inn now had a clear view of the biggest power plant of private ownership in the world and the town’s new

193 Paul Hughes, “Big Things are in the Madison Air as City Prepares for Boom,” Courier-Journal, November 9, 1952.

194 “Business enterprise meets new atom project’s need for electricity—today’s greatest bargain,” Life Magazine, August 30, 1954.

195 This note about her stay at the Inn comes from the lodge’s history that hangs in an atrium/hallway in the Clifty Inn. The National Parks Service also references this in its recent history of Madison: Twentieth Century: Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary, Madison, Indiana.

tourist destination. Clifty Creek Power Plant drew a number of visitors, including 11,080 in 1956, to view the enormous power plant in the small town.196

The new scene from the park emphasized the changes underway in Madison and the realization of industrial decentralization. Though it happened in Indiana rather than

Ohio, the image of Clifty Creek Power Plant next to Clifty Falls State Park perfectly illustrated Lausche’s remark about having “one foot in the factory and the other in a garden.”

Cheshire’s environment changed as well. New 540-foot smokestacks went up at

Kyger Creek. The plant and these stacks replaced cornfields and farmland along the Ohio

River. The emissions from these would not harm “the health of residents of the nearby valley area,” according to plant manager Fred Carman.197

The OVEC plants reached into neighboring counties in Ohio and Indiana by way of power lines and transmission towers, creating environmental changes beyond Madison and Cheshire. Thirty-five transformers and 1,158 steel towers for the power lines, and the largest circuit breaker ever made, sprung up across southern Ohio and southern Indiana, and the area between Clifty, Kyger, and the Piketon plant, now was altered by this Cold

War project.198 Nearby grew “two major switching stations—Dearborn at Lawrenceburg,

Ind., and Pierce at New Richmond, Ohio.”199 Lawrenceburg had its own coal-fired plant,

196 Fife-Salmon and Grimes, et al., Madison on the Ohio, 86-87. “Clifty Plant Attraction for Visitors” Madison Courier, January 30, 1957, 1.

197 “Kyger Creek Smokestacks To Pose No Health Danger,” Gallipolis Daily Tribune, March 13, 1954.

198 “Giant Industry Ascends From Field At Clifty,” Madison Courier, May 22, 1956, 2.

199 “OVEC stands as great industrial achievement,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, October 1, 1972, 2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oPtDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QbAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=689%2C12332.

Indiana & Michigan Electric Company Tanner’s Creek Generating Station, and New

Richmond housed the coal-fired Beckjord Station.

Construction finished on Clifty Creek in 1956, with an official dedication on May

24, 1956, attended by Indiana Governor George N. Craig, and Philip Sporn. Sporn detailed the tax benefits the OVEC-IKEC projects would bring to Ohio and Indiana.200 As in Gallia County, the power plant was annexed into a township and not into a city— making it more difficult for the city of Madison to reap the biggest benefits from the plant.201

Not viewed as a nuisance, Kyger Creek was “Gallia County’s pot of gold at rainbow’s end” according to local columnist Harry H. Hurn in September of 1953, and

“one of the industrial wonders of the entire state.”202 All of this change came only thirty years after Cheshire first electrified.203 The plant was part of a “renaissance of the Ohio river valley area,” Governor Lausche noted at the 1956 grand opening of Kyger Creek

Power Plant, which “would attract additional industries to the valley.”204

IV. Capitalizing on Defense

200 “Stage Set For Open House At Clifty Plant,” Madison Courier, May 24, 1956, 1. Sporn said $700,000 of the corporation’s $2 million payroll would go to Indiana and that Kyger and Clifty combined had tax revenue of $2 million in 1956, with a total cost of $175 million.

201 “Once a Peaceful River Valley,” Madison Courier, May 22, 1956. Paul Hughes, “Big Things are in the Madison Air as City Prepares for Boom,” Courier-Journal, November 9, 1952. The city of Madison considered annexing the plant’s 785 acres in order to raise tax collections to a possible $40 or $50 million.

202 Harry H. Hurn, “Kyger Creek: Rainbow’s End,” Gallia Times, September 5, 1953.

203 Shari Little-Creech, Ohio River Mile 257.7—Cheshire, Ohio Memories of a Small Appalachian Village (Evansville: M.T. Publishing Company, 2006) 11. Garnet A. Wilson Library Local Collection.

204 “Kyger Creek Electric Plant Is Dedicated: Lausche Predicts Industrial Growth For Ohio Valley,” Toledo Blade, May 25, 1956, 27.

The AEC-OVEC development proved the culmination of ideas voiced by Philip

Sporn and others, as it produced huge amounts of power in outlying areas. Sporn spoke about electricity’s power to transform regions through industrialization, and he argued for the use of regional fuel.205 He also underscored the gravity of this particular project. “The atomic bombs that we are producing and to which Ohio is contributing so much are perhaps the greatest single deterrent to our being overwhelmed by the Communist menace,” he said.206 In OVEC’s 1954 Annual Report, the importance of national defense as a tool for “negotiation” with contractors was emphasized; the national defense project also allowed OVEC to promote “Ohio Valley utilities.”207 This marketing of national security was not limited to OVEC. Richard Hirsh has noted these Cold War projects benefitted the government and nation and also many business people and investors.208

One of these beneficiaries was a familiar Ohio corporation. The Goodyear Atomic

Corporation (GAT) ran the Piketon site and was spun from Ohio’s own Goodyear Tire &

Rubber Company, headquartered in Akron. Goodyear’s presence brought another piece of industrial Akron to rural southern Ohio. The corporation looked to expand into the new atomic industry, and was not the only corporation expanding its atomics division at

205 Sporn, The Integrated Power System, 5 and 10.

206 Philip Sporn, “Atomic Power in Ohio,” in Clyde E. Williams, Ohio’s Next 50 Years: Her Expanding Industrial Frontiers Energize State’s Economic Future, Ohio Chamber of Commerce (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio Chamber of Commerce, 1953), 12.

207 “1954 OVEC Annual Report,” 4. Folder: American Electric Power: General Ohio Valley Electric Company 1954-55, Box No. 2: PHILIP SPORN PAPERS Professional Activities & Interests Series AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER: GENERAL East Central Nuclear Group 1957-67 TO AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER: GENERAL Ohio Valley Electric Company 1965-55; Hoover Library.

208 Hirsh, Technology and transformation in the American electric utility industry, 49-50. 74

this time.209 Union Carbide, already a major presence in Marietta, ran both the Oak Ridge and Paducah plants.210

It was a timely decision to expand into nuclear industries. In 1954, President

Eisenhower announced the program, “Atoms for Peace,” and the 1954 Atomic Energy

Act allowed the private sector to develop nuclear energy.211 This changed direction was pivotal in U.S. energy history, as it made nuclear up for grabs as a private industry.

Selling people on the atom was becoming a national project and was already a local one in Pike County. Goodyear formed “a community relations department” and “a

Speaker’s Bureau was set up to tell the ‘atomic story’ to the local residents,” among other developments.212 According to the company’s newsletter: “Slowly, the words atom, radiation, alpha, beta, gamma, curie, fusion, and other similar atomic energy terms began to be as commonplace as the words airplane and automobile.”213 GAT offered benefits like health insurance and work preparatory classes.214 These efforts reflected the conscious decision to help workers fit into Pike County and its surrounding area.

209 The “Goodyear Atomic Corporation was set up as a wholly-owned subsidiary” of Goodyear, and the news of the corporation’s victory in landing the gaseous diffusion plant was made public in September 1952. The Goodyear Atomic Story, 15.

210 Ibid., 7.

211 For an account of the nuclear industry in the postwar era, see: Robert J. Duffy, Nuclear Politics in America: A History and Theory of Government Regulation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997).

212 “Many Hands Contribute To GAT’s Successful Atomic Venture,” The Wingfoot Clan, August 22, 1962, 2. Portsmouth Public Library, Local History.

213 Ibid.

214 “Goodyear’s Insurance Program Established,” and “Training Course For Women Launched,” Wingfoot Clan—Atomic Edition, October 21, 1953, 2-3, accessed March 24, 2014, http://portsvirtualmuseum.org/Newsletters/1953/19531021wingfootclan.pdf.

In southeastern Ohio, the Kyger Creek Power Plant inspired Cheshire to incorporate its 300 residents into a village in 1953.215 Cheshire High School became

Kyger Creek High School.216 Kyger Creek Power Plant boosted local property taxes and made it possible for students to enjoy modern facilities even in an outlying area. By 1955,

Addison Township, where the power plant was zoned, saw its new neighbor valued at over $41 million and its area property taxes at over $340,000 in returns.217 OVEC was by far the biggest taxpayer in the area.

In Pike County, major growth was expected to follow the atomic plant. Mayor

Sydney Keichley told The March of Time: “Waverly is a village of less than 1,700 people, but we fully expect it to be 10,000 in the next four, five years...Waverly, the villages, and the towns in this vicinity are going to be boom towns. However, we here in

Waverly are making plans to take care of those who come to us in the way of churches, schools, policing, and so forth. Land values have advanced considerably here since the atomic plant set down.”218 Many changes followed the plant. This included new elementary school construction in Waverly, Piketon, Wakefield, and near Jasper, according to the Department of Energy.219

215 “Village of Cheshire Incorporated; Outgrowth of Kyger Creek Project; Election Expected November Third,” Gallipolis Daily Tribune, July 1, 1953, 1. Little-Creech, Ohio River Mile 257.7, 47.

216 “Plan To Revise State’s School Setup Offered: Board To Study Plea For More Officials, Increase In Salaries,” Toledo Blade, September 11, 1956, 40, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pLZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vAAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7285%2C24182 43.

217 Gallia County Tax Records—Addison Township, 1955 (Cincinnati: Fred Porter Company, Book 125083). Gallia County Historical Society.

218 “Report on Our Atomic Development.”

219 Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Virtual Museum, Fluor—B&W Portsmouth L&C and Department of Energy, “Local Impact Of the Plant: Schools,” accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.portsvirtualmuseum.org/impact6.htm. 76

Madison attempted to capitalize on its selection as home to the enormous Clifty

Creek Power Plant by attracting private industry. Madison had limited land on its riverfront, and the Clifty Creek Power Plant absorbed more of this valuable property. So rather than bulldozing old buildings and industrializing this area, Madison built uphill.

The 1952 annexation of North Madison enabled the type of modern expansion downtown

Madison’s layout prevented.220 The extra land helped, as did the addition of U.S. Route

421, which travelled through the eastern side of downtown and connected it to the

Hilltop. This allowed Madison to move forward while keeping the illusion of being a purely historic 19th century city downtown. Only the Clifty Creek Plant intruded on this image.221 Madison already had modernization plans underway for its schools. These small towns followed the modernization and development pattern of the suburbs springing up across the country.

Madison’s local business community made efforts to expand the industrial base in the late 1950s and Madison residents formed a committee to bring in new businesses called the “Madison Frontliners.”222 The city added the Madison Shoe Corporation, Joyce

Incorporation, and Rotary Lift Company, but lost out on a Westinghouse lamp project to

Bloomington.223

220 Fife-Salmon and Grimes, et al, Madison on the Ohio, 102. With the annexed land, Madison grew from 606 to 2,884 acres in the early 1950s and grew to 10,401 citizens. “Editorial: Madison Not Eclipsed,” Madison Courier, April 22, 1957, 4.

221 Though located in the state with the most highways, Madison did not have access to an Interstate Highway in the 20th century. David Stradling, “Cities of the Valley.” Ohio Valley History 1 (Winter 2001): 37-42.

222 “Editorial: Industrial Expansion” Madison Courier, February 20, 1957, 4. Fife-Salmon and Grimes, et al., Madison on the Ohio, 122.

223 “Editorial: Plants Locating Along Waterways,” Madison Courier, May 10, 1956, 4. 77

Sporn encouraged locals to capitalize on their resources. He spoke to the Madison

Chamber of Commerce in a 1957 meeting, saying Madison had a “bright future for industrial development but must seize opportunity,” and its location near “perhaps the richest coal fields in the world,” aided the “reawakening” of the Ohio Valley and brought the Clifty Creek Power Plant to Madison.224

Sporn was one of many celebrating the swift industrial progress through the cornfields. The Goodyear Atomic Corporation’s newsletter included a poignant message of hope for southern Ohio: “A renaissance is taking place among the home-like communities of Southern Ohio with the new atomic energy plant being part of it…The rebirth taking place here has brought about a reversal of the exodus that has occurred in this area over the past twenty years.”225 A list of names followed, of people once gone and now returned “home.”

The huge new plants occupying farmland in these rural areas of Ohio, and in neighboring Indiana, brought not only concrete and steel to the countryside but a sense of patriotism, hope, and “rebirth.”226 The message in the company newsletter spoke directly to the feelings of those in rural Ohio and in Indiana, who could see more reason to stay in the industrialized countryside now and more importantly for those reading the newsletter, to take pride in being left behind.

IV. Conclusion: Power Along the River and a “Victory for private enterprise”

224 “IKEC Head Sees Possibilities for Madison,” Madison Courier, February 22, 1957, 1-3.

225 “Opportunities in Southern Ohio Have Resulted In Return Of Former Residents; Many Hired By Goodyear Atomic Corporation,” The Wingfoot Clan, December 16, 1953, 4, accessed March 24, 2014, http://portsvirtualmuseum.org/Newsletters/1953/19531216wingfootclan.pdf.

226 “Opportunities in Southern Ohio Have Resulted In Return Of Former Residents.”

By the early 1960s, the progress in Pike County, Madison, and Cheshire was extreme. The benefits of private industry were tangible when looking at the plants and at the increased property taxes and jobs.

The deeper meaning was underscored in a documentary of the OVEC plants,

Twins on the Ohio. Kyger Creek plant manager Fred Carman reflected on the plants’ significance at the film’s end: “maybe what was done here will help remind our children what can be done in this country by people who are free to think and dream and accept challenges and make the impossible come true.” 227 This vision of “private enterprise,” as private industry is referred to in the film, painted a triumphant picture of the OVEC project in conjunction with the AEC.

This association of “private enterprise” with a greater purpose in life and a chance for the impossible was reflected in local reports. A Portsmouth Times reporter called the

Kyger Creek plant in 1954, “Gigantic!... Immense!... Colossal!...” and “a monument to free enterprise.”228 Kyger Creek was portrayed in ads in the local Gallipolis paper as a victory for private industry, as private investors funded the plant.229 OVEC’s success indicated the superiority of “private enterprise” to meet defense needs and “tolerable

227 Twins on the Ohio, film, produced by Kevin Donovan Films. This news article names Carman as the “hero” of the documentary: “OVEC stands as great industrial achievement.”

228 L.W. Burns, “Kyger Creek Power Giant Rises Up To Serve A-Plant,” Portsmouth Times, December 21, 1954, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1StBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nKgMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2171%2C501656 8.

229 Various advertisements, Gallipolis Daily Tribune, February 11, 1955.

balance or stabilization between public and private power” by way of developing privately owned power plants to fuel the atomic industry.230

This underscored a victory over Communism perhaps, but over the Tennessee

Valley Authority and government-funded power, definitely.231 The New Deal-era TVA evolved in the 1940s, according to historian Ronald Eller, from an environmental development agency to an agency concerned with developing large, profitable, coal-fired power projects not unlike the Ohio Valley utilities.232 The “beginning of a new era” for the TVA happened in 1949, with the groundbreaking of the Johnsonville, Tennessee coal power plant, the system’s “first peacetime steam plant” and TVA built more coal-fired power plants in the 1950s.233 The AEC contracted with TVA in the early 1950s to provide energy to Oak Ridge and with Electric Energy, Inc., a private group of utilities that provided energy to AEC’s Paducah, Kentucky gaseous diffusion plant by way of a

Joppa, Illinois coal-fired plant.234 OVEC’s cheap electricity to the AEC, unlike the electricity from TVA, came without spending tax dollars.235

230 “Philip Sporn, “Discussion given before Edison Electric Institute Conference of Company Presidents Biltmore Hotel, New York, NY Tuesday September 9, 1952,” 4. Folder: American Electric Power: General Discussion of Atomic Energy With Coal Industry Representatives 1952-53 and undated, Box no. 1: Philip Sporn Papers Professional Activities & Interests Series American Electric Power: General AEP Educational Assistance Program 1953-64 and undated to American Electric Power: General East Central Area Reliability Group 1964- and undated; Hoover Library. For a summary of the OVEC accomplishments, see: Waterman, Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, vi-ix.

231 Richard Wayne Dyke, Mr. Atomic Energy: Congressman Chet Holifield and Atomic Energy Affairs, 1945-1974 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 110. He notes the lower cost of TVA power “engendered bitter hostility from private utilities near or bordering the TVA service area.”

232 Eller, Uneven Ground, 38-40.

233 Marguerite Owen, The Tennessee Valley Authority (New York: Praeger, 1973), 95. Eller, Uneven Ground, 38.

234 Owen, The Tennessee Valley Authority, 250-251.

235 Owen discusses the anger at the TVA shown by John F. Kennedy and others, for presumably taking business away from New England. Though OVEC continued without consideration of TVA, Owen has 80

An editorial in the Madison Courier celebrated this victory over public power, referring to the TVA as “that ill-fated ‘flood reclamation’ project which has turned itself into a government power trust.”236 Cheering the 1956 payment of $289,559.48 in the year’s “first installment” taxes from IKEC, the editorialist wrote, “private enterprise and privately owned utilities can do the job better, more efficiently, at less cost to the government, and still make a profit and pay taxes—can the public power lobbyists match that statement?”237

This type of tax payment underscored the financial investment and breadth of power expansion by the late 1950s. Philip Sporn, in an article for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, cited figures of production growth between 1934 and 1958. He stated: “in the total, electric utility generation grew in these 25 years from a little over 87 billion to 641 billion kwhr, and the generating capacity of the industry expanded from 34 million to 140 million kw.”238 The changes to places like Cheshire may have looked massive, but when considered in the context of an increase in access to “central station electric service” for homes from “65 percent in 1934” to 95 percent in 1958, they seemed rather minor.239

noted TVA provided a precedent that made it necessary for OVEC companies to provide competitive rates to the AEC. Owen, The Tennessee Valley Authority, 96-98 and 248.

236 “County’s Biggest Taxpayer,” Madison Courier, May 8, 1956, 4.

237 Ibid., 4.

238 Philip Sporn, “Growth and Development in the Electric Power Industry…in the Past Quarter Century,” June 1, 1959. Folder: American Electric Power: General “President’s Bi-monthly Newsletters to Employees 1959-1961.” Box No. 3: PHILIP SPORN PAPERS Professional Activities & Interests Series AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER: GENERAL Ohio Valley Electric Company 1967-68 TO ATOMICS Atomic Power Legislation 1945-53 and undated; Hoover Library.

239 “Growth and Development in the Electric Power Industry…in the Past Quarter Century.”

Though the area in 1952 could provide industries with a more pastoral setting than a Detroit or Cleveland, this environment would become less “garden” and more industrial with each new plant. A note in a Gallipolis pamphlet cited the anticipated results of decentralization: “It is expected that with the current civic improvements underway completed, Gallipolis will be looked to as sites for ‘clean’ industry through the national decentralization movement of industry.”240 This early mention of clean industry, in a pamphlet likely from the late 1950s, indicates the growing interest in accommodating modern development rather than simply serving as an outpost for heavy industry.

Re-imagining the landscape as one with farmland next to power plants, and an even distribution of industry—rather than the concentration of industry in cities like

Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown—was a vision that allowed the Ohio Valley to maintain its environment and prosper. Like the suburbanization underway in U.S. cities, the AEC-OVEC project transformed the country and turned it into something different.

But, the local changes did not mean the Ohio Valley small towns were now metropolitan candidates—for example, Gallia County’s county seat, Gallipolis, grew to near 10,000 residents by 1965.241

What had occurred during the OVEC-AEC project construction and in the aftermath was something between modest growth and a “boom.” The environmental changes—massive power plants and a uranium enrichment site—leaned toward “boom.”

But the social changes and economic progress reflected modest growth. While not re-

240 “Gallipolis: City of the Gauls Historic French Settlement 1790: Today,” (The French City Press, Undated), Gallia County Historical Society.

241 Gallipolis City Directory, 1965 (Cincinnati: R.L. Polk & Co. Publishers, 1966). Bossard Memorial Library, Local history. The figure is listed as an estimate.

orienting the centers of population in Ohio and Indiana, the development of the countryside in the Ohio Valley permanently tied locals to the coal-fired power industry and atomic industry, and transformed the landscape in order to provide national security to the U.S.

Chapter Three: Smokestacks Over Main Street: Historic Preservation, Environmentalism,

and the Threat of a Power Plant “Concentration” on the Ohio River, 1957-1981

Map 3. Map of Cincinnati to Louisville area.242

I. The View from Hanover Hill: Main Street, Rural Spaces, and Industrial Neighbors

Frank Sinatra, playing the role of writer Dave Hirsh, and Martha Hyer, acting as school teacher Gwen French, walk across a lovely yard on Hanover Hill, atop the bluffs

242 National Atlas of the United States, March 1, 2014, http://nationalatlas.gov. 84

west of Madison, Indiana, with a beautiful vista of the Ohio River Valley and the Clifty

Creek Power Plant pouring out brown smoke in the background. Hyer retreats inside, reading Hirsh’s unpublished manuscript and eventually succumbs to his romantic advances. In the Vincente Minnelli film, Some Came Running, Hirsh is a man returning to his podunk town after an unsuccessful writing career, a spell of wanderlust, and stint in the military.243 The film, also starring Shirley MacLaine and Dean Martin, utilized

Madison as a stand-in for the fictional Parkman, Indiana, a small town described by

James Jones in his novel of the same name.244 What was needed for the film was a town that looked like a place stuck in time, classically dressed and uncorrupted. Madison fit the bill, despite the large coal-fired power plant that sneaked into the panoramic shot of the

Ohio Valley.

By the early 1970s, the area around Madison looked similar to its image in Some

Came Running, but faced another potential industrial transformation. The fears that the

Ohio River near Madison would turn into an industrial space like the Upper Ohio Valley of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania seemed to have real traction in the late 1960s and 1970s, when this area became a place of interest for utilities.

Utilities like American Electric Power and Louisville Gas & Electric made plans to carve up the riverside into sites for power plants.245 This coal-fired power produced by such plants electrified businesses and homes. But that coal was not wanted anywhere near

243 Vincente Minnelli, Some Came Running, DVD, directed by Vincente Minnelli (1958; Burbank, California: Turner Home Entertainment, 2008), film.

244 Laura Hodges, “Memories Rekindled: Frank, Dean and Shirley Are Back In Town,” Madison Courier, September 4, 1999, A1 and A8.

245 Adam Rome has noted that a popular push for “electric heat” in the postwar era “offered a roundabout way” to replace the market for coal to heat homes directly by making it supply electricity to heat those homes. Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 76. 85

modern homes, as Hirsh has noted. Marketing electricity to consumers far away from power plants was important, and as Hirsh has written, “public concern for the environment limited the number of locations near population and recreation centers” in the 1960s, leading to “the push for larger units.”246 The Ohio Valley’s rural stretches— just far enough from urban centers—provided this type of space for utility expansion.

This type of decentralization mirrored the earlier expansion of electrical production in the Valley, but came in a far different social climate. The growing knowledge of the harmful consequences of air pollution from burning coal, both for public health and for the environment, meant the response to the power plants would be vastly different than the enthusiasm seen in the wake of the Ohio Valley Electric

Corporation project.

The reaction to industrial development near Madison, particularly riverside power plant development, resembled “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) style activism. The city’s historic image lent weight to its anti-plant activism. Two threads of activism grew— environmental and historic preservation—in Madison in the 1960s and 1970s. With strong connections to the local environment, the interests of these groups intersected and demonstrated the potential strength of local activism in small towns.

Locally, an environmental group, Save The Valley (STV), grew from the grassroots in 1974 in response to a planned American Electric Power plant in Hunter’s

Bottom, Kentucky near Madison.247 While the Hunter’s Bottom area was in a largely

246 Hirsh, Technology and Transformation in the American Utility Industry, 60.

247 In Eternal Vigilance, Steven Higgs includes an interview with a member of Save The Valley. See: “John Blair: Watching The Valley,” in Steven Higgs, Eternal Vigilance: Nine Tales of Environmental Heroism in Indiana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 163-181. 86

rural stretch of the Ohio River, it was not far from Clifty Creek Power Plant across the river in Madison. By adding the plant at Hunter’s Bottom, the area around Madison would tip further to industrial, and lose more of its rural nature.

It would lose some of its historic charm, a commodity growing in importance in

Madison and in cities across the U.S. A historic preservation group, Historic Madison,

Inc. (HMI), was created in the city in 1960 and pushed forward an agenda to maintain the city’s 19th century architecture. Madison’s historic preservation movement was part of a national trend in the 1960s, buttressed by new legislation like the Historic Preservation

Act of 1966. The movement found inspiration in some of the other efforts underway in cities like Charleston, South Carolina.

But Madison’s preservation movement celebrated a growing nostalgia for “Main

Street,” a phenomenon in the postwar era noted by geographers and historians.248 The changes to the American landscape, through 1950s suburbanization and 1960s urban renewal, left many people unsatisfied. Writers Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs bemoaned the changes to urban environments in the 1960s, as urban renewal through highways, housing projects and slum clearance altered the physical environment. On a smaller scale, small towns across the country faced a similar type of reorganization, in order to make themselves more accessible to automobiles and more competitive with newer communities. The protection of the small town, the walkable community, the original layout of homes and shops, grew as a cause for Americans who questioned the value of exchanging old ways of living for new methods of organization. Disneyland,

248 The history of small towns and Main Street has gone through a number of incarnations, and recent studies have taken into account modern economic and social complexities in these places. These include: Richard V. Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited: Time, Space and Image Building in Small-Town America (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996). 87

which opened in 1955, represented a suburban-friendly theme park in contrast to its urban predecessors, according to historian Eric Avila. The park’s “central corridor” of Main

Street, U.S.A. was a generic and ideal version of the real small town street, such as the

Main Street crossing Madison, Indiana.249 Celebrating a real, 19th century “Main Street” meant accepting a certain level of smallness, and keeping out unwanted markers of modernity and urbanity, including polluting power plants.

Madison’s Main Street was under the shadow of Clifty Creek Power Plant’s stacks, and that plant grew to be a lightning rod for debate over the role of polluting industry in the region. Nationally—even internationally—the plant hidden in the

Kentucky and Indiana foothills was becoming a target of concern about acid rain. The conflicts in Madison around Clifty Creek and the planned power plants exemplify how environmental movements could spring up in small towns aiming to be quaint Main

Street communities.

This chapter first considers the second major round of power plant expansion in the Ohio Valley and the changing regulations governing coal-fired energy at federal and state levels. Next, this chapter deals with the development of STV in relation to a rural power plant project. The third section deals with historic preservation in Madison, and how that movement intersected with national trends and regional environmentalism. The fourth section follows the groups’ combined efforts to fight the regional industrial development. Next, the issues of acid rain and national concerns about the pollution from

Ohio Valley power plants are considered. Finally, the conclusion considers the state of

249 Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 123. 88

Madison and other Ohio Valley power centers in the new age of environmental consciousness and skepticism of coal-fired energy.

II. The Power Plant Expansion in an Era of Growing Federal and State Regulations

Electric utilities looked to further utilize the Ohio River and nearby coal reserves in the 1960s and 1970s. With such a major expansion of power plants in the region came a major expansion of smoke, sulfur dioxide, coal ash, and nitrogen oxides. This occurred in a much different social environment than the immediate post-WWII era. By the 1970s the realities of living with coal smoke had turned off some local citizens. Sporn’s predictions for Madison that he made at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in the city in the late 1950s had not really come true, and sacrificing more nature for the potential of a power plant was no longer universally acceptable. Hirsh has noted the fracture occurring at this time between utility representatives and environmentalists. Plants, for utilities,

“served as a proxy for progress, full employment, prosperity, and a higher standard of living for the general public,” while environmental activists grew to be “outspoken critics” about air pollution.250

The plants that grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in the Ohio Valley region adjacent to Ohio and Indiana are as follows.251 In the 1960s and in 1970, aluminum corporation

Alcoa opened units of a power generating station for its Warrick facility along the Ohio

River in Newburgh, Indiana.252 The Pittsburgh aluminum corporation followed in the steps of Kaiser Aluminum, which utilized an entire unit of an Ohio Power plant. In the

250 Hirsh, Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry, 148.

251 For a chart of these power plants, see Appendix B.

252 Alcoa, “Alcoa Warrick Power Plant: About Alcoa Warrick Power Plant,” accessed March 24, 2013, https://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_warrick/en/info_page/power_plant.asp.

1960s and 1970s AEP and its subsidiaries opened J.M. Stuart in Aberdeen in Brown

County, Ohio, and Cardinal Power Plant near Brilliant, Ohio.253 Places already home to power plants found new ones nearby, as when Moundsville, West Virginia added the

Mitchell Power Plant in 1971 and New Haven, West Virginia the Mountaineer Power plant, also AEP, opened in 1980. 254 Maysville, Kentucky, a quaint Ohio River town across from Brown County, Ohio, housed the Spurlock power plant starting in 1977.255

Once home to Rosemary Clooney, Maysville, like Madison, held onto its handsome brick buildings and small town charm even with a power plant. The biggest AEP plant along the Ohio River, James M. Gavin, was announced in the early 1970s and was less than a mile down the road from Kyger Creek, and also in the village of Cheshire.

The growing power plant construction also included a number of plants along the

Kentucky and Indiana shores of the Ohio River. Jasper, Indiana’s Jasper plant opened in

1968 along the Ohio River.256 In 1981, the East Bend Generating Station opened in

Kentucky along the Ohio River.257 AEP opened the Rockport Power Station along the

253 Feck, American Electric Power: A Century of Firsts, 249-250 and regarding Stuart: Duke Energy, “Stuart Station,” http://www.duke-energy.com/power-plants/wholesale/stuart.asp.

254 American Electric Power and Battelle Institute, “Mountaineer Power Plant New Haven, West Virginia,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/alstom/40627/docs/40627-CO2Storage.pdf.

255 South Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, “Part IV: East Kentucky Power,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.skrecc.com/history4.htm.

256 Gary Freymiller, “The Jasper Clean Energy Center: How did we go wrong and why?” Dubois County Free Press, June 23, 2011. http://www.duboiscountyfreepress.com/the-jasper-clean-energy-center-how- did-we-get-here-and-why/. In 1976 in Indiana about 40 miles from Evansville, Indiana Municipal and Wabash Valley Power Association opened the Gibson Generating Station beside the Wabash River north of the Ohio River. Duke Energy, “Gibson Station,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.duke- energy.com/power-plants/coal-fired/gibson.asp.

257 Duke Energy, “East Bend Station,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.duke-energy.com/power- plants/coal-fired/east-bend.asp.

Ohio River in Indiana in the 1980s, with two 1,300 MW units.258 Not far from Madison, the Ghent Generating Station opened in 1974 in historic, riverside Carrollton,

Kentucky.259 LG&E’s Mill Creek Station opened near Louisville on the Ohio River in

1972.260 A number of utilities expanded their use of the Ohio River and neighboring rivers’ waters for cooling in the 1960s through early 1980s. Some of these plants had far greater capacities than the once impossible-seeming Clifty Creek, and both Amos and

Gavin had more than twice the capacity of either OVEC plant.

The plants that would concern Madison residents cropped up along the Ohio

River in the rural areas around the city. From Louisville, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio, plans existed for construction of coal-fired plants at Wise’s Landing, Kentucky

(Louisville Gas & Electric), Hunter’s Bottom, Kentucky (American Electric Power), an addition at a Ghent, Kentucky coal plant (Kentucky Utilities), and at Brooksburg, Indiana

(Indianapolis Power & Light Company, IPALCO).261

All of this local and regional expansion happened within a volatile national energy context. Hirsh and Keenan have reflected on the significance of “the energy crisis of 1973” to energy production.262 Keenan notes that the 1973 event and associated

258 Angela Neville, “Top Plants: Rockport Power Plant, Rockport, Indiana,” Power: Business and Technology for the Global Generation Industry, October 1, 2009, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.powermag.com/coal/Top-Plants-Rockport-Power-Plant-Rockport-Indiana_2180.html.

259 LG&E KU, “Neighbor to Neighbor: Ghent Generating Station,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.lge-ku.com/neighbor2neighbor/ghent_plantinformation.asp.

260 LG&E KU, “Power Plant Information: Mill Creek Station,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.lge- ku.com/plant_info.asp. AEP’s Amos opened in 1971 along the Kanawha River in Winfield, West Virginia. AEP, “Power Generation: John E. Amos Plant,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.aep.com/about/MajorBusinesses/powergeneration/.

261 “Progress Report on all sites,” STV Forum: The Official Newsletter of Save The Valley 2, no. 3, September 12, 1975. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

262 Hirsh, Power Loss, 6 and Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” 218. 91

“concerns” “made Ohio Basin coal a more attractive fuel, particularly for use in electric power plants.”263 It was also part of a strategy to protect U.S. prosperity, as Hirsh has noted the protection of the trend between electricity and economic success: “from colonial times until 1920, and from the 1950s through 1973, a direct correlation existed between energy consumption and the gross national product (GNP).”264 It was history repeating for the Ohio Valley, as international conflicts and plentiful local resources made it a center of new plant construction. This time, the efforts combined to centralize production in the Valley, rather than to decentralize industry.

Regulations Grow

Though demand for coal increased, the ease of construction and operation decreased in the 1970s. In order to control air pollution for public health and increasingly for environmental health purposes, the federal government and state governments created agencies to monitor and regulate emissions before the 1970s. This included, in Indiana, the 1961 establishment of the Air Pollution Control Board.265 Addressing air and water pollution in the 1960s was a complicated process, as politicians at the state and federal level needed to establish what would be regulated and to what extent. In 1968, two legal scholars noted the “minimal” effectiveness of the Indiana Air Pollution Control Board in comparison to the state body regulating water contamination.266 The increased attention

263 Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” 218.

264 Hirsh, Power Loss, 136.

265 Julian J. Juergensmeyer and Anita L. Morse, “Air Pollution Control in Indiana in 1968: A Comment,” 2 Val. U.L. Rev. (1968): 296. http://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2063&context=vulr.

266 Ibid., 296.

to air pollution at the federal level by the end of the 1960s meant a decade of major changes for coal-fired power plants.

The National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 (NEPA), National Air

Pollution Control Administration (NAPCA) and Clean Air and Water Acts of 1970, along with the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), helped change the ways power companies operated.

Air pollution was targeted by new regulations. The 1970 Clean Air Act regulated sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emitted by new coal-burning power plants, and “sulfur dioxide” and “nitrogen oxides,” in addition to particulates, “lead,” “carbon monoxide,” and “volatile organic compounds,” were the EPA’s “six principal air pollutants” monitored.267 Following earlier precedent, the 1970 Clean Air Act amendments placed human health over environmental damage, which was considered a “secondary standard.”268 The grassroots U.S. environmental movement, which accelerated in the

1960s, helped move forward the creation of these new regulatory bodies.269 The Ohio

Valley, a center of air pollution in the 1970s, faced some potentially major changes from the new regulations.

Clifty Creek, and its operator, Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corporation (IKEC) controlled emissions through use of precipitators. Clifty Creek’s manager, Everett

267 United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, NOx: How nitrogen oxides affect the way we live and breathe, EPA-456/F-98-005, (Research Triangle Park, NC: 1998), accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.nchh.org/Portals/0/Contents/EPA_Nitrogen_Oxides.pdf.

268 Robert Collin, The Environmental Protection Agency: Cleaning Up America’s Act (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), 16.

269 Hal Rothman argued the concern with environmental destruction detoured in the 1980s and 1990s as “Americans saw the decline in their standard of living as more than a temporary setback,” Rothman, The Greening of a Nation?, 4.

Schwarm, said that the original “two air pollution control measures, which cost about $7 million when installed with the plant, never did work up to the manufacturer’s expectations.”270 In addition, Clifty Creek Power Plant aggravated locals because its sulfur dioxide emissions were the highest in Indiana.271 IKEC made some efforts to address the air pollution situation by late 1973, but its plant manager explained the difficulty of balancing cost with effectiveness. Ralph Dunlevy, the vice president of

IKEC’s parent corporation, Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC), told the Madison

Rotary, “The most feasible way of eliminating sulphur dioxide is to import low sulphur coal from the western states, as we have done. But this is also an expensive alternative as it must come by rail.”272 While the Ohio Valley area drew in plants like Clifty Creek because of its proximity to coal reserves, this relationship was in danger with the increasing availability of western coal.273

The impending power plant “concentration” around Madison occurred alongside this uncertainty in the future of coal-fired power in the Ohio Valley and in the U.S. The

270 “IKEC Ponders Battle Against Air Pollution,” Madison Courier, June 3, 1970, 1 and 16. In 1972, IKEC officials “asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Air Pollution Control Division of the Indiana Board of Health to agree to a two-year feasibility and demonstration study on the effectiveness of a new pollution-abatement process.” Glenn Rutherford, “State questions utility’s request for smoke study,” Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, January 23, 1972.

271 “President’s Letter,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley 2, no. 4, November 1, 1975, 1. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

272 “IKEC, OVEC vice president tells Rotarians: IKEC continuing work on pollution,” Madison Courier, December 14, 1973, 1.

273 Western coal reserves’ production in the U.S. grew across the postwar era as a portion of overall U.S. coal production, overtaking the Interior region (includes Illinois, Texas, and Indiana) in the 1970s and overtaking Appalachian production (includes Ohio) in 2000. See: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2013, Analysis & Projections (April 15-May 2, 2013), accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/MT_coal.cfm.

new regulations and concerns about the effects of burning coal helped feed into a growing anti-power plant movement in the Madison area.

III. Save The Valley, Hunter’s Bottom, and Fighting for a Rural Environment

The series of plants planned for the area threatened to cause major social and physical changes in Madison in the 1970s. One plant in particular sparked a major reaction. Across from Madison and eastward along the Ohio River, Hunter’s Bottom in

Milton, Kentucky, was a quiet stretch of farmland and homes. This rural area became a site of real estate speculation, as Hunter’s Bottom was considered the new site of a coal- fired power plant. American Electric Power (AEP) worked with Kentucky Republican

Congressman and real estate agent Gene Snyder to gather land in Hunter’s Bottom, an area he represented in the Kentucky State Legislature, for its proposed plant.274 The rural area became the center of debate over land use, the significance of rural places, and the environmental effects of coal-fired power plants.

A group of Kentuckians calling themselves the “Committee for the Preservation of Hunter’s Bottom” took umbrage with the plans and with Snyder’s actions.275 This group became “Save The Valley” in 1974 and provided arguments that new power plants brought “more river traffic,” “more high voltage lines,” and “a loss of exceptionally fertile farmland.”276 One member of the group argued that electricity generated at planned plants went elsewhere, like neighboring Louisville, “but apparently Louisville

274 “HMI asks AEP to forget Hunter’s Bottom,” Madison Courier, April 1, 1974, 1 and “Washington trip strengthened Save the Valley’s case: Slover,” Madison Courier, September 25, 1974, 1.

275 “Hunter’s Bottom group sends AEP another letter,” Madison Courier, April 12, 1974, 1.

276 “Save The Valley,” undated. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

does not want a coal-burning power plant on its riverfront.”277 This reaction in a rural area, to turning over land for use by industry for an urban population, reflected the level of value placed by locals in Hunter’s Bottom and the pastoral environment.

Economically, a power plant and utility as buyer of land benefitted some locals, and not everyone agreed with Save The Valley’s opposition to Hunter’s Bottom. Some local residents sold their land to AEP. One landowner, John Scholey, said about selling his farm, “I was offered a chance to sell the farm for more money than I would ever have been able to get for it again.”278 Scholey, who also worked as a welder, argued running a farm did not allow for him to support his family. His decision demonstrated a level of economic pragmatism. However, economic pragmatism also characterized some of

STV’s arguments—the new industry would alter what was attractive and potentially profitable about Madison.279

STV needed to demonstrate how rural land was valued in aggregate—one industrial site in the area changed the land around it, as well as the local community. A new power plant in Hunter’s Bottom changed more than just the value of Scholey and other residents’ land; it also changed the value of downtown Madison and the surrounding rural area. The fears of what was to come led Save The Valley representatives to meet with representatives of the EPA and Council on Environmental

277 “Group states reasons against power plants,” Madison Courier, June 25, 1974, 1.

278 Angela Stockton, “4 Hunter’s Bottom options are signed for proposed plant,” Madison Courier, March 29, 1974, 1.

279 Andrew Hurley, in his study of Gary, Indiana, explores the influence of class on the environmental movement and how it helped in “creating patterns of environmental inequality in recent urban America.” Hurley, Environmental Inequalities, xiv.

Quality to discuss the Hunter’s Bottom project and the other plants being developed near

Madison.280 STV received support from the EPA representatives.

Adding another power plant to an area already home to Clifty Creek Power Plant meant the delicate environmental balance was in danger of tipping towards industry. A local resident, Phil Sherman, said of the proposed AEP plant, “It’s not a Hunter’s Bottom problem. It’s my problem too. They might as well build it on Main Street in Madison if they build it, because I’ll leave if it comes. I don’t want to live in the Gary of the Ohio

River valley either.”281 The frustration with industry in the 1970s joined an already healthy historic preservation movement underway in Madison.

IV. Historic Madison, Inc. and the 19th Century City as Environment

Gary was a far different place from Madison, Indiana, having been originally established as a company city for U.S. Steel in the middle of a greater Chicago and Lake

Michigan industrial zone.282 However, the city’s origins were strangely familiar to some of the Ohio Valley’s experiences in the post-World War II era. As Andrew Hurley has noted, “geographic assets prompted U.S. Steel executives to transform rural duneland into an industrial city. As the founders of Gary, corporate executives enjoyed free rein to mold the environment as they wished.”283 Hurley has noted the environmentalism that sprung up in Gary, including activism around maintaining waterfronts free from industry.

Area environmentalists acted to protect area that became the “Indiana Dunes National

280 “Washington trip strengthened Save The Valley’s case: Slover,” Madison Courier, September 25, 1974, 1.

281 Angela Stockton, “Opposition to AEP plant expanding,” Madison Courier, May 3, 1974, 1.

282 Hurley, Environmental Inequalities, 16-17.

283 Ibid.

Lakeshore” along Lake Michigan near Gary.284 Though, it is important to reinforce earlier discussions of the Valley and note Madison was not a “company town,” those living in Madison could be wary of the exploitation of corporations seen in Gary and the perils of exchanging a historic identity for an industrial one.

Few cities would want to become like the industrial sections of Gary in the 1970s, and in Madison the threat of industry meant challenges to its 19th century buildings, already a concern of a local non-profit, Historic Madison, Inc. (HMI). The built environment of downtown Madison unified a number of community-minded residents in the 1960s and beyond, much like the appreciation of rivers and lakes, beaches and parks unified environmentalists at the time. The obvious appeal of Madison’s historic district— it was one of the most impressive in Ohio River and Midwestern small cities—grew with the efforts of local activists and the creation of national programs.

The forces behind HMI came from outside Madison, from a middle-aged couple with few ties to the city, who in 1970 would be named Madison’s “Couple of the

Decade,” and in 1981 would merit an entire special section of the local newspaper devoted to their accomplishments and service to the city.285 The couple, John and Ann

Windle, arrived in Madison in 1948 from the Chicago area, where John was retiring from his position as a librarian at the Newberry Library.286 The Windles settled in the city after annual visits with a relative and professor at nearby Hanover College, and bought a large

284 Hurley, Environmental Inequalities, 71.

285 “Windles Were “Couple of Decade,” in pullout section titled, “In honor of John and Ann Windle,” Madison Courier, June 13, 1981.

286 Nita S. West, “Ann Windle keeps Shrewsbury House lights burning,” RoundAbout Madison, April 2000, 19.

brick home in downtown Madison.287 The pair, who had an antiques business, surrounded themselves with antique furniture not dating beyond the home’s origins in 1849.288 They joined a number of community organizations and started public tours of their 19th century home, known as “Shrewsbury House,” after former owner, Dr. Charles Shrewsbury.289

The Shrewsbury House was the antithesis of the modern postwar home with its multiple chimneys, ivy-covered walls, wrought iron spiral staircase, and high ceilings.290 The couple’s interests in preservation led to the development of Historic Madison, Inc. in

1960, which began with a dinner fundraiser for business people. The non-profit organization was devoted to maintaining Madison’s architecture in a decade when progress often meant demolishing old buildings and starting from scratch.

287 Steve White, “Ann Windle: The woman behind the man,” in “In honor of John and Ann Windle,” special section, Madison Courier, June 13, 1981, 4.

288 Reporter Tinsley Stewart noted the Windles’ commitment to keeping nothing in the house made after 1849, indicating their strong commitment to historic preservation and affinity for the early 19th century. Tinsley Stewart, “Preserving the Past: Madison historic groups believe what’s new isn’t always what’s best,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 11, 1972, sec. B.

289 Don Ward, “Early beginnings remain part of Historic Madison, Inc.” RoundAbout Madison, April 2000, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.roundaboutmadison.com/InsidePages/ArchivedArticles/2000/0400Saddletree.html.

290 Old Madison.com, “The Shrewsbury,” 1997, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.oldmadison.com/homes/shrewsbry.html.

Photo 1. Image of Shrewsbury-Windle House in 2013.291

Madison was a magnet for people like the Windles, “boosters” interested in

“reviving images from the glorious pasts of the towns concerned.”292 As historian David

Hamer notes, the historic preservation in cities like Madison became part of their 19th century urban—and in Madison’s case that term fits loosely—history, even though it was based on preserving the looks of a specific 19th century moment in time.293 The actions of the Windles and HMI represented a conscious effort to maintain a specific, prosperous image of Madison. HMI’s restoration began with a lovely colonial near Main Street, once owned by local luminary, Jeremiah Sullivan, who while serving in the Indiana state

291 Megan Chew, Photo 1.

292 David Hamer, History in Urban Places: The Historic Districts of the United States (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998), 110.

293 Hamer notes the tendency in Madison’s promotions to emphasize its function despite its looks, separating itself from Colonial Williamsburg. Ibid., ix and 121.

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government, dubbed the capital city “Indianapolis.”294 The group bought the Sullivan

House for $12,000.295 A narrow, red brick colonial with white trim and green shutters, double brick chimney, and arching windows over the front door, set close to the street,

Sullivan House was built in 1818.296 The home sat near the massive James Lanier mansion, a brick home of enormous scale along the Ohio River. Both homes were part of the city’s “quality row,” a street of beautiful and expensive homes close to the riverfront, and built to take advantage of the view of the Ohio.297

HMI’s preservation efforts not only mirrored other grassroots efforts across the

U.S., but also occurred alongside changes in federal recognition of historic preservation.

While urban renewal altered inner city environments in the 1960s through the construction of housing projects and freeways, the era also saw growth in recognition of important, historic environments. In 1966, the National Historic Preservation Act was put into place and funded the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which was officially started in 1949.298 The National Parks Service also began naming sites to the National

294 Historic Madison, Inc., “Jeremiah Sullivan House,” 10. Box: Organizations: Historic & Preservation Subject Files, Folder: Historic Madison, Inc. Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

295 “Historic Madison, Inc. To Purchase St. Paul’s Church,” Madison Courier, June 16, 1961, 1.

296 Historic Madison, Inc., “Celebrating Historic Preservation in Madison, Indiana,” 1. Folder: Historic Madison, Inc. Box: Organizations Historic & Preservation Subject Files. Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

297 Steve White, “Madison’s early history outlined as HMI honors many hostesses,” Madison Courier, April 25, 1974, 1.

298 National Trust For Historic Preservation, A Brief History of the National Trust, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.preservationnation.org/who-we-are/history.html.

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Register of Historic Places in 1966.299 Madison became one of the biggest successes of the flourishing historic preservation movement, helped by its devoted local citizens.

The city’s remaining 19th century buildings provided it the basis for a strong agenda of historic preservation, and this set Madison apart from cities and small towns in the Ohio Valley. It also had survived its precarious location, next to a river with a history of major flooding. Madison, like many Ohio River cities and towns, was spread narrowly across the available flat land rather than radiating from a center with a city hall and municipal buildings on a broad grid. Madison’s entire historic district—133 blocks—was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, which was a huge swath of the city of Madison.300 These historic buildings downtown set Madison apart, as John

Windle noted in 1981: “we have here in Madison a most unique collection of architecture nearly untouched. So we have a greater obligation than many towns up and down the road.”301

V. Fighting For A Historic and Clean Main Street

Preserving the environment did not only mean renovating buildings, but also controlling the surroundings to look as beautiful as the city’s buildings. Save The Valley members and John Windle spoke out against locating power plants near Madison, connecting the environmental movement locally to historic preservation and community.

For HMI and STV, the environment meant the air and water, but also the buildings, the windows, the people, and the traditions.

299 National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nps.gov/nr/.

300 Fife-Salmon and Grimes, et al, Madison on the Ohio, 108.

301 “John Windle to resign as Historic Madison head,” Madison Courier, February 5, 1981, 1.

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Their causes overlapped. John Windle sent a letter to American Electric Power regarding Hunter’s Bottom and the company’s anticipated plant, “stating (the) organization’s opposition and reasons, namely effect on historic places, tourism, recreational areas.”302 He also brought up section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act of

1966 in the letter, in an effort to use “infringements on historical sites” as a reason to prevent the plant’s placement in the area.303 The use of historical significance to fight a plant, and the use of federal policy to prove this site’s importance, reflected a change in strategy in Madison, where commerce and industry had once grown the downtown. Both

HMI and STV members saw Madison and its surroundings as a special place to be protected from undue pollution and ugliness, and the groups used economic, historic, community, and environmental arguments to prove their point that one coal-fired power plant was one too many.

The experience of living in a small historic town defined the environmental movement in the area, and this led the various activists to demonstrate some of the characteristics of “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) movements.304 Because some residents did not want another power plant near the city, they did not necessarily argue against locating power plants anywhere. John Windle said in an interview with American

Preservation, “There must be other places where pollutants would not matter so

302 Harold Cassidy, “White Paper XXIII Marble Hill: An Incomplete Chronology with an Appendix on Three Intervenors,” 47. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

303 “HMI asks AEP to forget Hunter’s Bottom,” Madison Courier, April 1, 1974, 1.

304 NIMBYism tends to be expressed as a pejorative, though in Madison it was an offshoot of already existing community interests and existing frustrations with its power plant and evidence of a belief in producing energy near the site of resource extraction. Neil Carter places the NIMBY movements in the “third wave of environmentalism,” along with the countercultural economic groups and broad coalitions. Neil Carter, The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 141-143.

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much.”305 This type of NIMBY sentiment was common among historic preservation and environmental groups in the 1960s and 1970s, when major projects threatened favored local buildings and environments. STV potentially endorsed locating the planned plants in other Ohio Valley areas when it, in addition to suggesting non-coal alternatives and conservation, included an article in its newsletter noting West Virginia wanted the power plants.306 West Virginia’s proximity to coal already made it a strong center of power plant concentration, and similarly to Madison, it saw plants crop up along rural stretches of the Ohio River.

Hunter’s Bottom’s rural setting seemed ripe for development, and the area could be emptied of people, but not necessarily of significance. Madison was on the National

Register because of its historic buildings, “and as such is protected from federal, or federally assisted projects that would destroy, isolate or impair its environment,” and a group applied for Hunter’s Bottom to be placed on the Register.307 The application to place Hunter’s Bottom on the National Register of Historic Places celebrated the area’s rural identity as historically important. According to the applicants, Hunter’s Bottom held

“residential-agricultural complexes that reflect the 19th century dependence on both the river and the land” and “the entire area is threatened by the possible location of a power plant on the site as has already happened in so many rich and historic bottoms along the

305 Janet Nyberg Paraschos has noted that downtown Madison’s separation from its Hilltop development allowed for an “authentic” downtown. She also mentioned the geographic advantages and disadvantages of the downtown—it was subject to so many power plants but was preserved in part because it could not expand geographically. “Madison’s location, so strategic during the boom years, is responsible for the power plant proliferation now.” Janet Nyberg Paraschos, “Madison: Historic Preservation is a Fact of Life in this Indiana Town,” American Preservation, November-December 1979, 22.

306 “We don’t want ‘em But West Virginia DOES!,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley 3, no. 2 December 1976, 1. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

307 “HMI opposes plant in Hunter’s Bottom,” Madison Courier, March 28, 1974, 1. 104

Ohio.”308 Hunter’s Bottom was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on

August 11, 1976.309 Placing the area on the Register did not mean the area could not be altered by a private project, but the applicants added legitimacy to this rural place with the National Register listing.310 While Madison’s historic identity was indisputable, the preservation at Hunter’s Bottom showed an understanding of rural identity as being significant in itself, and not just the result of an inability to develop industry.

HMI also argued that tourism and water sports would decline with the placement of the Hunter’s Bottom plant on the river across from downtown Madison. The city’s biggest annual event was a hydroplane boat regatta, which brought thousands of spectators to the shores of the Ohio River.311 A local environmental activist summed up these concerns and took another swing at Gary: “The tourist industry in this area will really suffer if all of these plants come in. And just when it’s really getting built up. Who is going to want to go to another Gary for a vacation? And think what all of the sulfur and other pollutants from these plants will do to the area’s historic buildings.”312 Save The

Valley members wrote in an editorial in the Madison Courier: “Madison is noted for its

308 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Inventory--Nomination Form, August 11, 1976, accessed March 23, 2014, https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:nKD1umfJ88wJ:pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/76 000862.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjf-T7O9ps90_0-Tn26YSuPpV8udxCG4DwXlAb9- ecaURLoTylBWIrkxO42k2RJVEafJMsZebw7IkayiX0tbxIbKVnThQH4s_iYssX4N8s2wBok7- fiXv8oDIFa7Tv3hNOJDlaQ&sig=AHIEtbRezmVFRKtQYI8Z_KzPezoa9jhn0Q.

309 Ibid.

310 “Local, State Historic Boards Meet Here,” Madison Courier, August 16, 1971, 1.

311 The race even appeared on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” in the 1970s, and the city of Madison owned its own high-speed boat, “Miss Madison.” The city’s race history in the 1970s was made into an MGM feature in the 21st century. Madison, DVD, directed by William Bindley (2005; Culver City, Calif.: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005).

312 “East of Milton: Power interests pay $300,000 for Hampton farm,” Madison Courier, May 29, 1976, 1.

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historical significance and is a national landmark. Tourism has been increasingly a great part of the area’s economy. Obviously, a concentration of plants will undo all of this.”313

Some community members spoke out against historic preservation’s economic impact in the early 1980s and felt the city was not advancing economically by following strict historic preservation rules.314

STV members argued new power plants would hurt local growth. Members

Harold Cassidy and Fred Hauck wrote a letter to a utility involved in building a nuclear power plant in the region, that in 1981 there was “gross overbuilding in the electric utility industry.”315 The jobs brought by power plants did not necessarily justify the costs, particularly coal-fired power plants. Unlike in the 1950s, when Clifty Creek was celebrated as part of the new industry developing in the Ohio Valley and industrial production and pollution were seen as positive additions, environmental groups like Save

The Valley argued for more controlled industrialization of the region. Save The Valley used the “Ruhr Valley” comparison once used by President John F. Kennedy to describe the energy production in the Valley to illustrate the damage to be incurred by power plants coming to the Madison area.316 This shift reflects what historians have noted across

313 “Group states reasons against power plants,” Madison Courier, June 25, 1974, 1.

314 Maggie Lewis, “Madison, Ind.: The Town That Slept for a Century and the man who woke it up,” Christian Science Monitor, January 14, 1982, B1. LexisNexis Academic.

315 STV Forum: Official Newsletter: Save-The-Valley 8 No. 4, August 1981, 1. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

316 Save The Valley, Inc. to undisclosed recipient, July 30, 1982. Save The Valley records, Madison- Jefferson County Public Library, Local History. John F. Kennedy, “Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Youngstown, Ohio, Public Square,” October 9, 1960. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Wooley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25745.

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the U.S. in the era—both related to a deflating of Cold War enthusiasm and an increased attention towards the problems incurred by heavy industry.

Save The Valley’s members espoused ideas on the character of industrial growth and on the environment that reflect the influence of national trends related to ecology, spirituality, and the conscious use of the earth’s resources, in addition to community and regional values. According to an early STV article, “energy generating plants of this type have historically shown a blatant, immoral disregard for the people unfortunate enough to live under the shadows of their stacks.”317 Harold Cassidy, one of the members of STV’s board of directors and a professor emeritus of Chemistry at Yale called the plant fight a

“moral” action and wrote in the local paper on his reasons for joining STV: “At heart, I am a midwesterner and this is the reason for this whole Save the Valley business.”318

Rather than accepting an industrial identity, Cassidy’s remarks reflect different notions of the Midwest, as a landscape worth preserving in its natural state. This small city in the heart of an industrial valley grew the same types of environmental sentiments seen in coastal areas and major cities, where activists fought to maintain oceanfront land and favored parks and neighborhoods.319

317 “Proposed Function of the STV Newsletter,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley 2, No. 1, 4. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

318 Greg Hoard, “Dr. Cassidy explains reasons he’s against more power plants,” Madison Courier, June 16, 1976, 3.

319 Boyd Keenan notes Cassidy was “probably the most nationally prominent figure within the STV ranks.” He also mentions Cassidy “provided STV with scientific expertise and credibility helpful in opposing planning by the utilities in the absence of an impact study.” He also notes the importance of “Fred Hauck, a Kentucky engineer and ardent environmentalist” and the work Cassidy and Hauck continued to do for years after. Keenan writes, “the broader community surrounding Madison also has provided an unusual amount of environmental strategists” and the anti-nuke activism was “one of the nation’s most revealing case studies of the work of non-paid environmentalists, another example of what may be described as ‘ecopolitical’ scanning.” Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” 230.

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Though Madison had classic Main Street looks and a Midwestern sensibility, it was not a backwater or any old small town. Among the activists, Cassidy was a retired

Ivy League professor and Windle was retired from one of the nation’s most admired libraries. This access to expertise also connected Madison to successful movements nationwide. Historian Robert Bullard, in his study of race and class in the movement known as “Environmental Justice,” has argued: “environmental activism has been most pronounced among individuals who have above average education, greater access to economic resources, and a greater sense of personal efficacy.”320 This type of “efficacy” was central to preserving Main Street and Madison’s historic buildings. When visiting

Madison, an official with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1974 told residents: “Progress can be planned and controlled…You need to make an investment in your future.”321

This investment came quickly, as Madison was selected in 1978 as a National

Trust for Historic Preservation “Main Street” preservation project city.322 Being chosen as one of the Main Street program cities allowed Madison to take advantage of guidance by the National Trust, and was another signifier of Madison’s community identity as a historic small town.323 STV reported in March 1980 that “because of SAVE THE

320 Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 1.

321 “HMI members urged to keep town’s character,” Madison Courier, May 29, 1975, 1.

322 “Progress of HMI in 1974 is outlined,” Madison Courier, March 27, 1975, 1. Historic Madison, Inc. was the local “agent and supervisor” of the Main Street project. “Windle to resign as Historic Madison head,” Madison Courier, February 5, 1981, 1.

323 Joe Holwager, “Main Street, U.S.A. Madison, Indiana,” Louisville Courier Journal & Times, February 27, 1977, 1.

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VALLEY opposition, American Electric Power appears to be backing off from Hunter’s

Bottom in Kentucky.”324

As STV fought planned power plants, it continued to contend with Clifty Creek

Power Plant and found some unusual allies. Kentucky’s Governor Julian Carroll argued that Clifty Creek was a poor coal plant in 1978.325 Carroll, elected in one of the major coal mining states, wanted Clifty Creek to clean up its image so Kentucky could burn coal in the region. Carroll argued: “plants such as Clifty-Creek (sic) have produced a bad image in the public’s mind concerning coal burning power plants. As a result, widespread opposition to new coal burning plants has surfaced, thus threatening this much needed energy alternative.”326 Carroll took advantage of “a section of the 1977 Clean Air Act which permits a state to petition the Federal Government for enforcement.”327

The irony of a Kentucky politician contacting the EPA to complain about a problem related to coal cannot be overstated, and Carroll’s petition considered Indiana as well: “These excessive sulfur dioxide emissions from Clifty Creek Plant threaten the air quality of the surrounding area on a daily basis, both in Indiana and Kentucky. The people living in the area have tolerated this unhealthy situation far too long and deserve

324 STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley, Inc. 7, No. 2., March 1980, 2. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

325 Julian Carroll to Douglas Costle, (copy) December 19, 1978. Folder: Indiana-Ky. Electric/Clifty Creek Environmental Study #1 of 2. Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History. STV tried to bring Clifty Creek under the NEPA standards in 1976, filing a complaint about the 15-year renewal between OVEC and ERDA (Energy Research and Development Administration).

326 Carroll to Costle, Ibid.

327 Ibid.

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cleaner air.”328 The Madison Courier noted that Carroll’s “motives are obviously directed at clearing the way for the proposed Louisville Gas and Electric Co. (LG&E) plant at

Wise’s Landing” and his views on IKEC made him “a strong friend” of those fighting that plant’s emissions.329 The written response from EPA noted IKEC did not follow “the

1972 federally approved Indiana State Implementation Plan for sulfur dioxide,” as enforcement was caught up in a court battle in Indiana.330 The EPA letter mentioned

Section 110 of the Clean Air Act, which established the State Implementation Plans (SIP) for air quality and pollutants like sulfur dioxide covered by the Clean Air Act.331

At the June 20, 1979 hearing in Louisville that was triggered by Carroll’s petition, attendees including Harold Cassidy spoke out against the air pollution monitoring in place at IKEC. Kentucky’s environmental representatives argued IKEC should reduce its emissions and an EPA lawyer contended Kentucky’s “computer model” for tracking air pollution was not accurate. Cassidy was quoted in the Madison Courier,

“This kind of exchange between people who live here and those who rely upon theory and computer readouts is a small example of the irrelevance and nonsense which was spoken at the hearing last night.”332 This type of response to federal representatives of regulatory bodies shows the level of discontent with environmental protection in

328 “Gov. Carroll of Kentucky demands IKEC air cleanup,” Madison Courier, April 27, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vntbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4223%2C524600.

329 Ibid.

330 EPA responds to Carroll’s demand for IKEC cleanup,” Madison Courier, April 30, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wHtbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4193%2C557988 1.

331 Environmental Protection Agency, What is a State Implementation Plan? accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.epa.gov/region1/topics/air/sips/REVISED_WHAT_IS_A_SIP.pdf.

332 “IKEC denies clean air violation, STV questions air monitoring,” Madison Courier, June 21, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QnlbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2446%2C172150. 110

Madison. It also demonstrates that Cassidy’s interest in the anti-pollution fight was not merely academic, but largely connected to locality and a sense of place in the Ohio

Valley. The difficult task of tracking air pollution likely contributed to the sense of disconnect, as the experience of air pollution from a plant shifts with wind patterns, weather, and production. STV would continue to pressure IKEC, even as the utility made efforts to alter its emissions.

Clifty Creek and Hunter’s Bottom were two of a number of coal-fired power plants STV had on its agenda. STV also worked through legal channels to block the

IPALCO Patriot, Indiana coal-fired plant, and the Madison Courier reported that STV

“spent about $10,000 to fight the project before the EPA denied the first application in

1978.”333 Patriot, Indiana was located about 40 miles to the east of downtown Madison and across the Ohio River and a short distance from a Kentucky state park.

The debate over Patriot, and the amount of money placed into the legal fight, demonstrated the complexity of the situation in Madison and the efforts to which local environmentalists would go to stop another coal-fired plant from landing in the area.

Pollution control measures like scrubbers would continue to be an issue in Madison, as managing the existing coal-fired emissions was a problem even if the new plants could be stopped through legal means.

V. Environmental Interventions: Acid Rain, Tall Stacks, and International Consequences

While people in Madison cultivated its identity as a well-preserved small town, it was developing another reputation outside the area. A reporter for the Madison Courier noted in July 1979, the “EPA refers to the Ohio River Valley as the Summer Air

333 “EPA must review stand on IPALCO Switz. Co. Plant,” Madison Courier, August 8, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zXtbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B1ENAAAAIBAJ&pg=5771%2C119371. 111

Pollution Capital of the U.S.”334 In the 1970s, damage to natural environments was blamed on acid pollution that originated from a few sources including coal-fired power plants.335 Acid rain—precipitation resulting from an atmospheric mixture with sulfur dioxide into sulfuric acid—became a major concern in the 1970s as citizens of eastern

Canada, New York and New England began to notice the effects on the environment.

Acid rain and acid damage was a concern regarding the built environment of Madison as well as the local natural environment.336 Efforts made to fix the local situation did not necessarily appease either locals or those living outside Madison.

Local concerns about the power plant concentration and air pollution inspired the

EPA study, Ohio River Basin Energy Study (ORBES) in the late 1970s, an effort that also included regional universities.337 Clifty Creek’s long history in Madison also had a central role in inspiring the ORBES study, as did the city’s image. In a discussion of its

334 “EPA withdraws construction permits for 3 Wise’s Landing units,” Madison Courier, July 17, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VXlbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=- FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4163%2C4561587.

335 For reflections on acid rain’s long-range effects in the Adirondacks, see: Jerry C. Jenkins, Karen Roy, Charles Driscoll, and Christopher Buerkett, Acid Rain in the Adirondacks: An Environmental History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Paperbacks, 2007).

336 STV members made comments about the potential destructive influence of acid precipitation on Madison’s brick buildings. For a discussion of acid rain’s effects on historical architecture and sculpture, see: Elaine McGee, Acid Rain and Our Nation’s Capital, (Eastern Publications Group Web Team: July 21, 1997), accessed March 24, 2014, http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/acidrain/.

337 ORBES was a comprehensive study of the Ohio River Basin area. Originally focused on the Cincinnati to Louisville region, the study eventually stretched from Illinois to Pennsylvania and provided a comparative picture of experiences across the region. Save The Valley and other activists in the Madison area inspired the first part of the study. A collective effort of regional universities—including Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State, and the University of Illinois—this study analyzed economic, social, and other factors facing local people if power plants would be constructed. For ORBES, “The overall study objective is to assess potential environmental, social, and economics of proposed power plants and other energy conversion facilities on a major portion of the Ohio River Basin.” James J. Stukel and Boyd J. Keenan, ORBES Phase I: Interim Findings; Interagency Energy-Environment Research and Development Program Report, EPA-600/7-77-120 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1977), v and Appendix E.

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“Study Origins,” ORBES researchers noted, “Madison is characterized as a living museum of nineteenth-century architecture.”338

In the late 1970s, Clifty Creek faced major changes as the plant was renovated and rezoned. In 1977, the decision was made for Jefferson County and Madison to issue some bonds to support Clifty Creek’s pollution technology, “over strenuous objections by

Save the Valley,” and for the city of Madison to annex the plant.339 IKEC installed new electro-static precipitators to reduce “the particulate matter” and built bigger smokestacks or “tall stacks” to push sulfur dioxide higher so “presumably less of the pollution would enter the Madison area.”340 Clifty Creek’s new stacks altered the height at which emissions left the plant and when completed in 1980 the stacks stood 984 feet high.341

Tall stacks were not the only choice for pollution control at the time, and everyone did not agree they qualified as an environmental control.342 Scrubbers, more formally “flue gas desulfurization (FGD),” removed sulfur dioxide from stack gases with use of a substance such as “wet slurry of limestone [placed] into a large chamber where the calcium in the limestone reacts with the SO2 in the flue gas.”343 Scrubbers provided an

338 Stukel and Keenan, ORBES PHASE I: INTERIM FINDINGS, 105.

339 Wayne Engel, “Bond okay sparked annexation: Of IKEC property by Madison,” Madison Courier, March 31, 1979, A1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qXtbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2270%2C697728.

340 Ibid.

341 “Those old stacks will soon be coming down at IKEC,” Madison Courier, May 23, 1980, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5nRbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4447%2C327511 1.

342 The ORBES report summarizes the history of Madison and IKEC, and included the note, “high stacks are not an adequate abatement mechanism.” Stukel and Keenan, ORBES PHASE I: INTERIM FINDINGS, 104-106.

343 For a brief discussion of scrubbers, see: Duke Energy, “Sulfur Dioxide Scrubbers,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.duke-energy.com/environment/air-quality/sulfur-dioxide-scrubbers.asp. American 113

alternative to tall stacks. In 1977, the Clean Air Act was amended, and held pre-1970 power plants to the new standards only if operators made “major modification” of the plant, and reflected the assumption that older power plants would eventually go offline.344

This meant plants like Clifty Creek did not have to make major pollution control improvements and the tall stacks were built.

Having new stacks reaching almost 1,000-feet in the air changed the looks of

Madison as it altered local experiences of living with Clifty Creek Power Plant.

Madison’s Mayor Warren Rucker spoke at a panel at the University of Kentucky in 1979 and made clear his views on the visual effects of the new stacks: “Smokestacks are not compatible with Madison’s federal, regency, classic, revival, and Americanized Italian villa architecture, nor is the SO2 emission compatible with our health.”345 Rucker said of the tall stacks, “Although these do not take out the SO2 from the air, everything looks prettier.”346 Rucker said the early days of Clifty Creek were like “Prince Charming” had

Electric Power, an investor in a number of Ohio Valley power plants, pursued tall stacks over scrubbers, in order to manage air quality near coal-fired power plants. AEP ran a series of ads in 1974 to criticize environmentalists’ call for scrubbers and to push for the use of coal during the oil crisis, including a series of cartoons depicting racial caricatures of Arab men. S. Prakash Sethi, Advocacy advertising and large corporations: social conflict, big business image, the news media, and public policy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Press, 1977). The company’s resistance to scrubbers was noted in major papers. “Clean Air and the Scrubber,” Washington Post, May 19, 1974, C6; “Hot vs. Clean Air,” The New York Times May 8, 1974, 44. E.W. Kenworthy, “Donald Cook vs. E.P.A.: Wide Open Clash Over Coal and Clean Air,” The New York Times, November 24, 1974, 169. All newspaper articles: ProQuest.

344 This is a clear summary of the programs established in the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, that uses the term “grandfathered” to relate to aging coal fired power plants: Deepa Varadarajan, “Billboards and Big Utilities: Borrowing Land-Use Concepts To Regulate ‘Nonconforming’ Sources Under the Clean Air Act,” The Yale Law Journal 112 (2003): 2553-2589, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/112-8/VaradarajanFINAL.pdf.

345 Warren Rucker, “Presentation #2,” in Three Mile Island and Marble Hill, ed. Ann-Marie and Ernest J. Yanarella (University of Kentucky, October 1979), 18.

346 Ibid., 18.

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shown up, but in the 1970s it was found he had “bad breath”—sulfur dioxide.347 In a place like Madison, the benefits of the tall stacks could be debated on more than one level, as the environmental movement in the city was not only based on concerns about public health. The merging of concerns about public health and environmental quality— both related to environmental health and image—made the situation in Madison typical of an environmental protest in a wealthier, more urban setting.

For STV, the reality of tall stacks did not make the environment any better. A group of STV members had argued in 1975 against tall stacks during a meeting with health officials. STV provided arguments that the geography of Madison, which includes

“high bluffs,” made it difficult for stacks to rise above the region and the group members argued that, “emissions from the stacks seldom go straight up, but level out over the country-side and settle to earth.”348 The group’s efforts to protect the local “country-side” would have also helped to protect the region from coming battles over long-range pollution. The stacks, funded in part as an environmental control by the city of Madison, would soon draw protest by those concerned about the new destination of the pollutants.

While the stacks may have eliminated part of the local air pollution problem—and STV debated this benefit—they exacerbated the role Madison played in national air pollution.

VI. The View From the Stacks: A Local Problem Becomes a National One

From the catwalk on the smokestack, Jeff Pettersen had a bird’s eye view of the

Clifty Creek Power Plant 600-some feet below, the city of Madison to the east, and the

347 Yanarella, Three Mile Island and Marble Hill, 16-17.

348 Steve White, “Save The Valley group assured by state officials of access to pollution facts,” Madison Courier, January 31, 1975, 1.

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Clifty Inn, where he spoke over radio to fellow members of Greenpeace.349 The 28-year old with a ponytail and mustache cut a much different figure than dapper Frank Sinatra had in 1957, and was described as “a very friendly talkative sort of person,” from

Illinois.350 In February 1982, when Pettersen made his way up, the smokestack was no longer operational. Pettersen had a banner that read: “Your lakes, your farms, your health, your future. The price of indifference. Stop acid rain. Greenpeace.” Pettersen’s sign was unfair, as locals in Madison had been hardly expressing “indifference” towards

Clifty Creek and the planned coal-fired power plant concentration. He descended from the stack for “a ‘cold one,’” having achieved his goal of drawing attention to the plant’s emissions.351 Tom Dattilo, who worked with STV as their lawyer, served as Pettersen’s attorney at his hearing.352 The spotlight on Clifty Creek as a contributor to a national, rather than a local, nuisance did not begin with Pettersen’s climb, but this unusual event signified a changing environmental discussion.

The differences between the local perspective on air pollution and national perspectives were illustrated clearly in Madison’s visit from Greenpeace. STV and HMI

349 Greenpeace, characterized as an “alternative” environmental group by Robert Gottlieb, originated in 1971. Robert Gottlieb, Forcing The Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993), 192. In 1984, Greenpeace activists skydived from the Gavin Power Plant along the Ohio River in Ohio. Carey Murphy and Lea Prainsack, “Cheshire & the Gavin Plant: three decades of coexistence,” accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.cheshiretransaction.com/town/sub/cngtown.html.

350 Clifty Creek’s plant manager Everett Schwarm voiced his concerns about Pettersen’s post: “I feel he is in very much danger.” “Greenpeace climber is still atop IKEC stack,” Madison Courier, February 10, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=57lJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jhANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4678%2C961367. Bob Demaree, “One Greenpeace climber still on IKEC stack; other jailed, released,” Madison Courier, February 9, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5rlJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jhANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3159%2C849898.

351 Bob Demaree, “IKEC stack climber comes down; arrested,” Madison Courier, February 11, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6LlJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jhANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4706%2C1212704.

352 Ibid. 116

had Madison’s community at the heart of their anti-power plant actions, and STV also paid attention to larger environmental problems. The actions of Greenpeace activists represented the intervention of activists with national perspectives on the damaging effects of coal-burning power plants and limited concerns about Madison’s history.

Recognition by Greenpeace put the coal-fired industries on par with whaling and other industries targeted by the radical group.

Pettersen and Stiles, neither of them Indiana or Kentucky residents, intended to

“protest the amount of sulfur emissions at the IKEC plant, which they say causes acid rain.”353 The two were charged with two counts of criminal trespass, and pled guilty to one count for “cost to the taxpayers.”354 Anger came from further away in the early

1980s, as Ontario residents fought weakened standards on Clifty Creek’s emissions in

1981.355 STV’s newsletter in November included similar, local criticism of Clifty Creek’s pollution and a telling quote from Cassidy: “the Clean Air Act does not exist for the

Clifty Creek power plant.”356

The confrontation by Greenpeace made clear that the power plant problem extended far beyond Main Street, though the groundwork set by HMI and STV helped the efforts of other environmental groups like Greenpeace. While STV helped inspire an

353 “Stack climbers get their day in court,” Madison Courier, March 1, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=97lJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jhANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3052%2C3525856.

354 Ibid. Greenpeace members climbed smokestacks to draw attention to acid rain at a coal-fired plant in Coshocton, Ohio in the eastern portion of the state. “5 Greenpeace Protesters Sit On Smokestacks in 3 States,” The New York Times, February 11, 1982, A31, http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/11/us/5- greenpeace-protesters-sit-on-smokestacks-in-3-states.html.

355 “Ontario a voice in wilderness,” The Windsor Star, October 8, 1981, 9, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jOhYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IVIMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1028%2C257388 5.

356 STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley, Inc. 3, no. 5, November 1981. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History. 117

EPA study, the wild actions of Greenpeace could transcend a local conversation and feed into a national conversation. Madison was becoming part of a much different environmental conversation, one connected with acid rain in distant areas and eventually tied to concerns about global warming and climate change. The city was at the center of historic preservation, environmental activism, and rural industrial growth, and its local battles helped larger, international environmental battles. By latching onto social trends in the U.S. where sense of place outweighed industrial growth, the city was an example of how an activist ethic could grow up even on Main Street in the industrial Midwest.

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Chapter Four: Marble Hill and the Failure of a Nuclear Alternative in the Ohio Valley,

1970-1991

Map 4. Map of Madison and Surrounding Area.357

I. Introduction: The Ohio River Turns to Nuclear Power

It was a familiar sight on the banks of the Ohio River. Concrete and steel rose from the ground, with enormous structures reaching through the air. Construction cranes

357 National Atlas of the United States, March 1, 2014, http://nationalatlas.gov. 119

arched over the structures, and trailers lined the site. While Clifty Creek Power Plant stood on display for all in downtown Madison to admire, the construction site of the

Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station was tucked away from prying eyes on a rural stretch miles out of town. Even in quiet Jefferson County, Indiana, Marble Hill was distanced from larger communities, its roads created to connect the site to local infrastructure and its complex of reactors, containment buildings, and cooling towers designed to be mostly hidden from sight. Despite its hidden nature, Marble Hill was to become as prominent as Clifty Creek among environmental activists.

While Kentucky and Ohio both housed massive uranium enrichment sites, only

Ohio had an operating nuclear power plant in the early 1970s. Indiana had no operating nuclear power plants, nor did Kentucky.

Public Service Indiana (PSI) was the major investor in Marble Hill. Northern

Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), another large utility, invested in and planned to buy Marble Hill’s electricity, rural cooperative East Kentucky Power

Cooperative planned to buy eight percent of Marble Hill’s electricity, and rural cooperative Wabash Valley Power Association (WVPA) seven percent.358 None of the utilities invested in Marble Hill had nuclear power experience.

Despite this inexperience, PSI was one of a number of utilities pursuing nuclear power in the 1970s. The major factor behind the expansion of nuclear power was the idea that it was the cheaper fuel in the long run, even considering the higher initial price to

358 The announcement of Marble Hill followed the announcement of NIPSCO’s Bailly nuclear power plant along Lake Michigan in northern Indiana. “Second company says Marble Hill plans not final,” Madison Courier, October 23, 1976, 1.

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build nuclear power plants.359 Energy generation in the U.S. was still dominated by fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas, and oil, and supplemented by hydroelectric power, but the consensus remained that nuclear would soon control a large market share.

Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station was presented as a clean energy alternative, in order to appeal to locals concerned about air pollution in the Ohio Valley.

PSI president Walter J. Matthews trumpeted the benefits of nuclear energy relative to fossil fuels when the company announced its intentions to build a station in either

Jefferson or nearby Switzerland County, Indiana: “We are very much aware of the local unpopularity of a coal-fired plant in Madison. Nuclear-fueled generating stations, on the other hand, have no smokestacks. They are clean, noiseless, and demonstrably safe.”360

The combination of rural land and a huge water supply in the Ohio River made this section of the Ohio Valley logical for nuclear development. Nuclear power plants needed a large and steady supply of water for cooling, leading to plant sites on the

Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, along the Great Lakes, and along rivers like the Ohio River.

Rural areas with proximity to cities, such as Marble Hill, proved to be marketable to utilities looking for nuclear sites.361 In the 1970s, the “’NRC siting regulations require, ‘A

359 As noted in one of PSI’s information booklets on Marble Hill, “uranium fuel enjoys a three-to-one cost advantage over coal.” From: Public Service Indiana, “nuclear progress in indiana,” marble hill on the move. Box# 1 7-6: Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant. Manuscript Collection MC-0069. Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives.

360 “Switzerland County: PSI president announces major generating plant to be built,” Madison Courier, April 17, 1973, 1.

361 The current list of nuclear power plants and reactors in the U.S. reinforces this image of distant, but still close, nuclear power plants: United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, List of Power Reactor Units, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/list-power-reactor-units.html. Like the 1950s development of the Ohio River Valley, the nuclear power industry developed in areas close to large- scale development, but often in the outskirts. In neighboring Ohio, the Davis-Besse plant was under construction in the early 1970s near the small village of Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, west of Toledo and east of the small industrial city of Sandusky. For a study of this plant, see: Thomas R. Wellock, “A History of Controversy and Opposition to the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station” (MA Thesis, University of Toledo, 121

judgment to be made during the regulatory process and to the proper balance between engineered safety features and distance from population centers.’”362 Marble Hill fit this bill, with low population density in the direct vicinity and miles of distance to greater

Louisville.

Despite all of these assets, Marble Hill faced resistance locally, regionally, and nationally in the 1970s and 1980s. This chapter looks at the construction of Marble Hill within a context of change in nuclear regulations, the nuclear industry, and in attitudes toward nuclear power. Beginning with the plant’s announcement, section two follows the early reactions to Marble Hill in Madison. In section three, the state of U.S. nuclear power in the early and mid 1970s is discussed. Next, section four follows Marble Hill’s construction and the local reactions to it from 1974 to 1978. The fifth section deals with the influence of Three Mile Island on the nuclear industry and Marble Hill in particular.

Section six follows the shutdown of Marble Hill. The conclusion considers the relationship between nuclear and coal developments in the Ohio Valley in the 1980s.

Not just another plant in the Ohio Valley, Marble Hill represented a shift in direction in power plant development. Because of the air pollution problems associated with coal power, the nuclear powered-Marble Hill began with a buffed reputation that it lost over a series of economic, environmental, and social disputes.

1989). Urban plans for power plants included the notorious proposal by Consolidated Edison to locate a plant in Queens, New York. Andy Newman, “New York’s Nuclear Future That Might Have Been,” The New York Times City Room Blog, April 13, 2011, accessed March 23, 2014, http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/when-con-ed-wanted-a-nuclear-plant-in-the-heart-of- nyc/?_r=0.

362 Richard Lee Elder, “The Impact of Nuclear Power Facility Siting on Community Planning—A Case Study of the Zimmer Nuclear Site,” (MCP Thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1985), 37. He is citing: Atomic Energy Commission, et al., Considerations Affecting Steam Power Plant Site Selection, sponsored by the Energy Policy Staff, Office of Science and Technology, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 20.

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II. In the “Boonies”: Nuclear Power atop Marble Hill

The area of Saluda Township carved out for the Marble Hill Nuclear Generating

Station was a rural space 10 miles from Madison and 25 miles from Louisville,

Kentucky. Its name came from its earlier occupation—Marble Hill was a former marble quarry, with its product sent for use in a variety of buildings in Indiana. During its heyday in the mid-19th century, marble from Marble Hill’s quarry was used to build the Jefferson

County Courthouse in Madison.363 This history did not go unnoticed by PSI. “We like the historical link between early enterprise in the area and a new and efficient energy source” and the plant’s “rock-solid base,” a local PSI manager said in November 1973.364 This statement would prove to be ironic, as the ground underneath Marble Hill Nuclear

Generating Station might have been literally solid but was anything but solid figuratively.

Taking advantage of that “rock-solid base” meant rearranging the rural riverside patch of Saluda Township. PSI, like OVEC and the AEC in the early 1950s, needed to displace a small number of people to serve a larger number of people.365 PSI listed only

17 residents to be displaced by the plant, located on 800 acres within the Southwestern

School District in western Jefferson County, and only an additional 72 living within a

363 “Proposed N-plant to be called ‘Marble Hill,’” Madison Courier, November 26, 1973, 1. “NRC staff indicates N-Plant okay,” Madison Courier, August 7, 1976, 1. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) reasons for accepting the site included “nominal growth” and low population density in the surrounding area.

364 Ibid., 1.

365 PSI was headquartered in Plainfield, a town southwest of Indianapolis, and served a number of rural areas with electricity. Chairman Carroll Blanchar emphasized PSI’s business “in strengthening the rural areas of the State for years because much of its business is in small rural communities.” Carroll Blanchar, Indiana and the Electric Age: The Story of Public Service Indiana (April 10, 1969, Newcomen lecture), 26.

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mile.366 PSI leadership promised Marble Hill would be largely unseen: “partially hidden by existing trees and shrubs and will not be visible from the Ohio River or from any major highway or population center.”367 One letter writer in the local newspaper cited a

PSI source calling the area around Marble Hill the “boonies.”368 Just as the rural nature of the coal-fired power projects had rankled locals as much as it appealed to utilities, the rural setting of Marble Hill would prove controversial.

As with any large industrial project, Marble Hill would cause changes for nearby residents, local schools and the local economy, and PSI representatives met with the school leaders to discuss these possible disruptions to the area.369 PSI leadership made it clear that the plant would improve the regional economy and promised the same type of tax revenue increase as Clifty Creek, and little “burden on the local governmental services.”370 The plant was located in the boundaries of the Southwestern School District, and so that district would reap the most benefits of property taxes. The district debated a

366 “Details on PSI’s proposed nuclear plant: Marble Hill reports to be at library,” Madison Courier, July 9, 1975, 1. PSI acquired the land for Marble Hill from a number of different farmers, but acquisition did not always prove simple. PSI sued Donald and Phyllis A. Chambers in a “condemnation action” for the last piece of Marble Hill land. See: Harold Cassidy, “White Paper XXIII Marble Hill,” 47. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

367 Marble Hill reports to be at library,” Madison Courier, July 9, 1975, 1.

368 “Letter to the Editor,” Madison Courier, August 11, 1976, 4.

369 “PSI discusses Marble Hill plant plans.” The potential impact of Marble Hill on Jefferson County was studied by Ohio River Basin Energy Study (ORBES) researchers—as part of a larger study of Ohio Valley plants—finding “positive and negative socioeconomic impacts associated with power plant development,” and a peak of construction employment at Marble Hill hitting 2,154 in 1980. The report did not anticipate housing shortages related to Marble Hill’s construction in Jefferson County, a finding that indicates population growth in the region was not anticipated. See: Steven I. Gordon and Anna S. Graham, Site- Specific Socioeconomic Impacts: Seven Case Studies in the Ohio River Basin Energy Study Region, ORBES, (Washington D.C.: Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1979), 43, 77, 50.

370 “Switzerland County: PSI president announces major generating plant to be built,” Madison Courier, April 17, 1973, 1.

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number of issues related to improvements and building growth in the 1970s, including dealing with “an overcrowded elementary school” and making plans about what to do with the potential Marble Hill property tax boost.371 The added property tax benefits from

Marble Hill had greater effects in a rural district without other major forms of property tax support like large corporations.372

III. Nuclear Energy in the 1970s

The booming nuclear industry had certain advantages. The 1957 Price-Anderson

Act limited liability of private industries building nuclear power plants in the event of an accident.373 The prevailing notion that nuclear was the future of energy, along with projections of increased energy usage, led many utilities to undertake nuclear projects, even if like PSI they had no previous experience running a nuclear power plant. Utilities building nuclear plants in 1973 included Long Island Lighting Company (Shoreham),

Pacific Gas & Electric (Diablo Canyon), and upstate from Madison, Northern Indiana

Public Service Corporation (NIPSCO’s Bailly Nuclear Power Plant).374 Some of these plants predated the regulatory shift in 1973 that replaced the Atomic Energy Commission

(AEC) with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

371 Susan Felt, “SW moves to ease overcrowding,” Madison Courier, March 28, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pntbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5466%2C9540.

372 Ibid. The rural district had just “1,792 students” in the “1978-1979” school year.“

373 Joseph G. Morone and Edward J. Woodhouse, The Demise of Nuclear Energy? Lessons for Democratic Control of Technology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 56.

374 Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo, California, Shoreham on Long Island, Seabrook in New Hampshire, and Maine Yankee near Portland, Maine all made the news because of aggressive anti-nuclear protests nearby and licensing, financing, operation, and construction problems. For further reading on nuclear protest in this era, see: John Wills, Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2006).

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The year 1973 would be one of the peaks in the nuclear industry in the U.S.

According to the American Physical Society, “all orders placed after 1973 have been canceled. Thus, virtually all operating U.S. nuclear power plants were ordered in the

1965-1973 period.”375 While the coal-fired expansion in the Ohio Valley was related to the region’s proximity to resources and its proximity to major utility networks, the nuclear expansion in the Valley was part of a national push toward nuclear energy and a peak period of enthusiasm for the industry. The utilities already at work in Ohio and

Indiana found nuclear to be a potentially cheaper form of fuel.

This period of major growth was tempered by a shift in regulation at the federal level. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had long come under fire for its agenda and actions as both the licensing and regulatory agency for nuclear power. In 1974, the

Energy Reorganization Act created the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), to separate nuclear regulation and promotion of the industry. NRC started in 1975 and shared its duties with Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). In the case of Marble Hill, local and non-local observers took the NRC to task over its choice of rural site, the evacuation plans set for the site, and its oversight of the utilities and private companies building the plant.376

During the process of planning and constructing Marble Hill, NRC representatives visited Madison for licensing hearings, safety hearings, and safety

375 American Physical Society, “Nuclear Energy Fission: Status of nuclear power: United States,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/energy/fission.cfm.

376 The new Nuclear Regulatory Commission continued to be dogged by criticism similar to that which faced the Atomic Energy Commission. For an example from this era, see Union of Concerned Scientists, Safety Second: The NRC and America’s Power Plants (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987).

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inspections. Environmental activists and others who grew increasingly concerned about the safety of the Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station criticized NRC as many activists had critiqued the AEC. Distrust of federal regulators was not surprising, though it was an additional frustration to environmentalists already familiar with lack of local and state intervention. This nuclear plant was going under construction during an era of tremendous growth in the nuclear industry, but its difficult path to construction mirrored problems endemic in the process of constructing nuclear power plants in the 1970s. The changes in regulations at the federal level did not completely doom plants like Marble

Hill, and the path of coal-fired plants in this section of the Ohio Valley demonstrated that construction delays were not just a nuclear-related situation.377

IV. Building Marble Hill: 1974-1978: Progress, Reaction, and Concerns

Marble Hill faced regulatory hurdles, public scrutiny, and opposition from neighboring Kentucky during its construction. From 1974 to 1978, PSI pushed the project through regulatory hearings and faced an increasing local displeasure with its major nuclear project.

In order to construct the nuclear plant, Public Service Indiana needed to submit its environmental impact statement and acquire proper licensing and construction permits.378 It also needed to court favor in Madison. PSI made efforts to work with the

377 J. Samuel Walker notes Philip Sporn’s early concerns with the abilities of nuclear to compete with so many regulations, and Sporn was one of the most capable at speaking realistically about nuclear energy’s path versus coal. J. Samuel Walker, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 418.

378 Public Service Indiana, “nuclear progress in Indiana,” in marble hill on the move. Box#1 7-6: Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant. Manuscript Collection MC-0069. Jefferson County Historical Society Research Library and Archives. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) originated with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which “requires that projects that may significantly affect the quality of the human environment must have” one. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Zimmer Conversion Project Clermont County, Ohio (Louisville: U.S. Army Engineer District, August 1986), 1. 127

local community through education and by tapping into Madison’s most agreeable commodity—historic buildings. PSI built an information center in downtown Madison called “Heritage Square,” converting a gas station into a Greek revival-style building.

The company intended for the information center to educate people about nuclear energy and “the wealth of historical, architectural, and natural beauty of the Madison-Jefferson

County area.” 379 PSI used the local Madison Courier newspaper to spread information about Marble Hill, running ads to counter the fears of nuclear power. The efforts exerted by PSI indicate the company’s recognition of the carefully maintained image Madison had crafted.

PSI had another challenge, in keeping favor with locals already hostile to new power plant developments. Save The Valley, in a July 1, 1975 Newsletter, stated opposition to the plant based on financial concerns: “STV is opposed to the Public

Service Indiana request to increase its rates based on that portion of the rate which is for construction of a nuclear facility at Marble Hill”—and because of a general push against

“any single, given entity within the entire picture of a concentration of power plants between Lawrenceburg, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky.”380 This early opposition showed the economic and general anti-power plant contentions the group held against the coal-fired power plants planned for the area, rather than a specific anti-nuclear sentiment.

This stance began to evolve as more information was gathered on nuclear power.

Save The Valley requested a delay in the public hearings regarding Marble Hill’s

379 “PSI nuclear info center completed,” Madison Courier, January 15, 1976, 12 and “PSI changes building design” Madison Courier, June 5, 1975, 1.

380 “Marble Hill Nuclear Plant,” STV Forum, July 1, 1975, 3. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

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environmental impact statement (EIS) in January 1976.381 In the group’s March 1976 newsletter, president Shirley Clark wrote, “I feel there is a growing awareness in our area of the myriad problems connected with the introduction of a nuclear plant.”382 Save The

Valley and Save Marble Hill, another local environmental group, formed the Marble Hill

Nuclear Educational Council which would “work toward educating the public about the hazards of nuclear power and will promote clean, safe energy and a healthy environment.”383 This fear of the unknown set the anti-nuclear sentiments apart from the anti-coal arguments—coal was a known problem.

PSI accentuated the positive effects of nuclear later that year. In October, PSI’s chairman, Hugh Barker, told a gathering of area business leaders, “It’s a human reaction to fear things we don’t know much about, but the dangers of not going with nuclear power greatly exceed dangers of going with nuclear power,” and he emphasized the economic importance of nuclear energy.384 STV leaders argued that the plant would result in doubling or tripling of electric bills, while PSI argued that environmental groups delaying the plant outside of “the normal regulatory process” presented “a direct attack on energy consumers.”385Not simply a dispute over adding industry to the area, the two sides clearly articulated the economic challenges of going with or going without nuclear power.

381 “STV asks for PSI hearing delay,” Madison Courier, January 24, 1976, 1.

382 “President’s Letter,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley, Inc., 3, 1 (March 1976). Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

383 “2 area groups join nuclear plant fight,” Madison Courier, April 1, 1976, 1.

384 Steve White, “Area business, industry leaders hear PSI plans,” Madison Courier, October 14, 1976, 1.

385 “Effects of delaying Marble Hill outlined,” Madison Courier, October 13, 1976, 1.

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In December, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety & Licensing

Board held pre-hearing meetings in Madison. Groups and individuals could petition to be

“intervenors,” the NRC’s title for those allowed to intervene and take part in the NRC hearings, in order to get views out about the Marble Hill plant. The NRC process was not trusted by all of the activists. One of the intervenors, STV member Harold Cassidy, said:

“We are led to conclude from these observations of the behavior of responsible people that these laborious, expensive and time-consuming hearings are fundamentally a process of passing from a pre-determined premises to foregone conclusion.”386 Suspicion of the

NRC continued across the 1970s and 1980s.

This suspicion of being saddled with an unwanted plant was complemented by the sense that taking on this type of project was less profitable than other industries. In

January 1977, STV member Robert Gray argued for a different type of regional industrial growth: “We’re trying to point the way to clean, high level per plant employment industry.”387 Rather than fully blocking industrial growth to maintain farmland, Gray emphasized being selective about industry and making sure to take on industry that kept locals working. A red flag was raised on Marble Hill as utilities NIPSCO withdrew from the project in January and Eastern Kentucky in February 1977.388

386 Steve White, “NRC holds final pre-hearing session: On Proposed Marble Hill nuclear plant,” Madison Courier, December 2, 1976, 1.

387 Greg Hoard, “PSI, Save the Valley disagree on plants near Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, January 8, 1977, 1. Grote Manufacturing’s head, Walter Grote Jr., was a board member of HMI. “HMI Has Growth in 10th Year,” Madison Courier, March 25, 1971, 1.

388 Steve White, “Possible pullout of NIPSCO may delay, alter Marble Hill plans,” Madison Courier, October 22, 1976, 1, “Second company says Marble Hill plans not final” Madison Courier, October 23, 1976, 1, “Percentage changes made in PSI plant,” Madison Courier, January 21, 1977, 1, and “Kentucky power group said to be backing out of Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, February 9, 1977, 1.

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Intervenors had their chance in spring 1977. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held public hearings on the environmental effects of Marble Hill in March 1977 and safety hearings in April 1977 before the NRC’s Atomic Safety & Licensing Board in

Madison.389 Full intervenors in the hearings had “the authority to interrogate witnesses and raise questions at the hearings,” and included the city of Madison, Jefferson County,

Kentucky, the city of Louisville, and two combined sets of intervenors, Save The Valley and Save Marble Hill, and Audubon and other environmental groups.390

The intervenors based questions on the Marble Hill environmental report created by PSI.391 At the hearings, intervenors aired concerns about the consequences of the nuclear plant on the local social and physical environment. Madison Mayor Warren

Rucker discussed the lack of tax benefits for the city of Madison, and Madison Police

Chief Louis Burkhardt testified that criminal offenses around bars would likely increase with construction. Other topics of debate included the effects on the Southwestern School

District and the potential tornado threat to Marble Hill.392 STV’s Harold Cassidy argued in the hearings that Marble Hill’s steam and local coal plants’ exhaust would combine to cause acid rain.393

389 “Marble Hill hearings resume today,” Madison Courier, April 18, 1977, 1, “Big Marble Hill Hearing Set For February 15,” STV Forum, December 1976, 3. Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Save The Valley Records, Local History.

390 “Louisville wants more say during M. Hill hearing,” Madison Courier, August 17, 1976, 1. “Marble Hill hearings will begin tomorrow,” Madison Courier, March 7, 1977, 1.

391 Public Service Indiana, “marble hill nuclear generating station units 1 and 2 environmental report: construction permit stage, volume 1.” Hanover College—Duggan Library, Save the Valley records.

392 “Local officials testify in Marble Hill hearings,” Madison Courier, March 10, 1977, 1 and 16, “Possible tornado danger to Marble Hill aired,” Madison Courier, March 11, 1977, 1, and “PSI hearings end 1st week; resume Tuesday,” Madison Courier, March 12, 1977, 1.

393 “Effects of cooling tower plumes debated at Marble Hill hearing,” Madison Courier, March 17, 1977.

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The Commonwealth of Kentucky and other Kentucky-based intervenors opposed the plant because it used the Ohio River for a discharge pipe, despite Kentucky’s control of the waters of the Ohio River. A Supreme Court Case, “Ohio vs. Kentucky,” involved debating the low water mark set in 1792 to define the states’ borders.394 Like Ohio,

Indiana did not control the waters of the Ohio River. Opposing sides agreed that, “only the U.S. Supreme Court has authority to decide the question of state jurisdiction in the

Ohio River.”395 This issue over a wastewater pipe highlighted the difficulty of operating these power plants—both those living on the same side of the river and those across the

Ohio had to deal with environmental changes, by changes to the rural surroundings, and steam clouds in the air.

There was also the question of whether smoke should be in the air. Kentucky’s representatives encouraged the utility to shift from nuclear to coal.396 As the nation’s leading coal producing state, Kentucky had numerous anti-Marble Hill residents, including Kentucky Attorney General Robert F. Stephens and Louisville Mayor Harvey

Sloane.397 Kentucky Governor Julian Carroll did not support nuclear power or the Marble

Hill project. Carroll wanted Marble Hill to burn Kentucky’s coal, and had concerns about

394 “More opposition!: Sloane, Hollenbach will fight nuclear power plant” Madison Courier, July 8, 1976.

395 “Marble Hill: Kentucky judge blocks construction,” Madison Courier, January 26, 1977, 1, “Kentucky challenging permit to build Marble Hill plant,” Madison Courier, August 16, 1978, 1.

396 Howard Fineman, “Should Marble Hill be built?” Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, July 17, 1977.

397 Ibid.

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using the Kentucky-controlled Ohio River for transport of wastes.398 Kentucky in 1984 passed restrictive legislation on nuclear power plants regarding waste.399

Other issues arose around PSI’s Marble Hill site. The utility came under fire for earlier improvements made to Route 100S near the plant, as PSI had given funds to

Jefferson and Clark Counties for the $1.3 million used by the counties to improve the road.400 This construction was under debate in 1977 and by May, the “NRC has charged

PSI with prematurely building an access road to the site.”401 This did not stop the Marble

Hill project, and progress continued in 1977.

In July 1977, the NRC issued a report that claimed Marble Hill “can be built

‘without undue risk (sic) to the health and safety of the public.’”402 Not shying away from the local disputes, that same month PSI invited local business, school, and labor leaders to form a nuclear council to keep tabs on Marble Hill’s progress.403 In August 1977, PSI received a limited work authorization to begin light tasks.”404 In December 1977, PSI

398 Carroll garnered criticism, as have a number of Appalachian politicians, for his pro-coal stance in the face of environmental concerns related to the coal industry. See: Eller, Uneven Ground, 249. In Containing the Atom, Walker notes the advantages coal held over nuclear. Walker, Containing the Atom, 33.

399 Kentucky Legislature, 278.605 Construction prohibited until means for disposal of high-level nuclear waste approved by United States government—Exceptions for nuclear-based technologies, Kentucky Revised Statutes, KRS Chapter 278, http://www.lrc.ky.gov/Statutes/statute.aspx?id=40560.

400 For details on the road, see: “Road 100S to nuclear plant to be upgraded,” Madison Courier, August 25, 1976, 1, “Work starts Monday on road to Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, September 10, 1976, page 1, and “Road to Marble Hill may be NRC violation,” Madison Courier, October 21, 1976, 1.

401 Greg Hoard, “Marble Hill hearings adjourn; only road settlement remains,” Madison Courier, May 4, 1977, 1.

402 “NRC report terms Marble Hill safe,” Madison Courier, July 6, 1977, 1. This allowed for jobs like “clearing and excavating, laying new rail and power lines, and building construction warehouses

403 “PSI establishing nuclear council,” Madison Courier, July 30, 1977, 1.

404 “PSI has not received limited work authorization: but has men, equipment standing by,” Madison Courier, August 24, 1977, 1 and “Marble Hill site work is okayed by NRC,” Madison Courier, August 25, 1977, 1. 133

received its second limited work authorization, and full-scale construction began in spring 1978 with 1,000 workers at the site and an anticipated 2,200 workers and 150 permanent staff.405

PSI was not without its friends. The utility had an ally in Indiana Governor Otis

Bowen.406 Bowen was quoted in an environmentalist newsletter saying, “What is ignored in the legitimate discussion about the role of safety devices in nuclear power is any broad scale look at what happens if we don’t proceed with nuclear power. No one seems to talk about the risks of remaining dependent on OPEC.”407 The timing of Marble Hill allowed for the 1973 oil crisis to be used as a booster for nuclear energy, as the oil crisis was used to bolster coal-fired energy.408

Another politician used the anti-coal sentiment to push Marble Hill. Indiana

Republican U.S. Senator Richard Lugar lent his support to the Marble Hill project at a

Madison Chamber of Commerce-sponsored forum on the plant in March 1978. He pushed for nuclear by calling the coal power plant concentration a “regrettable development,” stating, “coal does illustrate a region of the country can be grievously affected.”409 His disparaging of fossil fuels on the national and local level, in favor of a

405 “Facts about Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, May 3, 1979, B-6, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w3tbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4320%2C624137 2, “Marble Hill construction permit issued,” Madison Courier, April 5, 1978, 1, and “NRC issues 2nd limited work okay to M. Hill,” Madison Courier, December 14, 1977, 1.

406 He was a medical doctor first elected to the Governor’s office in 1972, and his policies included reducing property taxes. Indiana Historical Bureau, Otis R. Bowen, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.in.gov/governorhistory/2336.htm.

407 Ohio Valley Environment 1, no. 3, May 1979 Paddlewheel Alliance folder, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

408 Keenan and Stukel, ORBES Phase I: Interim Findings, 105.

409 “Lugar tells Madison audience he favors Marble Hill plant,” Madison Courier, March 28, 1978, 1. 134

nuclear future, reflected the small window of time that nuclear power enjoyed as a

“clean” alternative to either coal or oil. This enabled utilities to play on environmentalist concerns without encouraging conservation as the only solution—there was a better alternative available.

Fossil fuels aside, an increasing number of environmental activists did not see nuclear energy as that better alternative. Regional anti-nuclear and environmental groups organized with names that spoke to the environments of plant sites, like Abalone,

Clamshell, and in the Kentuckiana area, Paddlewheel. Paddlewheel had local groups in

Indiana and Kentucky, including in Madison, Louisville, and Bloomington.410

Local anti-nuclear activity accelerated as national anti-nuclear groups grew. The

Paddlewheel Alliance held a “die-in” at Heritage Square on June 24, 1978.411 Writer

Wendell Berry joined a number of “prominent and concerned mature citizens from

Kentucky and Indiana” close to “Marble Hill on Sunday, August 6, Hiroshima Day.”412

Protesting Marble Hill on this day sent a different sort of message about the nuclear power plant; associating it with the atomic bomb and the human and environmental destruction it caused made the potential harms seem even more serious. The group, which also included STV’s Harold Cassidy among the 70 who signed a petition, pointed out the

410 For a brief discussion of the Paddlewheel Alliance—and other regional alliances, see: Anna Gyorgy, No Nukes: Everyone’s Guide to Nuclear Power (Boston: South End Press, 1979), 396 and 424-425. Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence, 182. “Antinuclear groups plan to picket Carter at Louisville,” Madison Courier, July 2, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SnlbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=- FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3369%2C2402783.

411 STV Forum, Save The Valley Newsletter July 1978, 5. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

412 “MARBLE HILL: August 6 CITIZENS GROUP PROTESTS MARBLE HILL CONSTRUCTION,” Official Newsletter of SAVE THE VALLEY, INC. November 1978, 1. Save The Valley records, Madison- Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

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safety concerns related to “perilous wastes” from nuclear plants. In early October, police arrested 31 people climbing the construction fence over to the Marble Hill site, where some “marchers from the Bloomington affinity of the alliance planted seedling maple trees, stating they were restoring Marble Hill to its natural state.”413

As Marble Hill construction continued, tensions were rising locally. Though these direct-action efforts provided outward signs that all was not right with Marble Hill, another event soon would show all was not right with the nuclear regulatory system and nuclear energy industry. The rumbles of local discontent around Marble Hill—and the questions of cost and safety—would exacerbate in 1979 because of an event that had nothing to do with the site.

V. Marble Hill in 1979: The Effects of Three Mile Island

One of the most critical events in Marble Hill’s history occurred two states away in Pennsylvania, at the site of another riverside nuclear power plant. On March 28, 1979, the U.S. nuclear industry experienced its biggest disaster. One of the site’s two nuclear reactors “partially melted down” at the Three Mile Island Power Station in Pennsylvania, which led to a release of radiation and evacuation of citizens living near the plant.414 A failed valve, and the efforts of workers to adjust water levels contributed to core melting in the second reactor at the plant.415 For those in the nuclear industry, Three Mile Island

413 “Marble Hill occupation results in 31 arrests,” Madison Courier, October 9, 1978, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LHJbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=1924%2C128729 7.

414 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html. A recent and comprehensive account of the Three Mile Island incident is J. Samuel Walker, Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).

415 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident.

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was the most public sign of failure, and the industry’s image was tarnished considerably.

This was a critical problem for the growing industry: “as of January 1, 1979 there were

72 nuclear power reactors in existence; another 94 were under construction, and 30 were planned for construction.”416 Joseph Tomain, in his economic study of the nuclear energy industry—with case studies on Zimmer and Marble Hill—argued, “TMI caught both the nuclear industry and the NRC unprepared.”417 For those living near Marble Hill, the scary situation in Pennsylvania hit close to home. Marble Hill would be challenged in 1979 by protests, regulations, and by construction failures related to safety.

STV and other groups jumped into action following the Three Mile Island accident. Evacuation orders and radiation exposure hit a nerve in the community. Local activists in Madison, which “included members of the environmental groups Save The

Valley and Paddlewheel Alliance,” organized in response to the Three Mile Island meltdown and held a rally at Heritage Square, the educational center set up by PSI.418

STV’s Robert Gray was quoted, “You’ve been lied to by your own federal government.

I’d like to send you away mad. Go away and do something. We appreciate your coming here to Madison, Indiana. Bless your hearts.”419 At a meeting on April 11, STV hosted

Larry Arnold of anti-nuclear group Three Mile Island Alert and a local of Three Mile

Island’s region, who told “a near-capacity crowd,” that included the mayor, at Madison’s library: “we’ve had so much confusion, we don’t know what to believe. The credibility

416 Elder, “The Impact of Nuclear Power Facility Siting on Community Planning,” 1.

417 Joseph P. Tomain, Nuclear Power Transformation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 61.

418 Tim Martin, “More than 100 protest nuclear plant here,” Madison Courier, April 2, 1979.

419 Ibid.

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has shifted in favor of people who have been saying for years there are risks, that this can happen.”420 Arnold spoke of confusing evacuation orders and faulty plans, and provided a general sense of the unknown. While the coal-fired problems from Clifty Creek were relatively easy to understand, the lack of understanding of nuclear energy and its risks scared people living near existing plants and those in progress, like Marble Hill.

Many people still favored nuclear power, and they had to go into defensive mode in the days, weeks, and months after Three Mile Island. In early May 1979, a PSI vice president and nuclear physicist told the Madison Courier that an incident at Marble Hill was “theoretically possible,” though he reassured that Marble Hill had a different design and said, “our company has established a four-man technical team that has started a full review in depth of the Marble Hill plant’s design and operating areas related to Three

Mile Island.”421

Indiana’s biggest utility remained on the nuclear wagon, as did the state’s most powerful state-level politician. A May 1979 Paddlewheel Alliance publication included a quote from Governor Bowen: “most of the people who oppose projects designed to increase our energy supply frankly, are not interested in mediation. They want to kill off these ventures while pursuing fanciful theories that bear no relationship to real world needs.”422At the May 29 graduation at Hanover College, the lovely red brick campus sitting between Madison and Marble Hill, Bowen spoke about the issue: “The American

420 Susan Felt, “STV gets firsthand description of Three Mile Island situation,” Madison Courier, April 11, 1979, 1 and 12, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sntbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5462%2C233412.

421 “Accident chance ‘very, very small: Marble Hill has newer design,” Madison Courier, May 1, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wXtbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2280%2C573134 2.

422 “Nuclear risk ‘acceptable’ for Hoosiers—Bowen,” Ohio Valley Environment 1, no. 3. May 3, 1979 Paddlewheel Alliance folder. Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History. 138

population has lost its faith in technology. They would substitute a governmental colossus that stands astride everything we do. The key is to unleash the technology that some are trying to hem in.”423 Bowen used the term “flat-earth thinking” to describe those against the new technology, and his words touched on an essential difficulty with the anti-nuclear movement.424 This technology argument allowed the Republican Bowen to stand on the side of progress, while progressive environmental activists stood on the side of stasis.

Marble Hill anti-nuclear activists joined a surge of protests nationwide. On June

3, a day of international anti-nuclear activism, 100 Paddlewheel Alliance protesters moved on the Marble Hill site carrying signs with phrases like, “Don’t Radiate Our Old

Kentucky Home.”425 This “peaceful” protest had the looks of a be-in, with “an abundance of long hair and beards on the demonstrators,” tossing of “sunflower seeds,” and protestors with “musical instruments” who “sat in the field and sang while waiting to be processed.”426

Wendell Berry again took part in the protest. He lived on a Port Royal, Kentucky farm 20 miles away from the Marble Hill site.427 A writer and promoter of natural living,

423 “Bowen discusses energy in address at Hanover,” Madison Courier, May 29, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cHZbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_1ANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2175%2C334193 6.

424 Ibid.

425 For details on these protests, see: John T. McQuiston, “Shoreham Action is One of Largest Held Worldwide: 15,000 Protest L.I Atom Plant; 600 Arrested on L.I. as 15,000 Protest at Nuclear Plant Nuclear Supporter on Hand Governor Stresses Safety Thousands Protest,” The New York Times, June 4, 1979, A1, ProQuest (120820839), and “89 arrested during peaceful demonstration at Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, June 4, 1979, 1.

426 “89 arrested during peaceful demonstration at Marble Hill.”

427 Ibid. 139

Berry was frustrated with the nuclear project and the planned coal-fired plants in the region, and increased industrialization of the Valley. He wrote in an essay, “in the behavior of big technology and corporate power, we can recognize again an exploitive colonialism similar to that of George III.”428 A writer from the Madison Courier noted

Berry’s efforts to prevent protesters from hurting wheat growing where they marched,

“saying it was a natural solar power collector.”429

The 89 people arrested included very few Madison residents. According to a list in the local newspaper, those arrested were primarily Bloomington, Indiana residents.430

That same day a rally gathered along the Ohio River in downtown Madison, replete with anti-nuclear speakers.431 The day of protests in Madison was reported by the Associated

Press, though the numbers at Marble Hill and Madison paled in comparison to numbers of those arrested at the protest of Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham site and the

5,000 gathered “for a day-long Clamshell Alliance rally near Plymouth, Mass.” in reaction to a nearby plant.432 These grassroots protests reflected an interest in environmental protection and preservation, and the wide-scale fears that had developed since Three Mile Island’s accident.

A little over a week after the June 3 protest, Marble Hill’s safety came into question not from an activist, but from a former worker. Charles Cutshall, once a

428 Wendell Berry, “The Reactor and the Garden” in The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009), 161-164.

429 “89 arrested during peaceful demonstration at Marble Hill.”

430 “Here’s list of those arrested,” Madison Courier, June 4, 1979, 1.

431 “More than 400 attend anti-nuclear rally; hear speakers state ideas,” Madison Courier, June 4, 1979, 1.

432 Associated Press, “Thousands Protest Worldwide,” The New York Times, June 4, 1979, ProQuest (120820839). 140

concrete worker at the Marble Hill power plant, gave a signed affidavit to Save The

Valley’s lawyer, Thomas Dattilo, implicating the plant in mismanagement of construction.433 In an article in the Madison Courier, the accusations from Cutshall, who had since left for Texas, were described as related to “honeycombing” in the concrete of containment buildings due to “improperly mixed concrete.”434 According to STV’s newsletter, Cutshall’s admission came “at the suggestion of a member of the Paddlewheel

Alliance.”435 Other workers also passed on statements regarding construction issues to

STV.436 Construction problems included honeycombing concrete in containment buildings, and James Keppler, the NRC regional director, said of Cutshall’s charges:

“Everything Cutshall has said so far has turned out to be true and we don’t take his comments lightly. The NRC investigation will now center on how much Public Service

Indiana knew about the defects, and what it did with that information.”437 The whistleblower at Marble Hill forced construction into a long-term delay.

433 Cassidy, “White Paper XXIII Marble Hill,” 3. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

434 “Former Marble Hill worker alleges faulty concrete work, cover-ups,” Madison Courier, June 13, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=enZbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_1ANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3750%2C552042 8.

435 Under “Accomplishments,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley, Inc. 7, No. 2 (March 1980), 1. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

436 “More faulty concrete work shown to NRC,” Madison Courier, July 10, 1979, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UHlbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=- FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=1883%2C3445663.

437 This included 170 “poorly patched honeycombs on June 28, 1979” in the walls of containment buildings. “HERE IS WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING AT MARBLE HILL THIS SUMMER,” STV Forum: Official Newsletter of Save The Valley, Inc. 6, no. 3 (October 1979), 1. Save The Valley Records, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, Local History. Quote is from: “More faulty concrete work shown to NRC.”

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The NRC stopped “safety-related work” at the site on August 7 and criticized

PSI’s attempts to improve its operation: “PSI has also lost some of its quality people through employee turnover…The organization and its program was no different than what’s in place at other plants, but PSI hasn’t kept up with the implementation of its programs.”438 In late July, it was reported the NRC informed the Justice Department to look into the construction problems; one unit of Marble Hill was “25 percent complete” at the time of the shutdown.439

At a press conference on October 11, 1979, the NRC announced Public Service

Indiana was responsible for poor construction at Marble Hill. An NRC spokesperson said

PSI tried to build Marble Hill like a coal plant and was unprepared to build a nuclear plant: “there were more problems at Madison than anywhere else.”440 The plant faced a series of investigations and hearings prompted by local environmental groups. Politicians like Republican Indiana Congressman Joel Deckard looked into the issue and the Federal

Bureau of Investigation worked with a House subcommittee on an “investigation of alleged conspiracy and cover-up of the construction defects” at Marble Hill.441 In

November, the Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives convened for hearings concerning “Construction Problems at Marble

438 “PSI expecting to resume safety-related work at Marble Hill in March,” Madison Courier, January 17, 1980, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U3hbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2450%2C415867 2. “NRC issues order confirming work stoppage at Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, August 15, 1979.

439 Thomas O’Toole “Problem with Concrete Halts Indiana A-Plant,” Washington Post, July 31, 1979. ProQuest (147038320).

440 Yanarella, Three Mile Island and Marble Hill, 24.

441 Lisa Levitt, “Nuclear: Marble Hill: A Nuclear Watergate May Be in the Making,” Lewiston Sun, August 3, 1979, 16, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rGAgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=v2UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1357%2C551062. “Marble Hill work resumption recommended by NRC staff,” Madison Courier, May 8, 1980

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Hill Nuclear Facility: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Oversight” which addressed the construction issues: “the severity of these problems and the stringency of the NRC’s order suggest that Marble Hill is the Three Mile Island of nuclear construction.”442 The idea that Marble Hill was Three Mile Island made the partially complete nuclear power plant look like a rather terrifying neighbor down the road.

VI. Shutdown

The Marble Hill project saw some brief flashes of hope in 1980, as it dealt with its safety problems and boundary issues. A federal judge ruled against Kentucky’s appeal regarding the discharge pipe in April and in May, the NRC allowed construction to continue, but stationed “an independent engineer” at Marble Hill.443 Indiana’s only other nuclear power project ran into a wall that year, when in August NIPSCO canceled the

Bailly I Nuclear Power Plant.444 Relatively speaking, things were looking up at Marble

Hill. In November a grand jury ruled against “criminal indictments concerning faulty work” at Marble Hill.445

442 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations House of Representatives, Construction Problems at Marble Hill Nuclear Facility: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Oversight, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), 2.

443 “Marble Hill work resumption recommended by NRC staff.” The “U.S. District Court of Appeals, basing on Supreme Court decision that Kentucky territory extends to low water mark of Ohio River as of 1772, upholds construction permit for Marble Hill,” Cassidy, “White Paper XXIII Marble Hill,” 6. Save The Valley records, Madison-Jefferson Public Library, Local History.

444 Vicki Urbanik, “Nuclear plant in the Indiana Dunes? Japan’s crisis brings back memories,” Chesterton Tribune, March 17, 2011, accessed March 23, 2014, http://chestertontribune.com/Environment/317119%20nuclear_plant_in_the_indiana_dun.htm.

445 “PSI expecting to resume safety-related work at Marble Hill in March,” Madison Courier, January 17, 1980, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U3hbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8FANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2450%2C415867 2.

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While things appeared more stable at Marble Hill in early 1982, the political and economic picture surrounding the plant had changed. Supportive Governor Bowen left office in January 1981 and was replaced by Governor Robert D. Orr, a Republican with less faith in nuclear power at Marble Hill. PSI also faced challenges from Indiana’s consumer counselor, L. Parvin Price, who petitioned the Public Service Commission— the governing body over the state’s utilities—regarding Marble Hill after PSI sold part of one of its plants, said it “raises a serious question as to the necessity for such additions to generating capacity.”446 In December, Price encouraged the closure of Marble Hill and pressed for the state to refuse a rate increase to PSI.447 He supported the request of the economically focused Citizens’ Action Coalition, a group organized in Indiana, to stop

PSI from getting a 19 percent rate hike requested to the Public Service Commission.448

The chilly atmosphere surrounding nuclear energy in Indiana was matched in neighboring Ohio. That same month, the Zimmer Nuclear Generating Station down the

Ohio, was stopped mid-construction for an investigation and its investing utilities faced an NRC fine of $200,000.449

If 1982 was a tricky year, 1983 proved a terrible year for Marble Hill and PSI, as costs increased and the value of building a plant seemed diminished. In April the NRC

446 “Consumer counselor questions need for Marble Hill plant,” Madison Courier, April 29, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G8BJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qBANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3522%2C542145 0.

447 “Public Counselor asks halt to Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, December 16, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dcVJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uhANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5741%2C126320 3.

448 Ibid.

449 Associated Press, “Utility is fined $200,000 for flaws in power plant,” Chicago Tribune, November 26, 1981, 5.

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placed another inspector at the plant. PSI’s requested 19 percent rate increase to cover the ballooning cost of Marble Hill was debated at a Public Service Commission hearing in

Clarksville, Indiana. Two hundred attendees heard debates that were clearly in favor of denying the increase. Local politicians like New Albany, Indiana Mayor Robert Real criticized PSI: “There’s just no way the communities and southern Indiana can afford to live here and turn on their lights.”450 Another attendee, Joseph Kasse, said, “We need the payroll every week that comes out of Marble Hill…If it takes a rate increase…that’s what it takes.”451

In November, bad news included PSI’s stock falling 28 percent and PSI letting go

2,500 Marble Hill workers.452 In the days before Christmas a Madison Courier editorial pled, “Let all of us pray a miracle will appear soon.”453 On Christmas Eve, news came that Orr’s task force called for the closure of Marble Hill, set the cost of Marble Hill at

$7.7 billion, and added insult to injury by arguing that coal-fired plants with sulfur dioxide controls would be more cost-effective.454 The rapid decline at Marble Hill reflected the sharply deteriorating health of the nuclear power industry, as well as the severe economic problems faced by PSI.

450 “25 of 26 speak against PSI rate hike,” Madison Courier, October 15, 1982, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Q8JJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=txANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4370%2C435774.

451 Ibid.

452 “Marble Hill work force to be reduced by 2,500,” Madison Courier, November 1, 1983, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rbZJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dxANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5211%2C418608. Jan Carroll, “Marble Hill slowdown causes stock shift,” Madison Courier, November 7, 1983, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=srZJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dxANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4321%2C5103760.

453 “Bad News for Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, December 23, 1983, 4, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qr1JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jxANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2374%2C218165.

454 Fran Richardson, “Orr supports task force on scrapping Marble Hill,” Courier-Journal, December 24, 1983.

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A holiday miracle did not materialize, and instead a post-Christmas nightmare happened on January 3, when PSI laid off 4,250 workers at the Marble Hill site.455 To put the local shakeup into perspective, the city of Madison’s population was not much more than double that number throughout most of its history. Jefferson County, Indiana’s population was 30,419 by the 1980 Census, so the newly unemployed population was a substantial number in the county.456 The county’s unemployment rate, recently reported at 8.3 percent, faced a tremendous shock with its biggest employer cutting employment to thousands and leaving only 148 people employed.457

Fourteen days later, PSI “announced it is scrapping the plant and will need an emergency rate increase to recover some of the $2.5 billion invested in the project.”458

That huge cost for a plant that would never produce electricity was reported to be the highest cost of a canceled nuclear power plant in the U.S.459 Wabash Valley, still an investor in Marble Hill, attempted a few last-ditch attempts to save its investments at the site.460 This included a conversion from nuclear to coal-fired power plant; this was a

455 “Marble Hill work force drops to 148,” Madison Courier, January 4, 1984, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sr1JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jxANAAAAIBAJ&pg=4292%2C1689047.

456 U.S. Bureau of the Census Population Estimates and Population Distribution Branches, Intercensal Estimates of the Resident Population of States and Counties 1980-1989, (March 1992), accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.census.gov/popest/data/counties/totals/1980s/tables/e8089co.txt.

457 “8.3% unemployment rate for county is among lowest,” Madison Courier, October 7, 1983, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mbZJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dxANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5635%2C42045.

458 The company’s stockholders “have lost $750 million as the company’s financial condition deteriorated.” “Emergency caused by Marble Hill,” Madison Courier, January 17, 1984.

459 Jesus Rangel, “Half-Built Indiana Nuclear Plant Abandoned at a $2.5 Billion Cost,” The New York Times, January 17, 1984, A1, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/17/us/half-built-indiana-nuclear-plant- abandoned-at-a-2.5-billion-cost.html.

460 Bloomington Democratic Congressman Frank McCloskey encouraged Governor Orr to move to coal “Conversion to coal at Marble Hill?” Madison Courier, January 28, 1984, 1. “Marble Hill Switch is Called Feasible,” The New York Times, March 28, 1984, D4, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/28/business/marble-hill-switch-is-called-feasible.html. 146

strange proposition in an area already at war with the series of planned coal-fired plants.

It spoke to a growing problem in the region, where Marble Hill joined Bailly, Zimmer and others as halted nuclear projects in the heartland in 1984. In August 1984 the

Chicago Tribune called the “Midwest a graveyard for nuclear power plants.”461

The Midwest was not alone in the nuclear panic of 1983 and 1984. The Tennessee

462 Valley Authority closed its “five licensed reactors… because of safety problems.”

Utilities faced major delays in constructing nuclear power plants across the U.S., all in the wake of Three Mile Island’s frightening accident.

While this message seemed positive—fewer power plants were necessary—this also meant that older power plants fueled by fossil fuels would not be easily replaced by newer, cleaner power plants. In Madison, the concern about Marble Hill’s safety was overshadowed a bit in the days after its cancellation by the massive economic fallout of losing this huge construction project.

The local economy suffered, as local labor and banks hit tough times.463 Many of the plant’s workers came from the area, but those from outside the area found it difficult to stay. Though Madison was located between major cities—Cincinnati and Louisville— it was not close enough to either of these cities to qualify as a bedroom community or to take advantage of those cities’ employment opportunities. Some found employment with

461 Casey Bukro, “Midwest a graveyard for nuclear power plants,” Chicago Tribune. August 28, 1984, A2, ProQuest (176029728).

462 Lee A. Daniels, “Market Place: Nuclear Plants: New Options,” The New York Times, April 9, 1986, D8, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/09/business/market-place-nuclear-plants-new-options.html.

463 PSI had 900 construction workers still employed in January 1984, down from the 8,000 in November 1983, See: Mary Dieter, “PSI pullout all but kills Marble Hill power plant,” Courier-Journal, January 17, 1984.

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companies capitalizing on the newly-displaced labor pool—reports indicated workers were interviewing with Bechtel and other companies immediately following the closure and companies like Georgia Power ran ads in the local papers to entice the workers to transfer, and the Madison Courier offered free classified space for those newly unemployed.464

Madison’s Mayor Markt L. Lytle told the Courier in February, “something positive has happened from this. We’re working together and communicating better. It’s how this city has survived in the past. When something has happened, we’ve worked together. It’s time to put Marble Hill behind us and go forward.”465 Madison was celebrating its 175th birthday in 1984, with or without the new Marble Hill plant.466

The whole area around Madison was affected by the cancellation of the plant.

Dropping land values at Marble Hill threatened the Southwestern School District in western Jefferson County.467 The district started a $7,632,164 “building and expansion program” in 1979.468 In January 1984, the school district’s “assessed valuation figure—

464 John C. Long and Kay Stewart, “Madison will use teamwork to bounce back, officials say,” Courier- Journal, January 17, 1984 and “Need a job: The Courier will help you!,” Madison Courier, January 10, 1984, A1.

465 Steve White, “Madison isn’t a ‘ghost town,’: Lytle: ‘We’re still solid,’” Madison Courier, February 18, 1984, 1-12, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7rNJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aBANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5293%2C226428 7.

466 “175th birthday! Participation is a must,” Madison Courier, February 27, 1984, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9LNJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aBANAAAAIBAJ&pg=5530%2C350624 8.

467 “At Southwestern school board meeting: Marble Hill and snow are prime topics,” Madison Courier, January 11, 1984 and Martha Clancy, “How will Marble Hill affect S’western schools?” The Weekly Herald, January 10, 1984.

468 But, by lowering the property values, the state would have to pay more of the portion of the school’s budget. “Part II: SW schools and Marble Hill: Building, expansion program questioned,” Madison Courier, January 10, 1984, 8.

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the one on which the 1984 budget is based is $150, 202, 070” and “Marble Hill’s assessed valuation makes up $123,027,890 or over three-fourths of that figure.”469

Superintendent Patrick Leahey explained that taxes would likely rise with the end of

Marble Hill, and the state would provide “support” as well as set the “maximum normal levy” to cover costs.470 The high value of power plants—especially 2.6-megawatt nuclear power plants—made them valuable neighbors for schools, particularly rural schools with few private industries to contribute to the local tax base. Pulling the rug out from under the Southwestern Schools, which had taken the controversial path of starting school building before Marble Hill was in operation, meant progress would come at a higher price. The school districts in the direct vicinity of a nuclear power plant needed to deal with potential evacuation plans and safety issues relative to the plant, as well as the added construction traffic and environmental change of a massive facility.

Marble Hill not only left Madison distressed; it left the controlling utilities scarred. Wabash’s loan from the REA loomed in 1984 and the REA pressured the collective to recover the losses through rate increases, but Indiana did not allow this action.471 In 1985, Wabash filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and general manager Edward

P. Martin said, “what has happened to the nuclear industry is a national tragedy, and we are caught up in it.”472 STV and other citizens groups pushed against rate increases and

469 “How will Marble Hill affect S’western schools?”

470 Ibid.

471 Wabash Valley borrowed $530 million from the REA and was “ordered…to seek a rate increase to repay the Marble Hill debt.” The Public Service Commission of Indiana cited the NIPSCO case of 1985 in preventing WVPA from using an increase “by almost 50 percent” to pay for the Marble Hill project. See: “Panel orders NIPSCO to give $54 million back to customers,” Chicago Tribune, January 15, 1987, 9, ProQuest (607266184).

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STV urged Indiana politicians to push for bankruptcy of PSI in lieu of rate hikes.473 PSI settled with the state of Indiana and was able to write off the $2.7 billion Marble Hill cost in 1986, use an emergency 8.2 percent rate increase, get a few breaks on dividend and stock payments, and make a “three-year investment recovery plan,” including a “public auction of non-nuclear materials” to “make as much as $2 million.”474

The fight against Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station succeeded, though it took years for the financial battle to be won by a group made up of STV, the city of Terre

Haute, Indiana, the Citizens Action Coalition and the Industrial Users Group. PSI ratepayers eventually received a refund from the charges of Marble Hill in 1991 totaling

$150 million.475 Cold comfort, perhaps, for those who supported Marble Hill. The decision emphasized the persistence of groups affected by Marble Hill’s closure and the lack of interest in paying for the mistakes of private industry in the 1980s and 1990s.

VII. Conclusion: Staying with Coal in the Valley

Coal was still king in the Ohio River Valley years after it should have ceded its throne to nuclear energy. The decision to go with coal was, not surprisingly, economic, though it was strange that the choice also reflected growing concerns for the

472 “Wabash Power Officer Deals with Bankruptcy,” The New York Times, May 28, 1985, D2, http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/28/business/business-people-wabash-power-officer-deals-with- bankruptcy.html.

473 Gray and Cassidy to Rep. Edward Goble, Indiana, June 27, 1985. Save The Valley Records, Madison- Jefferson County Public Library, Local History.

474 Bill Thornbro, “Marble Hill auction continues,” Madison Courier, October 9, 1985.

475 PSI found itself in some financial difficulties in the 1990s, and eventually merged with Cincinnati Gas & Electric to form Cinergy during the mid-1990s. AP, “PSI asks for 2nd rate hike,” Madison Courier, July 15, 1994, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eMZkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=umcNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4175%2C97891. These companies are now part of Duke Energy, a major electrical holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jennifer Eades, “Save the Valley: Environmental crusade goes on,” Madison Courier, August 29, 1994.

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environment. Utility executives saw the writing on the wall for nuclear power, and at least one emphasized the importance of sticking with the reliable fuel. John C. Brennan of AEP, one of the nation’s largest power companies and a strong presence in the Ohio

Valley region, expressed his views on nuclear power: “It’s really a very easy choice.

Nuclear entails too much risk, and too much delay in selling our ‘product.’”476 AEP had one nuclear plant in Michigan, but committed to coal, and helped convert the Zimmer

Plant from nuclear to coal.477 Brennan’s sentiment was indicative of the growing concerns about nuclear power’s viability in the 1980s, and the trends towards relying on a more familiar source—coal.

The defeat of Marble Hill signaled a shift away from the early Cold War era support of atomic energy and development, but it also signaled an interest in returning to more accessible forms of energy. Accessible, in this case, refers to people’s understanding of the fuel used to manufacture energy, rather than the ease of extracting it.

Decisions to keep nuclear out of the Madison area had little effect on the area’s current coal-fired situation, but rather prevented an alternative from entering the vicinity. The opposition against coal and nuclear projects in this section of the Valley was part of larger national trends emphasizing the hazards related to both sources of energy.

However, the activism only fully blocked the growth of multiple nuclear power plants in the Valley, while coal-fired power plants had already mushroomed across the Ohio

Valley and many areas of the U.S. The interference at this point in nuclear power’s progress meant that energy would continue to come from traditional sources.

476 Steven J. Marcus, “Nuclear Power’s Uphill Battle: Cost Break Is Not Enough,” The New York Times, January 20, 1984, D1, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/20/business/nuclear-power-s-uphill-battle.html.

477 Ibid.

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The continued reliance on coal-burning plants, and the continued production at other nuclear facilities like the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, meant that the

Valley still had strong associations with both coal and nuclear energy. But the consideration of nuclear energy as a more palatable alternative to coal-fired energy seemed to end in the early 1980s, as the rest of the U.S. also turned away from nuclear energy. It is not surprising to see this opposition in an area with such ire towards coal power, though it is surprising that nuclear was not seen as better than coal power at some basic level in the region. The local frustration with power production and fears arising from safety problems and growing costs made Marble Hill seem even more damaging than the existing Clifty Creek. The abandonment of domestic nuclear power in the Ohio

Valley does not seem surprising in retrospect, as the lack of population growth in the region, combined with cheap water transportation and ready availability of coal made expansion beyond the coal-fired industry seem almost impossible in the 1980s. The interaction of the anti-coal fired power plant activity with the anti-nuclear power activity ended up tripping up the nuclear industry more than the coal industry and made strange bedfellows of pro-coal politicians and anti-coal environmentalists. In the ensuing years, environmental forces would make sticking with coal-fired power plants an increasingly difficult task.

Though the Ohio Valley had become a center of the atomic industry in the 1940s and 1950s, coal continued to be the region’s native fuel source. Even as coal mining moved increasingly out of the eastern fields into Wyoming and other western states, coal- fired power plants dominated in the Ohio Valley.

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Meanwhile, the 1980s brought increasing problems for the domestic nuclear power industry, with the last nuclear projects ordered in 1978, and power plants in neighboring states reaching incredible costs if they actually were completed. Indiana, along with industrial neighbor Ohio, relied largely on fossil fuels for energy production with few hopes of abating its emissions aside from losing the need for productivity and updating existing plants.

The failure of Marble Hill to replace the older power plants along the Ohio River, or to lead to a shift from coal, marked an end to one thread of the early Cold War enthusiasm in the Ohio Valley. The development of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion

Plant and the OVEC power plants had inspired faith in the ability of coal to bring nuclear technology to the masses, but by the 1980s, the problems with both fuels squashed that enthusiasm. Frustrations with coal-fired plants’ emissions had initially made Marble Hill appealing, but its combination of safety problems and cost killed the appeal for both business and environmentalists.478

Madison’s experience with nuclear power did not diverge much from the experiences of other cities and towns facing nuclear power projects in the wake of Three

Mile Island. The slow growth in the area and the difficulties facing PSI exacerbated the area’s problems, but its environmentalist reaction and concerns about cost were similar to those arising on the coasts and across the U.S. The hostility to both nuclear and coal power plants in the 1970s and 1980s in the area reflected a frustration with industrial development at the expense of rural environments and public safety.

478 J. Samuel Walker notes Philip Sporn’s early concerns with the abilities of nuclear to compete with so many regulations, and Sporn was one of the most capable at speaking realistically about nuclear energy’s path versus coal. Walker, Containing the Atom, 418. 153

Chapter Five: Smoke On the Water: The Future of Nuclear in the Ohio Valley

Map 5. Map of Clermont County and surrounding area.479

I. Introduction: Moscow, Piketon, and Nuclear Disasters

In the remains of Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station and a series of nuclear power plants in the early 1980s was born a myth about nuclear energy in the United

States. Repeated by many, the story went that nuclear energy essentially ended in the

479 National Atlas of the United States, March 1, 2014, http://nationalatlas.gov. 154

1970s in the U.S. as an energy alternative and that no nuclear power plants were built after 1978. This myth characterized the nuclear industry as a failure.480

As seen in the Marble Hill debacle, nuclear power was a potentially dangerous industry and was an increasingly expensive industry, but it was not dead. In Ohio, a new power plant grew along the shores of Lake Erie, about 30 miles outside of Cleveland in rural North Perry. Across the country, plants were completed at places like North Perry and Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, California, despite environmentalists’ concerns about earthquakes.481

Rather than giving way to a “clean” source of energy in the 1980s and 1990s, nuclear gave way to another coal plant in the Ohio Valley. In Clermont County, Ohio, the

W.H. Zimmer Generating Station, which had faced closure as a nuclear power plant when almost completed, became a coal-fired power plant. The decline at Zimmer happened quickly, and was related to construction problems. Like Marble Hill, W.H. Zimmer saw a whistleblower incident throw a wrench into its construction. This whistleblower, Thomas

Applegate, was “hired by Cincinnati Gas and Electric to investigate timecard fraud among workers at the construction site of the Zimmer nuclear power plant” and

“inadvertently uncovered much more serious construction problems and took them to the

480 For a discussion of the 1980s nuclear power problems, see: Peter Stoler, Decline and Fail: The Ailing Nuclear Power Industry (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1985).

481 As Marble Hill saw the Paddlewheel Alliance’s anti-nuclear protests, Diablo Canyon was protested by the Abalone Alliance and Mothers for Peace and saw an even greater anti-nuclear effort than Marble Hill. Wills, Conservation Fallout, 3. Harvey Wasserman, an anti-nuclear activist who founded the Clamshell Alliance and protested New Hampshire’s Seabrook, noted the 1986 earthquake that hit near Perry, Ohio and the fact the plant’s second reactor never opened. Harvey Wasserman, The Last Energy War: The Battle Over Utility Deregulation (New York: Open Media Pamphlet Series and Seven Stories Press, 1999), 49.

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utility officials” before talking to the NRC.482 By 1981, the 800 Megawatt plant was mostly completed, after over a decade of construction, but it was canceled in 1983 and revived as a coal-fired plant.483 The Zimmer conversion process enabled regional coal to be used at the power plant, tying its future to Ohio’s high sulfur coal industry.484

Keeping the existing uranium enrichment site operating at Piketon, Ohio also proved to be a major problem. Attempts to add to the site’s original purpose as a gaseous diffusion plant also failed. The previous use of the site also resulted in pollution problems that damaged the plant’s reputation.

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the mid-1960s shifted its purpose from providing fissionable material for weapons to providing fissionable material for nuclear power plants. So, the “atomic area” of southern Ohio faced challenges when the nuclear industry did not flourish in the early 1980s. The high costs of producing nuclear energy and inability of the fuel to take over meant that Piketon’s expensive uranium enrichment was in lower demand.

Though nuclear energy proved incredibly costly at Marble Hill and at a number of plants across the country, utilizing fossil fuels did not prove as easy as it had been in the

1950s. Zimmer’s use of Ohio coal became an expensive and contentious task in the wake

482 Myron Glazer and Penina Migdal Glazer, The Whistleblowers: Uncovering Corruption in Government & Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 30.

483 CG&E executive William Dickhoner blamed the NRC for the closure. Daniel Rosenheim, “Ohio utility slowly emerges from Zimmer nuclear cloud,” Chicago Tribune, October 10, 1984, B1. ProQuest (176144432). In her recent work on the nuclear industry, journalist Stephanie Cooke paints a more lurid image of Zimmer, quoting former “chief scientific adviser to the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,” Henry Myers. According to Cooke, Myers “wrote in an email, ‘This is the one where there was an overabundance of workers and purportedly three trailers on site, one for drinking, one for gambling and one for prostitution.’” Stephanie Cook, In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 282.

484 Robert White, “House May Saddle Zimmer Customers,” The Cincinnati Post, June 5, 1991. Newsbank 156

of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. While Tomain has shown economics stopped the nuclear power project at Zimmer, the coal option did not prove to be cheap.

The political support thrown behind these projects—to convert the Zimmer plant and use Ohio coal and to reuse the Piketon site and keep it operating—represents the efforts of Ohio politicians to continue to support the 1940s and 1950s development of the

Ohio Valley. The earlier support for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the 1950s was not a fluke, and Ohio politicians did continue to attempt to industrialize southern

Ohio in the 1980s and 1990s. Though national forces and state opponents shook these industries and the economies of these local areas, the strong support of Ohio politicians for nuclear and coal in the Ohio Valley showed the continued resonance of the region as an industrial center.

This chapter will focus on the changes facing the Piketon site and the reinvention of the Zimmer plant. The first section deals with the projects proposed for this site in the late 1970s and 1980s, including a centrifugal uranium enrichment plant. Next is a discussion of the Zimmer conversion and the political debates that grew not over nuclear power, but over the use of Ohio coal at the plant. The section that follows revisits Piketon in the twilight of the gaseous diffusion plant, and discusses another round of failed attempts to keep the expensive site open. The conclusion deals with the current state of the Ohio atomic area.

The trajectories of the Zimmer and Piketon plants demonstrate the increasing difficulty of developing coal and nuclear industries—and maintaining those industries— in the 1980s and 1990s due to cost, environmental concerns, and political opposition.

These local stories reveal important connections between rural and small city Ohio places

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and the national changes to the coal and nuclear industries in the 1980s and 1990s. The different directions of the plants correspond with the different directions of these two areas, with Clermont County growing and the Piketon and Portsmouth area in decline.

Though the plants did not determine this population change, the effects of these plants on two rural areas in the midst of socioeconomic transition provides a complex picture of the rural-industrial area in the late 20th century.

II. Portsmouth and Piketon, 1977-1988: GCEP and Remaking the Atomic Area

In the 1970s, the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant continued to produce enriched uranium for nuclear power plants, supported by the Ohio Valley Electric

Corporation plants in Ohio and Indiana. The sprawling site in rural southern Ohio faced some new possibilities in this era, including privatization of the uranium enrichment industry. In the late 1970s enrichment fell under the guidance of the Energy Resource and

Development Agency, then the new Department of Energy, created by President Jimmy

Carter in 1977.485 Though the plant’s agenda shifted from the Cold War agenda of 1952, it became a site of focus for federal government investment into the nuclear energy and defense industry in the late 1970s and 1980s.

In 1977, while some residents of Madison, Indiana organized against the Marble

Hill Nuclear Generating Station, local promotion for nuclear industries flourished in

Portsmouth, Ohio. The down-on-its luck industrial city held a prayer ceremony in the local stadium. The prayers were for President Carter to preserve the development of the

485 The Carter Administration created the new Department of Energy (DOE) just a few months after the rally in Portsmouth. This was the Department of Energy Organization Act, which got rid of both the “Federal Energy Administration and Energy Research and Development Administration.” See: U.S. Department of Energy, August 4, 1977: President Carter Signs the Department of Energy Organization Act, accessed March 24, 2014, http://energy.gov/management/august-4-1977-president-carter-signs- department-energy-organization-act. 158

Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant (GCEP) at Piketon to be adjacent to the gaseous diffusion plant, “a planned $4.4 billion addition to the Government’s huge enrichment plant,” to prevent the outmigration of “some 600 new jobs to a more modern facility in

Oak Ridge, Tenn.”486

Five hundred people gathered at the event in May 1977, which was covered in

The New York Times, and attendees included Ohio Governor James Rhodes. Speaker

Reverend Scott Rawlings told the crowd, “We have to pray for our President, when he gives his word, to do what is morally right, pray that he will listen to the voice of God and do what is right.”487 Praying for President Carter to give the area the entire Gas

Centrifuge Enrichment Plant (GCEP) project made have seemed odd, but it was an effort for the southern Ohio region to gain jobs and be at the forefront of nuclear production.

Centrifugal uranium enrichment represented the next step for the site, and presented an opportunity to extend the life of the Piketon site. The site was slated for a new gaseous diffusion plant, but federal plans changed when it became apparent the centrifuge process was the future of uranium enrichment. Centrifugal production was far different from gaseous diffusion, the latter based on a process using enormous screens to separate out particles of necessary Uranium-235. The centrifuge process “uses a large number of rotating cylinders in series and parallel formations,” and uses “strong centrifugal force so that the heavier gas molecules (containing U238) move toward the

486 Ben A. Franklin, “Ohio Rally Prays for Uranium Plant,” The New York Times, May 3, 1977, 21. ProQuest (123254655).

487 Ibid.

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outside of the cylinder and the lighter gas molecules (containing U235) collect closer together.”488

According to the NRC, “significantly more U235 enrichment can be obtained from a single-unit gas centrifuge than from a single-unit gaseous diffusion stage.”489 This new technology was favored for its cost benefits relative to gaseous diffusion, which was

“more expensive and requires more energy.”490 The greater effectiveness of the centrifuge process and potential savings on operating costs changed the direction of

Piketon’s new hoped-for plant.

The prayer ceremony for centrifugal uranium enrichment, as noted in the Times, demonstrated the continuing desperation for development in this region of Ohio, which had continued despite the federal, state, and private investments into the region. This included the atomic plant, but also a more recent neighbor. In 1972, nearby Lucasville became the site of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a major state prison.491

Portsmouth and its surroundings were on the edge of some major problems in the late 1970s, and the area needed a prayer. Population grew in Scioto County across the

1970s, but would decline in the 1980s.492 In the next few years, Portsmouth would lose its

488 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Uranium Enrichment, Updated May 21, 2013, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ur-enrichment.html.

489 Ibid.

490 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Facility Licensing, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/gas-centrifuge.html.

491 Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction: Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Institutional Information, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.drc.state.oh.us/public/socf.htm.

492 Forstall, OHIO: Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990.

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local steel mill, a major local employer. Empire-Detroit Steel Mill shut down in 1980, and the area was out “more than 1,200 jobs.”493

Relying on the mid-century atomic boom to again breathe air into the Portsmouth-

Piketon area economy was based on precedent. The area had enjoyed economic growth in response to the original establishment of the atomic plant.

But this particular prayer was based on winning the lottery of President Carter’s energy decisions, which were difficult for an expensive industry like uranium enrichment. Carter was dealing with a far different energy picture than Harry Truman and

Dwight Eisenhower faced, and the regulations, demand, and cost of producing power were enormously different. Those enormous costs that brought the uranium plant to

Piketon looked less attractive by the late 1970s, as the U.S. economy had declined.

The new project, whatever type of enrichment it involved, enjoyed local and regional support for bringing more construction and permanent jobs to the Piketon area.

One important person on the plant’s side was Senator John Glenn, who fought fellow

Democrat Carter over the location of the GCEP. Senator Glenn and Democratic Ohio

Senator Howard Metzenbaum worked to hold Carter to a “campaign pledge” he made to locate the new enrichment plant only in Ohio, rather than locating half in Oak Ridge,

Tennessee and half in Ohio.494

493 AP, “Unemployment Threatens Appalachian Traditions,” Observer-Reporter, April 13, 1984, D4, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2qFdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=- FwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1027%2C2019349.

494 Memo to Senator from Sandy, Harlin, Brian, “Re: JHG Initiatives to Support Funding and Construction of Portsmouth Enrichment Plant,” August 7, 1980. Folder: 57/a 5: 8-12 Press Subject files, 1975-83- Portsmouth, Ohio/Piketon Uranium Plant. Box 518 054-759-7: The John Glenn Archives RG: 57/a Senate Papers Sub-Group Media Relations Series Press Subject Files Sub-Series. Ohio Congressional Archives.

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Their efforts were in response to Carter’s own words, as he “said, if elected he would double the size of the gaseous diffusion plant, but he backed off from a firm public commitment after the election when ERDA officials urged construction of a plant using the new centrifuge technology at Oak Ridge.”495

The two Ohio senators succeeded in July 1977, when Piketon got the entire GCEP project. Ohio’s Speaker of the House, Vern Riffe, celebrated the local victory, and the

“6,000 construction jobs, and 2,000 permanent operating jobs,” to come to the site.496

Both Riffe, a native of Scioto County, and the local U.S. representative William Harsha pointed to local efforts as the reason for Carter’s decision to locate the entire centrifuge operation at Piketon.497

Gaining this plant happened in a far different economic climate in the region and state than it had in the 1950s, and Senators Glenn and Metzenbaum put out a release stating the significance of Piketon’s new GCEP: “This is the best news that Ohio has received in a long time. It is doubtful whether we as senators will ever work on a project as important as this one for Ohio.”498 This was a big statement from senators from Ohio,

495 Kenneth B. Dalecki, “Pike County Site Is Approved For Atomic Energy Production Facility,” Portsmouth Times, July 11, 1977, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=P- lbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VFMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1936%2C4441491.

496 “Decision Is Hailed By Riffe,” Portsmouth Times, July 11, 1977, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=P- lbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VFMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=3024%2C4442997.

497 Dalecki, “Pike County Site Is Approved For Atomic Energy Production Facility.”

498 Ibid.

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where the biggest city, Cleveland, had just recently gone into default over a utilities dispute with Mayor Dennis Kucinich.499

Despite this success, the process of developing the massive GCEP did not go smoothly in the late 1970s and 1980s. The market for enriched uranium was also in flux, as the U.S. had major competitors arising in the 1970s. This competition included France, which was to become the major Western producer of the fissionable material.500

Glenn argued for U.S. enrichment facilities because of the “national security” advantage the industry offered. This national security argument reflected the earlier efforts to sell the OVEC-IKEC and AEC project in Ohio and Indiana, but came at a much different time in U.S. history regarding Cold War security and energy costs. Nuclear energy was in the midst of a major security crisis in 1979 and 1980, with the aftermath of

Three Mile Island creating uncertainty around the industry.

Senator Glenn worked to promote the GCEP plant at the federal level, which became difficult in the face of cuts. In August he proposed “the Uranium Enrichment

Fund Act of 1980,” to “enhance stability of funding for the Portsmouth facility” through a “revolving fund.”501 In 1982, the General Accounting Office issued a report advising against spending a reported $7 billion on GCEP, while the Department of Energy argued it was necessary.502

499 The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “Mayoral Administration of Dennis J. Kucinich,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=MAODJK.

500 Robert D. Hershey, Jr., “U.S. to Shut Oak Ridge Atom Plant,” The New York Times, June 6, 1985, D1, http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/06/business/us-to-shut-oak-ridge-atom-plant.html.

501 Memo to Senator from Sandy, Harlin, Brian, “Re: JHG Initiatives to Support Funding and Construction of Portsmouth Enrichment Plant,” August 7, 1980.

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Glenn argued to President Ronald Reagan that GCEP “is an essential ingredient in our efforts to maintain a prominent role and market share in the international nuclear community.”503 He also noted the savings in comparison to costs of technology used

Piketon’s existing plant: “GCEP will use only about 5% of the electricity required to operate a similarly sized gaseous diffusion plant.”504 Emphasizing the cost of energy undercut the earlier economic success of OVEC and highlighted the greater importance of energy costs in the 1970s.

Problems with a new uranium enrichment plant came from the cost and the need.

The GAO report as noted by a Toledo Blade reporter, pointed out the difference in need for enriched uranium from “the mid-1970s, when demand for U.S. enrichment services was so high that the former Atomic Energy Commission actually stopped taking orders,” to the low demand for fuel in 1982.505

Cost and lack of demonstrated need for the fuel continued to hinder the GCEP progress in the early 1980s. The three gaseous diffusion plants were enriching “some 5.1 million pounds of uranium each year,” with about 33 percent sold outside the U.S.506

Demand did not look good in the U.S. in the 1980s.

502 Michael Woods, “Under Construction in Southern Ohio: Need for Fourth Uranium Plant Questioned,” Toledo Blade, June 8, 1982, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hD9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pwIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6749%2C740150.

503 Senator Glenn to President Reagan, July 30, 1982 (copy). Folder: 57/a-518-12. Press Subject files, 1975- 83-Porstmouth, Ohio/Piketon Uranium Plant. Box: The John Glenn Archives RG: 57/a Senate Papers Sub- Group Media Relations Series Press Subject Files Sub-Series Box 518 054-759-7. Ohio Congressional Archives.

504 Ibid.

505 “Need For Fourth Uranium Plant Questioned.”

506 Carol E. Curtis, “$10 Billion question,” Forbes, February 14, 1983, 62. Portsmouth Public Library, Local History Collection. 164

At the end of 1984, as a number of nuclear power plants were sinking, The New

York Times criticized the federal government for its incompetence in overseeing the U.S. nuclear industry—unlike successful nuclear countries France and Japan—and called the

GCEP plant one of the “shining white elephants” that absorbed too much of the government’s nuclear money.507 By 1985, “the United States, which now charges prices

30 per cent to 40 per cent higher than its European competitors, is unable to compete effectively, and its share of the world market has dwindled this year to 47 per cent. It once held a monopoly.”508

Once the site of national security production, the Piketon site was now creating economic insecurity. GCEP was canceled in 1985, having cost the government $2.6 billion by 1985.509 According to a union representative, “400-450 other people will be laid off” at their plant.510 The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant continued to operate.

III. Zimmer: 1981 to 1991: Reinventing a Nuclear Disaster

The W.H. Zimmer Nuclear Generating Station turned away from nuclear at this time, which was one fewer customer for the U.S. uranium enrichment market. The transition at Zimmer from nuclear to coal solved the problems the plant faced from nuclear regulation, but did not solve the plant’s cost problems and added the problems

507 “Nuclear Power’s Worst Enemies,” The New York Times, December 6, 1983, A30, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/06/opinion/nuclear-power-s-worst-enemies.html.

508 “Sensitive nuclear plant papers found in woods,” Lodi News-Sentinel, October 10, 1983, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jzgzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ijIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=5820%2C4486531.

509 “U.S. To Close Nuclear Plant, Pursue New Enriched-Uranium Technology,” Toledo Blade, June 6, 1983, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pT9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zAIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4499%2C395240.

510 “Ibid. The total number of centrifuges working was 720, and “800 workers will be needed to help shut the plant down.” “Centrifuges Turned Off At Piketon,” Portsmouth Daily Times, July 3, 1985, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iLBcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=plgNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5871%2C4407533. 165

related to coal burning. Rather than adding a nuclear power plant to the area, Zimmer was planned to be a cleaner coal-fired plant, with scrubbers installed.

Despite the use of a more familiar fuel and the promises of cleaner coal, the plant courted controversy in the 1980s and 1990s because of growing costs and the investors’ decision to use Ohio’s high sulfur coal at Zimmer.

Political squabbles over this decision indicated a fracturing in the system that had developed in the Ohio Valley—of the “technocratic use of the environment.” With increased environmental regulations and knowledge of the harmful effects of sulfur dioxide, it became more difficult to use local fuel at the local power plant and more beneficial to bring in low sulfur coal and just use the Valley sites for power production.

While possible to harness the Ohio Valley’s environment for power production, changing attitudes made responsible use of the environment—rather than maximum use of the environment—the guiding principle in the region.

Tomain has considered the economic and social effects of Zimmer’s cancellations and the—at that time—potential conversion process. One of the pivotal factors driving coal conversion was that “Ohio law refuses to allow ratepayers to pay for canceled nuclear projects,” which would leave the investing utilities on the hook for the Zimmer project.511

Regarding the plant, he argues: “the Zimmer case study is a microcosm of the problems surrounding nuclear cancellations. Competing policies, divisions of opinion between official decision makers, an inadequate regulatory system, and the influence of the traditional model on transitional problems all contributed to uncertainty and delay in

511 Tomain, Nuclear Power Transformation, 74.

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decision making.”512 With a coal-fired power plant these challenges did not disappear, but rather were altered.

Locals in Clermont County also did not need to worry about the safety issues that dogged the nuclear power plant, or for the site to be a center of anti-nuclear protest anymore. Richard Lee Elder’s study of the siting of Zimmer captured local attitudes to the plant before it was cancelled and he reported, “Public opinion fluctuated in Moscow,

Ohio from one of open support to one of guarded optimism—that is, most Moscow,

Ohio, residents still support the presence of the facility.”513 He does note the opposition of “a citizens action group” named “Ohio Valley Citizens Concerned about Nuclear

Pollution,” and member John Maluda’s opposition to the proximity of the plant to an

“elementary school” and “the Ohio River.”514 The plant’s proximity to the Ohio River was of course a significant part of the design of power plants in the Valley, and also applied to coal power plants requiring cooling and transportation.

Unlike Marble Hill, which had a brief flirtation with a coal conversion, Zimmer’s investors went fully down the path, creating a 1,300 MW coal-fired plant at the site.515

The decision to convert came in January 1984, just as the Marble Hill closure news was hitting the airwaves.516

512 Tomain, Nuclear Power Transformation, 74.

513 Elder, “The Impact of Nuclear Power Facility Siting on Community Planning,” 4.

514 Ibid., 18-19.

515 “Cincinnati Gas Official Still For Nuclear Power,” The New York Times, August 3, 1974, D2. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/03/business/business-people-cincinnati-gas-official-still-for-nuclear- power.html.

516 “Nearly Completed Nuclear Plant Will Be Converted to Burn Coal,” The New York Times, January 22, 1984, 1. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/22/us/nearly-completed-nuclear-plant-will-be-converted-to- burn-coal.html. 167

Building a coal plant along the Ohio River had greater precedent in the 1980s, but was not a simple task in the area. Unlike Scioto County, Clermont County was not desperate for investment.

Clermont County was actually growing in the late 20th century, and taking a more powerful—population-wise—role in greater Cincinnati.517 The county jumped from a population just over 80,000 to more than 150,000 from 1960 to 1990, and in the 1990s and into the 21st century continued to be one of Ohio’s fastest-growing counties.518

Proximity of a nuclear plant to large populations was common in Ohio. The two operating nuclear power plants in Ohio, Davis-Besse and North Perry, sat on the outskirts of large cities—Toledo and Cleveland—along Lake Erie.

Clermont had more in common with Perry’s Lake County than it did many of the

Appalachian Ohio counties, as it benefitted from urban outmigration. Like Gallia, Pike, and Scioto counties, Clermont County is part of Ohio’s Appalachian Region. Though part of this Appalachian region, Clermont County had a low unemployment rate from 1997-

1999, 3.8 percent, a low poverty rate in 1990, at 8.7 percent, and was the only

Appalachian Ohio county considered “competitive.”519

The county’s experience was similar to other growing bedroom counties in Ohio.

It resembled the experience of Fairfield County, another southern Ohio county bordering a county with a major city—Columbus’ Franklin County—and historian Richard

517 Howard A. Stafford wrote about the migration of Cincinnati’s population in: Howard A. Stafford, “Cincinnati: Diversified and Stable,” in A Geography of Ohio, ed. Leonard Peacefull (Kent and London: Kent State University Press, 1996), 177-182.

518 Forstall, OHIO: Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990.

519 Appalachian Regional Commission, County Economic Status, Fiscal Year 2002: Appalachian Ohio, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.arc.gov/reports/region_report.asp?FIPS=39999&REPORT_ID=29.

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Contosta has noted the area grew its one “edge city” and found reciprocation in its connections to Columbus.520

Though Clermont County was growing, Moscow sat on the southeastern part of the county and distant from Cincinnati. Like many of the power plants along the Ohio

River, Zimmer radically changed the local setting. Describing the plant, Pauline Skreene told The New York Times: “It’s like a sore thumb; it’s something you get used to. When people first saw it going up, they said, ‘Heavens, we don’t want to look at that all day.’

But when they saw the benefits from the payroll tax, they thought maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.”521

Zimmer was not without precedent locally, as a Clermont County village, New

Richmond, was home to the W.C. Beckjord power plant. This coal-fired power plant first opened in 1952, the year the gaseous diffusion site and OVEC power plants began construction.522 Neighboring counties in Ohio and Kentucky also had coal-fired power plants operating by 1984, including Spurlock in Maysville, Kentucky.

The difference at Zimmer, in comparison to older plants like Beckjord, came with its modern design, and that came with some political baggage.

Zimmer had scrubbers—the pollution control technology that created controversy in the 1970s between environmental activists and utilities like AEP. However, Zimmer also used Ohio’s high sulfur coal. The choice to burn this coal grew controversial as

520 Contosta, Lancaster, Ohio, 1800-2000, 6-7.

521 Iver Peterson, “Nuclear Plant Has Given Utilities Many Headaches,” The New York Times, November 17, 1982. ProQuest (122045070).

522 Duke Energy, “Beckjord Station Through the Years,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.duke- energy.com/beckjord/through-the-years.asp.

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opponents argued it increased electric rates, and proponents wanted to support the Ohio industry.

The plant already had raised hackles because of the long, failed nuclear construction, and debate over its costs continued. The Ohio coal and scrubbers process represented compromise, and, “That agreement is now under attack by the city of

Cincinnati and others before the PUCO, as is the ‘prudence’ of the conversion decision.”523 Zimmer was not located in southeastern Ohio and Cincinnati already had coal-fired power plants in its vicinity.

Potential costs grew anger in those who did not want to pay for the Ohio coal industry to supply the plant and to pay for the needed scrubbers to make this coal usable under the new, strict regulations. The frustrations came out of dealing with the new Clean

Air Act Amendments of 1990, which put new and strict requirements on coal-fired power plants.524 While it made sense in the interest of maintaining jobs to use Ohio coal at the power plant and to make this possible through the use of scrubbers, concerns were raised about the cost of this decision as well as the cost of converting Zimmer.525 Ohio coal had some strong proponents. Scioto County native and Ohio House Speaker Riffe, who had been in the House since 1959 and Speaker since 1975, pressed for the plant to use Ohio

523 Robert White “Zimmer Gaffe Nearly Results in Political Power Failure for Riffe,” Cincinnati Post, June 10, 1991. Newsbank.

524 Alan Johnson, “Riffe Blocks Floor Vote on Clean Air Bill Again,” Columbus Dispatch, June 6, 1991. Newsbank.

525 Ibid.

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coal.526 Riffe was criticized for this even though preserving this type of coal use did keep mining jobs in Ohio.527

This power plant especially rankled energy consumers in Cincinnati, as the increased rates were associated with the poor management of the nuclear construction project. While they would not have to deal with the physical effects of living near the power plant, they would see their electric bills rise to accommodate the new Clermont

County plant. This touched a nerve already raw from the nuclear power downward spiral, as it had with PSI ratepayers regarding Marble Hill.

Over twenty years after it was announced, the Zimmer Power Plant finally went into operation in 1991. The effects on Moscow in 1991 were captured by a Cincinnati

Post reporter, who interviewed local residents in the village of 335 who felt positive about the new plant, including Donna Newberry, who said: “I’ve never seen it as an eyesore. I think the white smoke is pretty. And it always tells me which way the wind is blowing.”528 Other residents commented that the plant was a source of local excitement.

Zimmer was the biggest physical structure in Moscow, and like in Cheshire, the plant’s construction crew dwarfed the village’s population.529

Zimmer began its life with scrubbers unlike most of the plants in the region.

These flue gas desulfurization units would protect those living near the plant and far

526 Ohio History Central, “Vernal G. Riffe, Jr.,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Vernal_G._Riffe_Jr..

527 This article included a note about “coal-mining lobbyist Neal Tostenson, who is known as Riffe’s drinking buddy” and Tostenson’s “failed” proposition to the Consumers Counsel. “Vern Riffe on Rampage—Consumers, Run for Cover,” Dayton Daily News, June 7, 1991. Newsbank.

528 Lisa Popyk, “Neighbors: Beauty in Zimmer jobs, fame,” Cincinnati Post, April 1, 1991. Newsbank.

529 Popyk notes 2,500 worked at the plant in the 1970s. Ibid.

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away from the acid precipitation commonly associated with coal-fired power plants in the

Ohio Valley. Its operators made a great deal out of the fact Zimmer would be a clean, coal-fired power plant and, showing the progress of anti-acid rain and anti-power plant environmentalism by the early 1990s.

Still, the fact that Zimmer was converted at all reflects important truths about the inabilities of nuclear energy to really compete with coal in an area already devoted to coal-fired production. Perhaps the unsafe image of Zimmer, as well as that of Marble

Hill, worked in the favor of coal in this instance, as it made a coal-fired plant seem far more stable and safe. However, it still was a coal burning plant and still added to Ohio’s considerable output of coal-fired emissions.

IV: End of an Era: Portsmouth and Piketon 1990-2001

The decline of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant involved environmental and economic fallout, though this seemed inevitable when considering the original conditions bringing this plant to life. In the 1990s, the Cold War ended and with it the original purpose for the atomic plant. Pollution problems came to light at the Piketon site, and federal action was taken to fix the environmental issues. The future of the site seemed to be in serious jeopardy by the beginning of the 21st century, as the centralization project of uranium enrichment did not benefit Piketon.

During the 1980s, a number of serious issues came to light about the Piketon site’s environmental quality. At this time, concern about nuclear contamination and the hazards facing nuclear workers was at a peak. Sites across the U.S. that grew in the early

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days of the Cold War now came under scrutiny for pollution problems.530 Atomic plant workers’ experiences were captured in local news and underscored the health and safety concerns growing common in the atomic and nuclear industries in the late 20th century.531

A variety of pollution problems came to light at the Piketon Plant, and in 1988

Ohio Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze worked to get the Department of Energy to rehabilitate the site. This was an unusual request, as Celebrezze got a federal “court order” to get the DOE to take care of this project.532 Carol Rainey has noted, “DOE eventually agreed to spend $50 million to bring the plant into compliance with Ohio environmental law.”533 Environmental changes “include extensive contamination of the soil and groundwater with cancer-causing chemicals, from trichloroethylene, a solvent, to

PCBs, used in electric transformers.”534 Stories continued to come out about the secrets kept at the site, the poor practices, and the health problems suffered by those who worked at the plant across the 1990s.535

Though the plant continued to operate under Martin Marietta’s ownership in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the corporation bought the plant from Goodyear Atomic

Corporation, this private-public situation was coming to an end. Privatization eventually

530 See: Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, et al., Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation (New York: Delacorte Press, 1982).

531 Lori McNelly, “Workers Tell Their Stories,” Portsmouth Daily Times, October 31, 1999, 1.

532 Matthew L. Wald, “U.S. Now to keep Atom Plant vow,” The New York Times, December 21, 1988, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/21/us/us-now-to-keep-atom-plant-vow.html.

533 Rainey, One Hundred Miles From Home, 73.

534 “U.S. will clean nuclear facility in Piketon, O.,” Toledo Blade, November 23, 1988, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mERPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=- wIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6301%2C6264115.

535 Lori McNelly, “Workers tell their stories: Panel hears of sickness, death, legal fights,” Portsmouth Daily Times, October 31, 1999.

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came to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the 1990s, under the Clinton

Administration. The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) was created within the federal government and then privatized, shifting the expensive uranium enrichment process to private hands. The Energy Act of 1992 first created USEC.536

The 1990s also saw a variety of changes for uranium enrichment, including

Megatons to Megawatts, a program between the U.S. and Russia that changed the way enriched uranium was utilized.537 This program, which involved utilizing nuclear warheads for enriched uranium and reflected the successes of ending the Cold War, began in 1994, and took place in part at Piketon. The movement was consistently away from the national security-based federal control Glenn argued for in his defense of

Piketon’s GCEP, and the shift in the uranium enrichment industry is an important offshoot of the early 1980s nuclear disaster years for domestic plants.

In the late 1990s, the Piketon plant faced another tough fight, again pitting it against another uranium enrichment site, and again over the future of the enrichment process. The opportunity for the development of AVLIS, or Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope

Separation enrichment, to take over from gaseous diffusion, had been a possibility since the 1980s.538 Glenn and locals helped promote Piketon as the potential center of operation for this facility. The Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission (OVRDC), a

536 USEC, “History,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.usec.com/company/history.

537 USEC, “Megatons to Megawatts,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.usec.com/russian- contracts/megatons-megawatts.

538 AP, “Long-term future of Piketon Plant still up in air,” Portsmouth Daily Times, February 27, 1999, 1. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8p1eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I1MNAAAAIBAJ&pg=3472%2C865992.

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regional booster organization, worked regularly with Glenn to find some possible tenant for the GCEP site.539 AVLIS also failed to be a solution for the site.

The huge site in Piketon faced losing hundreds of jobs as USEC consolidated, and was already losing jobs cut by USEC. Only two of the original AEC gaseous diffusion sites remained by the late 1990s, Paducah, Kentucky and Piketon, Ohio, and one of the plants faced closure.540 In February 2000, USEC made the “announcement that 425 workers will lose their jobs at the Piketon Gaseous Diffusion Plant.”541

In June 2000, USEC announced it was shutting the Piketon site, and it faced major blowback from Ohio politicians and locals in the Piketon area. Ohio’s future governor, then Congressman, Ted Strickland, said, “I cannot overstate my anger at this decision or my ironclad commitment to protect our workers and make sure that all responsible are held accountable.”542 Strickland, a Lucasville Democrat, worked with fellow Democrats and across party lines in Ohio to preserve jobs in southern Ohio at the atomic site. 543

539 The OVRDC had its roots in some federal programs, including one that was important for developing this particular region of Ohio. OVRDC is an organization that is both “Local Development District for the Appalachian Regional Commission and as an Economic Development District for the US Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration.” Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission, “Introducing the OVRDC,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.ovrdc.org/intro.htm.

540 AP, “Long-term future of Piketon Plant still up in air.”

541 Terri Fowler, “Reactions mixed to job losses at Piketon plant,” Portsmouth Daily Times, February 17, 2000, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8s1QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1dAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3681%2C242298 1.

542 Terri Fowler, “Uranium plant to close,” Portsmouth Daily Times, June 22, 2000, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xcxFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E9EMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5270%2C366106 7.

543 Ben Fields, “Kentucky workers feel effect of Piketon plant closing,” The Daily Independent (Ashland, Kentucky), July 5, 2000, Portsmouth Public Library—Local History Collection.

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The situation facing southern Ohio in the beginning of the 21st century reflected the failures of the atomic area to develop beyond the plant and reflected larger industrial and agricultural economic forces. Pike County did grow during the 1980s, but Scioto

County lost population.544 Neither county had developed the strong industrial economy seen as inevitable in the 1950s. Keeping the Piketon plant open was a needed boost for the area, but it would not solve the national problems of decline in areas bleeding population as residents left to pursue jobs in metropolitan areas.545

Not all the plans were for naught, as the DOE began to use the site for nuclear waste storage.546 Locals commented on the situation to Portsmouth’s newspaper, and

Mike Davis, who operated a local business said, “That’s a lot of money that’s going to be taken away from southern Ohio. As far as businesses go, we’re going to lose a lot of business. The thing I hate is that people are going to have to leave the area to find jobs.”547

The unemployment at the uranium enrichment plant meant that small villages and towns—these areas boosted by construction booms and the steady jobs at the enrichment plant—faced the same issues as small towns across the heartland. In Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and across the country the shrinking number of jobs in farming and in whatever industry

544 Forstall, OHIO: Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990.

545 This enormous development helped Piketon to avoid some of the rural decline seen across the country. Recently researchers have considered the futures of these regions. See: Elaine McMillion, Hollow: An Interactive Documentary, Film and Website, directed by Elaine McMillion, accessed March 24, 2014, http://hollowdocumentary.com/. The Web site focuses on McDowell County, West Virginia.

546 “Plant History,” Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Future Vision Project, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.portsfuture.com/History.aspx.

547 “Reactions mixed to job losses at Piketon plant.”

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had developed in those rural areas in the 1980s and 1990s caused some crisis conditions locally.548

The challenges in Portsmouth, Piketon, and Waverly represented similar, yet smaller-scale problems as those seen in urban areas of Ohio. The areas in the Ohio Valley that had absorbed jobs and benefitted from efforts to decentralize industry for cost purposes and for national security purposes—in addition to the advantages of available water sources—saw at the end of the 20th century a smaller-scale crisis.

The contributions Piketon, Waverly, and Portsmouth made to a sense of national security—and to the development of what could be cleaner and affordable nuclear energy in other places in the more recent years—did not mean much when it was clear that these jobs and the facility was too expensive for a now private corporation to operate. The

Piketon venture was originally based in an idea that private industry should be utilized to make national security an affordable reality for people in the U.S. By using privately funded power plants, Piketon was able to rise quickly, and it fell when it became too expensive.

The guiding forces around this fall were largely out of local hands, though locals had to deal with the environmental and health and safety problems emanating from the plant, and they also had to deal with the frustration of seeing the local economy dissipate.

Many of the locals interviewed by Terri Fowler of the Portsmouth Daily Times reflected

548 The “farm crisis” of the early 1980s led to the closure of farms, and in southern Ohio Contosta has noted the effects on Lancaster in Fairfield County, which lost farmland to housing developments. Contosta, Lancaster, Ohio, 1800-2000, 263.

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on the high wages of the atomic plant and the difficulties of replacing those jobs, with those available at local stores and small businesses.549

Trends in economic growth dictated that the wisest path for locals was to head up

Route 23 to Columbus, as Appalachian residents had for decades.550

V: Conclusion: Smoke and Mirrors: Nuclear Energy and the Ohio Valley

The local and regional consequences of the U.S. nuclear industry failures were clear in the area of southern Ohio near the Ohio River. Plant closings, pollution, and the building of yet another coal plant in place of a nuclear plant were markers of the industry’s lost promises in the early 21st century. While ironic that the end of Cold War tensions—much hoped for in the 1950s when it was so necessary to build the Piketon plant—helped to reduce the need for the U.S. to produce enriched uranium, it also could not be seen as bad news from a national or international viewpoint. The establishment of

Megatons for Megawatts reflected the type of reuse that opponents of nuclear power could not help but cheer. However, an international environmental victory did not necessarily mean a local economic victory. Still, by the early 21st century, glimmers of hope existed for expansion of U.S. nuclear power production aided by the Piketon site.

Centrifugal enrichment continued to be a possible lifesaver for the site in the 21st century. Piketon did win the American Centrifuge project. Expanding American

549 “Reactions mixed to job losses at Piketon plant.”

550 Andrew Cayton notes this route out of Appalachian was memorialized in song—Kentuckian Dwight Yoakam’s “Readin’, Rightin’, Rt. 23.” Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People, 298.

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Centrifuge’s capacity—adding to the number of centrifuges operating at Piketon— continued to be a potential use for the site by 2012.551

The same narrative was being employed in 2012 that had been used in 1952 to argue for this site: Piketon’s economic picture was bleak and “the average job at USEC pays $77, 316.”552 One difference noted in a USA Today article—“the (centrifuge) process uses only 5% of the electricity of the old gaseous diffusion process formerly used at the site.”553 Glenn made this same argument in favor of GCEP.

While coal-fired power plants had avoided some of the thorny problems of the nuclear projects, the Zimmer Plant’s problems in utilizing Ohio coal were repeated in other areas in the 1980s and 1990s. Satisfying new regulations, passed just before the opening of the Zimmer Plant, became an expensive process for utilities and ratepayers in the Ohio Valley area. The problems faced by Zimmer in its early days of operation were also seen in southeastern Ohio with a much larger coal-fired power plant much closer to

Ohio mines. The difficulties of maintaining this industry, despite the original intentions of locating plants in the Ohio River Valley to utilize regional coal—and the availability of Ohio coal—demonstrated the limits of economic growth in the era of environmentalism. While Zimmer was designed to use Ohio coal, other power plants would need to be altered to utilize Ohio coal, in order to satisfy the new regulations.

551 Gregory Korte, “Politics stands in the way of nuclear plant’s future,” USA Today Money, April 27, 2012, accessed March 23, 2014, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2012-04-13/usec- centrifuges-loan-guarantees/54560118/1.

552 “Politics stands in the way of nuclear plant’s future.”

553 Ibid.

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Chapter Six: Acid Indiscretions: High Sulfur Coal, Environmental Policy, and

Negotiating Coal’s Future, 1980-present

I. Introduction: Making “Dirty” Industry Clean in the Ohio Valley

During the 1980s and early 1990s, those large coal-fired power plants in the Ohio

Valley came under the same level of scrutiny Marble Hill and Zimmer faced in the 1980s.

The Ohio Valley region, admired for its innovations in the late 1940s and during the

1950s, became a place targeted for its contributions to problems far from home and for providing a service—cheap electricity—at too large a cost to those far away.

Ohio, particularly in southeastern Ohio around the Kyger Creek Plant and its neighboring Gavin Power Plant, faced a number of challenges in the 1980s through the early 21st century. At a time when other areas of the state saw industrial decline due to heavy industry like steel and automotive moving out of state, the southeastern Ohio region saw challenges to its own industries. Coal, particularly the high sulfur coal available in Ohio, came under national scrutiny with concerns about acid rain, new federal regulations, and increased knowledge about the costs—economic and environmental—of burning the fuel.

This chapter follows a series of events from the early 1980s crisis around acid rain to the 21st century problem of climate change in order to demonstrate the local effects of federal changes to air pollution regulations. Though attention has often been paid to the economic crises surrounding Ohio’s urban areas, the coal mining and coal

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burning areas of southeastern Ohio faced challenges to established industries. Protecting the status quo became difficult in the wake of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

The problems facing southeastern Ohio’s coal industry did not garner the attention that the decline of Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron gained during the decade, but they had similar economic and environmental connections. The high sulfur coal in Ohio drew some of the original industrial decentralization to the Ohio Valley, but the industrial growth in this region could not survive into the 21st century supported by this dirty fuel. Just as the northern cities faced the loss of heavy industry’s union jobs, the southeastern Ohio region faced the loss of unionized mining jobs connected to the industry of producing power.

As Rust Belt urban centers faced crime, economic, and social problems in the

1990s, areas of southeastern Ohio faced tough economic conditions. In the case of

Cheshire, Ohio, surviving as a village was in question as well. While Madison, Indiana avoided the power plant concentration planned for the Cincinnati-to-Louisville stretch, southeastern Ohio had grown its own power plant concentration in the area around

Cheshire with four large power plants within 20 miles of the village.

The first section deals with Ohio Governor Richard Celeste’s actions to curb acid rain while continuing to support Ohio industry. Deindustrialization had already hit many

Ohio areas hard, and Celeste’s viewpoint on acid rain was shaped within this context of industrial decline. As the coal-fired power plants operated in the 1980s, one of the major customers of the coal industry in the region and one of the major sources of demand for electricity—steel—was declining in the Ohio Valley.

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The next two sections deal with southeastern Ohio’s high sulfur coal and its coal- fired power plants after passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Southeastern

Ohio still held its position as Ohio’s least developed and most economically stressed region, though in the 1990s it was joined in economic stress by the aging industrial cities in northern Ohio. Protecting the Ohio coal industry was central to maintaining stability in southeastern Ohio, but in the early 1990s new pollution regulations—and the efforts to meet these regulations—threatened to take down this industry. Overall, Ohio provided 27 million tons of the 50 million tons of coal the state burned in 1992.554 This was a tremendous drop from a production level of 55 million tons in 1970, with mining jobs dropping to 4,600 Ohio jobs in 1994.555 By the late 1990s, the situation for southeastern

Ohio had grown dire, and the village of Cheshire was threatened environmentally and socially by the coal-fired industry and the controls brought by federal regulations intended to clean it up.

The conclusion brings the coal-fired Ohio power plants into the 21st century, and considers the relationship between the local environmental and economic effects on the

Ohio Valley area of southeastern Ohio. These local changes occurred because of the earlier developments that created a concentration of power plants—and huge, Ohio coal burning power plants—in this area of the Ohio Valley. They also happened because of the increased federal regulations on coal-fired power plants, and the effects locally

554 Michael B. Lafferty, “Outlook Bleak For Ohio Coal,” Columbus Dispatch, May 15, 1994, 1F.

555 Ibid. Samuel Hays has discussed the “antienvironmentalism” of the Reagan presidential administration and wrote, “the administration spoke through an ideology intended to reduce governmental action and enhance the private economy.” Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence, 492-493.

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illustrate the important, often unintended consequences of cleaning up environmental pollution.

Developing the Ohio Valley required industrializing the countryside in an era of decentralization of cities, and in the late 20th century keeping that rural-industrial environment working would take sacrifices by rate payers, sacrifices in air quality, compromises from utilities, and a continued faith in keeping power plants close to natural fuel resources. Ohio’s political leaders attempted to alter the state’s dirty image and to ease the effects of modern regulations, to moderate success. The preservation of the high sulfur coal industry in Ohio added stress to the existing coal-fired power plants in the

Ohio Valley, and an added economic component of job losses.

II. Richard Celeste, Acid Rain legislation, and the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments

In the 1980s, Ohio politicians needed to balance the industrial state’s pollution problems with its declining political and economic prominence. Prominent Ohio politicians, including Governor Richard Celeste and Senator Glenn, made attempts to change Ohio’s dirty image in the 1980s while protecting the state’s high-sulfur coal industry. This image problem, largely emanating from coal fired power plants often in the

Ohio Valley, brought Ohio into national and international political disputes over environmental pollution and damage. In the years before the 1990 Clean Air Act

Amendments, Governor Celeste targeted the acid rain problem and tried to negotiate support for industries feeling the crunch of increased environmental regulation.

Tackling the acid rain issue meant making changes to the ways southeastern

Ohio’s power plants operated, and it meant making some concessions to those living outside of Ohio and not dependent on its coal-fired electricity and low rates. Targeting

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acid rain meant challenging two of the region’s industries—coal mining and coal-fired electricity—and making a bad local economic situation even worse.

As noted when Greenpeace members climbed Clifty Creek’s stacks, by the early

1980s problems of acid rain were visible in Northeastern states and in southeastern

Canada, where much of the enmity for Ohio Valley power plants grew.

Closer to home were politicians familiar with the tenuous nature of southeastern

Ohio’s environment. Among the statewide leaders, Senator Glenn supported Ohio coal and focused on solutions that provided the least damage to Ohio’s economy.556 The electric utilities became the most important market for local coal in the decades previous as the “coke market” and steel declined; as Richard L. Gordon notes in his study of coal,

“electric utility use of Ohio coal represented only 36 percent of total 1957 Ohio coal use; the share in the total had risen to 71 percent by 1976.”557 With the decline of steel in the

Great Lakes region and in the Ohio Valley, it was even more important to the coal industry to have those huge plants operating.

It was not unusual for Ohio’s Democrats to support industrial causes, as the major

Democratic strongholds in the state—Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Canton, and

Youngstown—were industrial centers. Glenn had long supported environmental efforts, including the initial creation of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.558 Glenn told a crowd in Piketon, Ohio in 1986: “let’s start using those new technologies that will help

556 James L. Regens, “The Political Economy of Acid Rain,” Publius 15, 3 (Summer 1985): 62.

557 Richard L. Gordon, Coal in the U.S. Energy Market: History and Prospects (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1978), 31-32.

558 Ohio EPA 25 Years of Protecting Ohio’s Environment, 1, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.epa.state.oh.us/Portals/47/facts/25%20years%20of%20protecting%20the%20environment.pdf.

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us stop producing acid rain—and start producing more Ohio coal.”559 Glenn’s efforts to mitigate the negative consequences of high-sulfur coal mirrored the efforts of another

Ohio Democrat.

Celeste entered office in 1983 taking over the office from Republican James

Rhodes.560 Celeste, a Democrat, wanted “an acid rain control program that Ohioans and

Ohio industry can live with.”561 He criticized the Reagan Administration in his public promotion of the acid rain program, saying “I do not subscribe to the Reagan

Administration’s policy of paralysis by analysis.”562 Like Glenn, Celeste had an eye to the environment as well as to regional industry.

Though Celeste understood Ohio’s role in contributing to acid rain, he was concerned that Ohio was burdened with the cost of cleaning up the air for other states.563

He worked with fellow Democrat, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, on an “acid rain pact” in 1988 in order to provide a model for sharing the cost and solving the problem of acid rain. New York’s Adirondacks were at the center of the acid rain debate. In

559 “Remarks of Senator John Glenn Pike County Democratic Dinner,” October 18, 1986, Piketon, Ohio. page 3. Folder RG: 57/a 335-32 J.H.G. Speech to Pike County Demo. Dinner, Piketon, Ohio—Oct. 18, 1986. RG: 57/a Senate Papers Sub-Group Media Relations Series Speeches and Statements Sub-Series, Box 535 054-889-4, Ohio Congressional Archives, The John Glenn Archives.

560 Rhodes asked for suspension of the Clean Air Act standards so Ohio could burn more coal during a natural gas shortage in winter 1978, after the worst blizzard in Ohio’s recent history. James Rhodes Executive Department Proclamation (copy) February 16, 1978. Folder: 78-38A “Suspending EPA Regulations,” Box: 51,112 Executive Orders, 1976-82 Series: 2825 Ohio Historical Society State Archives.

561 Richard F. Celeste, “We need to deal with acid rain issue now,” Columbus Dispatch, June 27, 1988. Newsbank.

562 Richard F. Celeste, “Acid Rain Proposal Designed to Help Ohio’s jobs, industry,” Business First of Greater Columbus, June 27, 1988.

563 Not all Ohio politicians agreed with Celeste. Ohio 10th District Congressman Clarence Miller co-signed a letter with representatives from Ohio and West Virginia questioning the necessity of acid rain legislation when efforts to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions existed. Forwarded to Governor Richard Celeste from Ted Ford, August 11, 1988; Letter, July 29, 1988. Folder: Acid Rain. Box 5877: Governor: Administration. Governor’s agency review and issue files 1983-1990 Series 4121, Ohio Historical Society State Archives.

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correspondence, Celeste told Cuomo he appreciated the New York Governor’s consideration of the “need for national cost-sharing to soften the economic burden of acid rain controls on those regions of the country dependent on high-sulfur coal.”564

The negotiations between Celeste and Cuomo involved attempts to stem the uncomfortable process of mine closures, retrofitting of power plants with pollution control technologies, shifting to low sulfur coal reserves, and the resulting higher electricity bills from using other fuel sources.

Not everyone saw Celeste’s efforts to compromise as positive. “‘Celeste got slickered by a fast-talking New Yorker,’ said Rep. Michael G. Oxley, R-Findlay.”565

Opposition to the acid rain pact also came from AEP, which worked with a lobbying group called Citizens for Sensible Control of Acid Rain.566

The private sector’s argument against Celeste’s acid rain program followed the same script that it had for decades in the Ohio Valley, where government intervention was seen as a negative influence on the economic capabilities of the region, and private enterprise was viewed as the entity more able to answer questions related to coal. An editorial in the Columbus Dispatch called for “a national policy that encourages new technology over the rehabilitation of plants nearing obsolescence.”567 This encouragement for using clean coal technology to keep dirty power plants open seemed

564 Richard Celeste to Mario Cuomo, October 15, 1987, Folder: Acid Rain, Box 5877, Governor: Administration. Governor’s agency review and issue files 1983-1990 Series 4121, Ohio Historical Society State Archives.

565 R. Chris Burnett, “Acid-rain plan falls into fray,” Columbus Dispatch, June 12, 1988.

566 Alexandra Allen, “Blow Away the Foul-Air Lobby,” New York Times, June 11, 1988. ProQuest (110510658).

567 “Another ‘solution,’” Columbus Dispatch, June 15, 1988.

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forward thinking, but keeping coal as the energy of the future had become increasingly difficult by 1988.

Essentially, there had to be an answer to the acid rain problem that did not hurt consumers but did involve new construction and investment. One problem with building a solution was the precedent for overspending on new projects set by the nuclear industry. The aging power plants in the Ohio Valley outlived earlier predictions that new power plants would take their places, though they represented the attractive potential of recycling old power plants. Kyger Creek was about to turn 40 in the 1990s, and its future, along with that of other aging plants, was in question.

This question had a potential political answer, and it came from a Republican presidential administration. With the election of President George H.W. Bush in 1988, change was in the air. Unlike his predecessor, the first President Bush was interested in making progressive changes to U.S. regulations on emissions. Major changes were coming to Ohio’s power plants and its high sulfur coal industry.

Soon after Bush’s 1988 presidential election, Celeste reached out to President

Bush about the acid rain issue. In a December 1988 letter to Bush, Celeste wrote: “any acid rain program must also preserve the economic health of Midwestern ‘industrial’ states like Ohio.”568 Celeste pushed for a “middle ground” of environmental protection and economic preservation, and he urged Bush to consider the pact Celeste made with

Cuomo earlier in 1988. The image of a Democrat arguing with a Republican over the

568 Governor Richard Celeste to President George Bush (copy) December 23, 1988, Folder: Acid Rain, Box 5877, Governor: Administration. Governor’s agency review and issue files 1983-1990 Series 4121, Ohio Historical Society State Archives. Celeste characterized Ohio as an “industrial” state, indicating that his efforts to change the state’s industrial pollution in the 1980s did not mean changing the role of Ohio in the U.S.

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stringency of environmental regulations, with the Republican arguing for stronger controls, emphasized the peculiarity of Ohio’s position in the late 1980s.

After a meeting in May 1989 that brought together Celeste, Bush, and other governors, the Columbus Dispatch produced an editorial arguing that the cost of reducing sulfur dioxide should not just fall on Ohio: “acid rain is not merely a regional concern” and states share costs of “federal irrigation projects in the West,” and the editorial writers noted that “just about everyone will bail out the failing Texas and California savings and loan industry.”569 Despite Celeste’s efforts, change was on the way for the regulation of acid rain, power plants, and emissions in the U.S.

President Bush signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 into law on

November 15, 1990 after they passed both houses of Congress by large majorities.570 The

1990 amendments strengthened earlier air pollution regulations and “were intended to meet unaddressed or insufficiently addressed problems such as acid rain.”571 The new

Clean Air Act amendments set deadlines for plants to meet new standards.

This was necessary in the Ohio region, as “the Clean Air Act as approved by

Congress last year requires most Midwestern utilities to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by

50 percent by the year 2000.”572 It intended “to tailor cleanup requirements to the severity of the pollution and set realistic deadlines for reaching cleanup goals.”573 Tall stacks, like

569 “Need to share burden,” Columbus Dispatch, May 22, 1989, 12A. Newsbank.

570 United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Administrator Reilly Hails Signing of New Clean Air Act, (November 15, 1990), accessed March 23, 2014, http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-administrator- reilly-hails-signing-new-clean-air-act.

571 Collin, The Environmental Protection Agency. 16.

572 Robert White, “Sticker Shock—Cash Goes Up In Smoke,” Cincinnati Post, March 18, 1991. Newsbank.

573 Collin, The Environmental Protection Agency, 18. 188

those constructed at Kyger Creek, Clifty Creek, and Gavin, would not be sufficient to meet new standards.574

The new realities of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 hit the power industry hard, and in Ohio the impact was greater than the local effects of the Clean Air

Act of 1970. Arguments over pollution controls seen in the 1970s began again in

November 1990, and this time happened in an era with an established, long-standing, and successful environmental movement. Despite this challenge to coal burning, Ohio politicians continued to work to support Ohio’s coal mining industry in southeastern

Ohio. Strong support for Ohio coal can be seen in a specific case in the early 1990s involving a coal mining controversy in the area around Gallia County.575

III. Shadows Under the Tall Stacks: 1990 Clean Air Act, Southeastern Ohio, and the

Battle over Scrubbers

In the early 1970s, Cheshire, Ohio became home to a second coal-fired power plant, Ohio Power’s Gavin, with the operator a subsidiary of AEP and one of the original investors in the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation. In the 1980s, Mountaineer Power Plant joined Philip Sporn Power Plant in New Haven, West Virginia.576 This brought the sleepy

574 Kyger Creek’s smokestack made it into The New York Times in 1986, during a debate over funding anti- pollution programs in Congress. Reporter John Holusha noted the tall stacks at Kyger Creek were part of “the record of environmental programs with unintended consequences.” John Holusha, “GOOD INTENTIONS CAN TAKE THEIR TOLL ON THE TERRAIN; FALLOUT FROM KYGER CREEK,” The New York Times, May 11, 1986, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/11/weekinreview/good-intentions- can-take-their-toll-on-the-terrain-fallout-from-kyger-creek.html.

575 Regional soil and its abilities to ward off the effects of acid rain made the Northeast more susceptible. For a discussion of these processes and acid rain concerns from the era, see: Karen B. Carter, “The Acid Rain Debate: Is One Man’s Power Another Man’s Poison?” Journal (Water Pollution Control Federation) 55, no. 8 (August 1983).

576 Philip Sporn, named for the first OVEC president, opened in 1951 while Mountaineer did not come online until the 1980s. The addition of Mountaineer meant four coal-fired power plants totaling over 6,000 Megawatts were now operating in a relatively short stretch of the Ohio River near southeastern Ohio. Gavin 189

corner of southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia its own power plant concentration.

While Kyger Creek and Clifty Creek would have to address their pollution control problems, it was the new Gavin plant near Kyger Creek that became the focus of a political, business, labor, and local debate over the future of southeastern Ohio’s coal- fired development. The debate over pollution controls—to satisfy the new Clean Air Act regulations—revealed the continued importance of rural industry at the end of the 20th century and the social consequences of environmental protection.

This debate happened in a specific climate of economic uncertainty in southeastern Ohio, but also in the state of Ohio in general. While the area around the

Gavin Plant suffered from high unemployment and poverty rates, Ohio’s industrialized cities were also suffering from deindustrialization and loss of jobs in heavy industries like steel. Cleveland’s situation in the past twenty years reflected this issue: “Between 1970 and 1985, manufacturing employment in the Cleveland metropolitan area fell by 86,100 jobs.”577 Economically, the area around Gavin and Kyger Creek had not improved by the late 1980s. From 1985 to 1988 “the Gallia county unemployment rate” exceeded state and national averages, and the area also faced job losses according to 1988 figures from the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services.578

is 2,600 MW, Mountaineer 1,300 MW, Sporn is 1,150 MW, and Kyger Creek is 1,075 MW. Source: Feck, American Electric Power: A Century of Firsts, 249-250.

577 Carol Poh Miller and Robert A. Wheeler, Cleveland: A Concise History, 2nd Edition (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), 183.

578 Ohio Labor Market Information: County Profile: Gallia County 1988 Edition, (Columbus: Ohio Bureau of Employment Services, 1988): 2.

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Though power plants did not provide many jobs, Gavin was a little different. Ohio

Power built the General James Gavin Power Plant, a 2,600 Megawatt facility, about a mile from Kyger Creek Plant along the shores of the Ohio River in the 1970s. It was the second-largest AEP plant and the biggest sulfur dioxide polluter.579 In the late 1970s the

Southern Ohio Coal Company (SOCCO), a subsidiary of AEP, built mines to feed Gavin not far from the plant itself.580 Gavin provided jobs at the plant, property taxes, and enabled 800-850 mining jobs at the Southern Ohio Coal Company. Ohio’s coal dependency reflected long-term trends, and the development of the Southern Ohio Coal

Company was directly related to the growth of plants along the Ohio River.581

But the problem with Ohio’s coal, and much of the regional coal, was its high sulfur content. This had already led utilities to utilize western, low-sulfur coal from areas like the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.582 Western coal made up part of Gavin’s reserves.583 To deal with sulfur pollution, Kyger Creek and Gavin used tall stacks, like

579 Michael B. Lafferty noted in 1992, “AEP must do something about Gavin, the nation’s dirtiest plant, producing 400,000 tons of sulfur dioxide every year, about 25 percent of AEP’s total sulfur dioxide emissions.” Michael Lafferty, “Decision Day Looms on Coal Scrubbers at Gavin Plant,” Columbus Dispatch, November 22, 1992. Newsbank.

580 American Electric Power Company—Fuel Supply Dept., This is Southern Ohio Coal Company—Meigs Division, videorecording (Lancaster, Ohio: American Electric Power Company, 1987).

581 As noted by Robert White in the Cincinnati Post in March 1991, “unlike coastal states—which rely mainly on oil, nuclear and hydroelectric power—coal is the source of 95 percent of the electricity generated in Ohio.” Also, “roughly half that coal comes from 32 counties in eastern and southern Ohio. The mines and related operations employed about 7,000 people and generated about $933 million in 1988.” He also noted power plants in Ohio create “about 11 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions in the U.S.” Robert White, “Sticker Shock—Cash Goes up in Smoke,” Cincinnati Post, March 18, 1991. Newsbank.

582 A recent journalistic account of the changes in the coal mining, burning, and transmission practices is: Jeff Goodell, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

583 Crowell painted a gloomy picture for Ohio coal in the wake of the Clean Air Act, with the amount of coal burned by Ohio utilities rising from 1970 to 1995, but the amount of Ohio coal used falling. Crowell, History of the Coal-Mining Industry in Ohio, 61.

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those installed at Clifty Creek. This did not rid the emissions of sulfur dioxide, but pushed them further away.

The passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 created problems for utilities using Ohio coal. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments developed “cap and trade” for sulfur dioxide and set reduction of emissions of SO2 to half of 1980 levels.584

This was part of an Acid Rain Program. The Clean Air Act made it necessary for AEP to reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions by 1995. The new Clean Air Act Amendments gave utilities and states major tasks in the reduction of emissions, including sulfur dioxide.

Local and state politicians, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), the

United Mine Workers (UMW) and miners from Southern Ohio Coal Company, environmental groups, and an industrial coalition, Industrial Energy Consumers, all got involved in a political, environmental, and economic debate over how to reduce Gavin’s sulfur emissions. This situation proved a bit unusual, as environmentalists and corporations found themselves on the same side—against installing scrubbers at Gavin, while politicians, miners, and locals joined forces to force pollution controls and preserve local mining jobs.585

The issue at hand, using scrubbers or low sulfur coal to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, directly resulted from federal legislation and also came from years of avoidance of this technology by AEP and other utilities since the 1970s. According to reports, by 1992 only “two of Ohio’s 25 coal plants have scrubbers. Zimmer has a full

584 United States Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Market Programs, Cap and Trade: Acid Rain Program Results, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.epa.gov/capandtrade/documents/ctresults.pdf.

585 Keenan has discussed a movement in the Upper Ohio Valley north of the Cheshire area that organized to preserve jobs: “calling itself Save Our Valley (SOV), it had objectives that were diametrically opposed to STV. What SOV wanted to “save” were jobs that were being lost owing to the closing of area steel mills.” Keenan, “An Ecopolitical System of Global Significance,” 239. 19 2

scrubbing operation and Conesville a partial system.”586 Clearly, updating so many power plants with the expensive scrubbers would be a challenge. However, the dispute over scrubbers involved saving local jobs in southeastern Ohio.

The reason Cheshire was suddenly at the center of this conflict was not aging

Kyger Creek, but the younger, bigger Gavin plant. In 1990, AEP needed “expensive scrubbers at its Gavin plant in southeastern Ohio to comply with standards set by the federal Clean Air Act.”587 Gavin was chosen for retrofitting because it was such a big polluter and therefore the plant where a change in pollution controls would make the biggest individual change.588 The process of installing scrubbers involved building a new switchyard and revising the “fly ash system” “from a wet system to a dry system.”589 An

AEP representative emphasized that, “communication efforts have been well received by the neighbors and by the village (Cheshire).”590 Installing scrubbers would cost $815

586 “UMW declares miners jobs could be protected with scrubbers at Gavin plant,” Point Pleasant Register, April 24, 1992, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=po5DAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pqkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6376%2C129321 3.

587 “Spratley reaffirms position on Gavin scrubbers options,” Point Pleasant Register, April 9, 1991, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nndDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PakMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4699%2C389681.

588 Raymond M. Maliszewski provides an overview of the decision to install scrubbers from a legal perspective in “American Electric Power Company Case Study,” in Regulating Regional Power Systems, ed. Clinton J. Andrews (Westport: Quorum, 1995), 237-260. He provides some reflections on the “changing complexion of the electric utility industry” in the 1990s, which altered the ways AEP operated.

589 “Scrubbers expected to be in use at Gavin Plant by fall, 1995,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, February, 21, 1993, D2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BjtDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Na0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3027%2C287879 3.

590 “Scrubbers expected to be in use at Gavin Plant by fall, 1995.”

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million.591The utility eventually supported the scrubber construction, though it had opposed the technology at Gavin for decades.

Locals in southeastern Ohio backed the scrubbers for economic reasons, as the area economy would suffer if scrubbers were not installed and mines closed. Ohio counties in the region joined forces in 1991 to push AEP to keep burning Ohio coal, as the utility considered finishing its application for scrubber use at Gavin or switching to low-sulfur coal from out of state.592 The jobs trickling out of southeastern Ohio and other areas of Appalachia were heading west.593 This shift of a traditionally Appalachian industry—coal mining—to the western states continued patterns of industrial migration well underway by 1990.594

The debate over maintaining Ohio coal reached Ohio’s highest office, just as it had with Richard Celeste in the 1980s. Republican governor George Voinovich, in July

1991, signed a “coal bill allows utilities that burn Ohio’s high-sulfur coal to claim tax credits for up to 20 percent of the cost of anti-pollution smokestack scrubbers to achieve

591 “Scrubbers jeopardized by industrial coalition,” The Daily Sentinel, December 8, 1992, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eTNDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Cq0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3334%2C41976 87.

592 Jim Woods, “5 Counties Unite to Persuade AEP Plant to Use Scrubbers,” Columbus Dispatch, April 3, 1991, 4C.

593 Western coalfields exploded in production in the past decades, and as noted by Jeff Goodell, this cut into the industry “in high-sulfur coal regions such as Illinois, Ohio, and central Appalachia.” Goodell calls the Powder River Basin, central to the western strip mining industry, “the Saudi Arabia of coal.” Goodell, Big Coal, 1-3 and 13.

594 The connections between public investment in the South in the New Deal era and corporate and industrial development after World War II is detailed in Bruce Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sun Belt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

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specified reductions in emissions.”595 Voinovich, the former Mayor of Cleveland, was intimately familiar with the problems of losing industrial jobs. This effort to protect

Ohio’s coal industry was not surprising, though a number of groups argued that paying higher electric rates was not worth saving these jobs.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club’s Ohio chapter, opposed the scrubber installation, preferring “low sulfur” coal. The group also supported the lower costs of fuel switching, in comparison to scrubbers, as the latter was reported to increase costs to consumers by a greater amount than the former—“4 percent” vs. “1.6 percent.”596

Sierra Club member Ned Ford reportedly argued that the costs would hurt Ohio

“industrial energy users.”597 In a press release, the Sierra Club pushed the economic and environmental problems with scrubbers. The release included the arguments that

“scrubbing causes more job loss for steel, aluminum and other industries than fuel switching does for Ohio coal” and “scrubbers also increase the release of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming.”598 This combination of environmental and economic argument resembled the arguments made by STV in the arguments over power plants near Madison, Indiana.

595 Associated Press, “Voinovich signing coal bill,” Portsmouth Daily Times, July 10, 1991, A3, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bM1QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0tAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6978%2C82071 0.

596 “Regulators set to decide on Gavin scrubbers,” Point Pleasant Register, November 23, 1992, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uJ1BAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hKkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2624%2C279597 4.

597 “Sierra Club critical of utility,” Portsmouth Daily Times, April 27, 1992, A3, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WMRQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oNAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6598%2C668 6265.

598 Sierra Club, “Sierra Club Calls Gavin Scrubber Strategy Power Politics At Its Worst,” press release, April 23, 1992, on the Free Library Web site, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SIERRA+CLUB+CALLS+GAVIN+SCRUBBER+STRATEGY+POWER+ POLITICS+AT+ITS+WORST-a012172343

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Scrubbers required additional construction at Gavin, including infrastructure to support the lime waste. At an Army Corps of Engineers hearing on the AEP application

“to build a lime-barge unloading facility and a landfill,” at Meigs High School on May 4,

1992, a number of people argued in favor of scrubbers. It was reported “more than 1,200 people, including dozens of miners wearing hard hats and carrying signs, crowded into

Meigs High School Monday night to listen to testimony.”599 Local politicians also spoke out in support of the scrubber plan. Congressmen Bob McEwen and Clarence Miller supported the local miners. McEwen noted, “the question before us tonight is will we have clean air with jobs, or clean air without jobs. That is the decision the Corps will make.”600

Though not all locals supported the plan to install scrubbers, a number of people in southeastern Ohio agreed with McEwen. The five-county group, “the Meigs-Gallia-

Vinton-Jackson-Athens Five-county Coalition,” gathered the interests of locals, supported scrubbers.601 These counties were some of the poorest in the state of Ohio. All had poverty rates above 20 percent in 1990, and neighboring Athens County’s poverty rate was the highest in Appalachian Ohio at 28.7 percent.602

599 Jim Freeman, “More than 35 testify in favor of scrubbers,” Point Pleasant Register, May 5, 1992, 1 and 3, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ro5DAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pqkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2581%2C192853.

600 Ibid.

601 Jim Freeman, “Support unanimous for scrubbers at Gavin,” The Daily Sentinel, May 5, 1992, 1 and 3, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iYVDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ba0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2338%2C203056 6.

602 Appalachian Regional Commission, County Economic Status, Fiscal Year 2002: Appalachian Ohio, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.arc.gov/reports/region_report.asp?FIPS=39999&REPORT_ID=29.

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The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio held hearings on scrubbers, including an

Athens, Ohio hearing in June 1992. One attendee told the crowd, “If people can’t eat and cannot get the self-esteem from having a job…then the environment doesn’t mean a whole lot.”603 Athens’ state representative, Democrat Mary Abel, argued switching to western coal “will have a disastrous effect, not only on Southeastern Ohio, but on the whole of Ohio as well.”604A contradicting opinion came from “organic farmer” Art Gish, who argued, “why are we spending this money to save 1,000 jobs? We’re asking the wrong question. Alternative jobs should be looked at…, alternative energy conservation should be taken into consideration.”605 The cost of scrubbers also struck Ohio’s industrial leaders, who would feel a greater impact from increased energy costs.

Industrial Energy Consumers argued against scrubbers based on cost: they would

“boost electric rates by 6 percent between 1995 and 2000.”606 The industrial coalition brought together “Anheuser-Busch, Aristech Chemical, Armco Advanced Materials,

LTV Steel, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Owens-Illinois, Republic Engineered Steels, Stone

Container and Timken Co.” along with BP Oil and General Motors.607 These corporations were some of Ohio’s biggest employers and largest consumers of electricity. A Dispatch

603 “Sworn testimony given during PUCO hearings,” The Daily Sentinel, June 26, 1992, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=soVDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ba0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2374%2C493740 0.

604 Ibid.

605 “Farmer feels scrubber cost is too much,” The Daily Sentinel, June 28, 1992, A6, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=s4VDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ba0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=4349%2C501867 3.

606 Alan Johnson, “Ohio Top Court asked to Scrub Scrubber Plan,” Columbus Dispatch, March 9, 1993 Newsbank.

607 “Scrubbers jeopardized by industrial coalition,” The Daily Sentinel, December 8, 1992, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eTNDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Cq0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3334%2C41976 87.

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writer noted a Republic representative argued protecting regional coal “would help Ohio coal miners, he said, but could raise electric rates by 25 percent and thus damage the struggling Ohio steel industry.”608

This meant the loss of high-paying union jobs in many cases, which was also a concern in southeastern Ohio. The United Mine Workers (UMW) came out in favor of scrubbers. Reportedly, the end of Meigs County’s mines would mean “eliminating 1,200 jobs, more than one-third of the United Mine Workers’ 3,000 remaining members in the

Ohio-West Virginia district.”609 According to an April 1992 AP report, a UMW representative said, “Our position all along was the installation of scrubbers was the least costly way of complying with the act and in best interest of the state of Ohio and the people of Ohio.”610 Not surprisingly, cost had to be emphasized by those in favor of scrubbers. Protecting the jobs in southeastern Ohio had to resonate beyond the area for people to support scrubbers, even though locals would see the greatest environmental and social changes from the decision.

Soon, pre-construction for the scrubber installation at Gavin was underway. In

June, the “Army Corps of Engineers gave its approval to permits necessary for the construction of a lime barge loading dock from the Ohio River to the plant and the

608 David Lore, “Panel Ponders Ways To Help Ohio Utilities With Clean Air Act,” Columbus Dispatch, April 11, 1991. Newsbank.

609 “Regulators set to decide on Gavin Scrubbers.”

610 “UMW declares miners jobs could be protected with scrubbers,” Point Pleasant Register, April 24, 1992, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=po5DAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pqkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6376%2C129321 3.

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placement of fill material in certain nearby wetlands.”611 PUCO ruled in favor of AEP installing scrubbers in November 1992.612 The Dispatch reported that “AEP Chairman and chief executive officer,” Richard E. Disbrow, said the scrubbers were “121 million less expensive than switching to out-of-state coal.”613

Those concerned about the economic effects of scrubbers continued to fight. The

Sierra Club and Center for Clean Air Policy appealed PUCO’s decision in 1993. The decision would “save the jobs of 800 coal miners but is estimated to boost electric rates by 6 percent between 1995 and 2000.”614 Industrial Energy Consumers filed two appeals to the PUCO decision with the Ohio Supreme Court.615 Industrial Energy Consumers’ representative argued: “We are asking that Ohio Power not be allowed to subsidize its coal business at the expense of its customers.”616

611 T-S Staff, “Gavin scrubbers face more regulatory hurdles,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, June 7, 1992, A1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=o4VDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ba0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2605%2C379767 4.

612 “The PUCO decision, coupled with a related ruling on AEP’s coal costs, will: Allow AEP to lease the scrubbers. Preserve 800 jobs at AEP’s affiliated coal mines in Meigs County, where coal production will be cut from 6 million to 4.5 million tons per year. Cap the price of coal from the Meigs mines for 18 years. Permit a switch to low-sulfur coal at AEP power plants in Beverly, Ohio, and Moundsville, W.Va., as well as conversion to natural gas in the Picway plant south of Columbus and the Conesville, Ohio plant.” New construction included a “chemical facility (that) is needed to handle hundreds of tons of lime-treated sludge, a byproduct of the scrubbing process, and dispose of it in a nearby landfill.” Alan Johnson, AEP’s Scrubber Plan Approved,” Columbus Dispatch, November 26, 1992. Newsbank. “State Approves Utility’s Use of Scrubbers,” Portsmouth Daily Times, November 26, 1992, B1.

613 “AEP’s Scrubber Plan Approved.”

614 Alan Johnson, “Groups Sue to Stop AEP ‘Scrubbers,” Columbus Dispatch, March 19, 1993. Newsbank.

615 “Environmental groups appeal use of scrubbers,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, March 19, 1993, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HTtDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Na0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3985%2C432374 0. “Coalition files second suit against scrubber project,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, March 14, 1993, A2, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GDtDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Na0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=4051%2C39920 82.

616 Alan Johnson, “Ohio Top Court asked to Scrub Scrubber Plan,” Columbus Dispatch, March 9, 1993 Newsbank.

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Frustration about the coal industry’s efforts did not end in 1993. In 1994, the

Industrial Energy Consumers again brought a suit to the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing the coal protection was “unconstitutional interference in interstate commerce.”617 The

Dispatch published an editorial arguing, “the decision to go with scrubbers was a cave-in by the PUCO to Ohio coal interests.”618

In the end, scrubbers were installed at the plant and Gavin’s 1,103-foot tall stack was exchanged for two 830-foot stacks.619 In the fight against air pollution, a compromise was met as the scrubbers went into operation in 1995. But, the problems were just beginning in Cheshire, Ohio.

IV. Cheshire, Gavin, and the End of An Era

Since the groundbreaking at Kyger Creek in December 1952, Cheshire, Ohio had a strong connection to the U.S. power industry. The village’s environment—like that of

Madison, Indiana—combined 19th century buildings, 20th century additions, and at least one huge power plant. But the reality in Cheshire by 1998 was far different than the reality of living in Madison, and the changes underway indicated what might have been if that Hunter’s Bottom plant and all of the projected power plants, had been constructed near Madison.

The environmental challenges facing Cheshire in the late 1990s had a specific background of socioeconomic stress and inequality and were quite diverse—legal, social, political, environmental, and economic. The danger of relying on coal for electricity, so

617 “Zap! Ouch! Ohio Power’s Rate Increase: First Jolt of Many,” Columbus Dispatch, June 14, 1994. Newsbank.

618 Ibid.

619 Buckley, Bain, and Swan, “When the Lights Go Out in Cheshire,” 546. 200

clear to acid rain activists from the northeastern U.S., came home in Cheshire, which had more than 200 residents, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.620 The problems facing

Cheshire grabbed state and national attention and brought attention to the difficulties of controlling the pollution of coal in the 21st century.

The economic issues were evident in the area. As part of the Appalachian

Regional Commission’s designation of Appalachia, Cheshire’s Gallia County was rated based on its socioeconomic levels. Gallia, along with Meigs and Vinton counties in Ohio, and neighboring Mason County, West Virginia, were all “distressed” counties by the ratings of the ARC in 2002.621 The “average unemployment rate” in Gallia County, according to ARC, from 1997-1999 was 8.2 percent and the poverty rate 22.5 percent in

1990.622 Meigs had a 10.8 percent unemployment rate and 26 percent poverty rate during the same period.623 Vinton’s numbers were 11.4 percent unemployment and 23.6 percent poverty rate for these same periods. Unfortunately, the problems would worsen in the next few years.

As the economy stagnated, progress on controlling Gavin’s emissions continued in the 21st century. Ohio Power and American Electric Power in 2000 announced the installation of a nitrogen oxide (NO2) reducing selective catalytic

620 Carey Murphy and Lea Prainsack, The Cheshire Transaction, film, directed by Carey Murphy and Lea Prainsack (7North Productions, 2003), DVD.

621 “Distressed,” was the category given to counties in the worst financial shape, while other categories included “at-risk” and “transitional.” Appalachian Regional Commission, County Economic Status in Appalachia, FY 2002, http://www.arc.gov/research/MapsofAppalachia.asp?MAP_ID=13, accessed March 23, 2014.

622 Appalachian Regional Commission, County Economic Status, Fiscal Year 2002: Appalachian Ohio, http://www.arc.gov/reports/region_report.asp?FIPS=39999&REPORT_ID=29, accessed March 23, 2014.

623 Ibid.

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reduction system (SCR) at Gavin.624 Nitrogen oxide is a contributor to global warming.625

Like sulfur dioxide, it was one of the big emissions of coal-fired electric power plants and had been a targeted pollutant since the Clean Air Act of 1970. Stricter air pollution controls on nitrogen oxides followed the rules of the Clean Air Act Amendments of

1990.626

However, the pollution controls at Gavin were reportedly causing local pollution problems in the village of Cheshire. The installation of the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system at Gavin caused local concerns over pollution, as the system resulted in releases of “sulfur trioxide” in its operation to lower nitrogen oxide emissions.627 The functioning of the Gavin Power Plant became a local liability, with sulfuric acid clouds or “blue plumes.”628 One report quoted local resident John Borman describing a “blue plume” incident: “I thought that the place was on fire. I had to run for the house. I couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t see anything.”629 It aggravated local residents, who formed a bloc with legal support. The local commissioners wrote to Ohio Governor

624 Mark Williams, “AEP to install new pollution controls,” The Canton Repository, June 22, 2000. Newsbank.

625 United States Environmental Protection Agency, Overview of Greenhouse Gases, accessed March 23, 2014, http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/n2o.html.

626 The new SCR system at Gavin followed later 1998 EPA rules setting State Implementation Plans (SIP) for Nitrogen Oxides in 22 states in the eastern U.S. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Nitrogen Oxides (NOX) Control Regulations, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.epa.gov/region1/airquality/nox.html.

627 Carey Murphy and Lea Prainsack, “Cheshire & the Gavin Plant: three decades of coexistence,” http://www.cheshiretransaction.com/town/sub/cngtown.html, accessed March 24, 2014.

628 Ibid.

629 Todd J. Gillman, “What a shame about Cheshire,” The Free Lance-Star, May 11, 2002, A11, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=- _AyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6421%2C2855580.

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Robert Taft, arguing, “we feel that we are getting a double dose of problems with the loss of tax revenue, plus the installation of potentially disastrous abatement equipment and no funding to prepare should an emergency situation occur.”630

In April 2002, American Electric Power offered a resolution, with a buyout of homes in direct proximity to Gavin, at a price of $20 million.631 Residents complained of physical issues as well as damage to their property that was the result of living next to

Gavin. Local activists’ efforts to keep residents in Cheshire were captured in The

Cheshire Transaction, a 2003 documentary about the incident. Even an AEP representative commented on the strange situation of pollution controls resulting in local pollution: “There is no doubt some irony in this, in that the plant was scrubbed in the mid-90s. It is a showcase, so to speak, of clean coal-fired electricity. It has the latest up- to-date pollution control equipment.”632

As the effects of using Ohio’s high sulfur coal seemed even clearer, the resource was on the decline. The production of Ohio coal dropped from 1991 to 2000 by

8,300 tons, an “average annual percent change” of decline by 3.4 percent.633 In this interim, Ohio’s “national ranking in coal production fell from tenth to fourteenth

630 Kevin Kelly, “Gallia commissioners join tank protest,” Pomeroy Times-Sentinel, November 12, 2000, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=NNRDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0K8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5807%2C28723 24.

631 This situation brought a tremendous amount of local and national media attention to Cheshire, with news stories too numerous to list. A legal study of the situation is: Gideon Parchomovsky and Peter Siegelman, “Selling Mayberry: Communities and Individuals in Law and Economics,” California Law Review 92, issue 1 (January 2004): 77-146.

632 “What a shame about Cheshire.”

633 Ohio Legislative Service Commission, The Fiscal Impact on State Revenues of Extending the Ohio Coal Tax Credit, Staff Research Report No. 150, June 28, 2002, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.lsc.state.oh.us/research/srr150.pdf.

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place.”634 Meanwhile, the local mining industry also took a hit, as the Meigs mines closed in 2001. The new owner, CONSOL Energy—formerly Consolidated Coal—closed Meigs

31 and planned to close Meigs 2 because they exhausted “mineable reserves” in those mines and “said all SOCCO employees will be terminated at that time.”635 CONSOL told the Athens News that they would provide job opportunities for the miners.

The changing realities for coal and coal-fired energy in southeastern Ohio represented the difficulties of maintaining the “technocratic view of the environment” that started this development in the 1940s and 1950s. While this area of Ohio had the natural resources, infrastructure, and location that made it a perfect place to expand the coal-fired energy industry, the pollution resulting from the concentration of power plants around these resources made this seemingly practical use of the environment impossible.

VI. Conclusion: Coal, the Ohio Valley, and the Future

At the turn of the 21st century, the coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley had far different challenges to face in terms of regulation, competition, and usage than in the early days of OVEC. The new legal challenges to coal-fired utilities meant that the aging coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley no longer were stable. The efforts of Ohio politicians to protect the coal mining industry could not overcome the national challenges to the industry’s high-sulfur coal. The Ohio Valley section of Ohio and Indiana finally faced some major changes in their power plant concentration.

634 Ohio Legislative Service Commission, The Fiscal Impact on State Revenues of Extending the Ohio Coal Tax Credit.

635 Athens News Staff, “Layoffs continue as Meigs Mines approach final shutdown,” Athens News, September 17, 2001, http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-9177-layoffs-continue-as-meigs-mines- approach-final-shutdown.html. “Rio Grande offering benefits to miners,” Sunday Times-Sentinel, June 21, 2001, A1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3L9QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zq8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2138%2C514110 3.

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The conversation around power production also changed by the early 21st century, and it moved away from the high sulfur coal, acid rain discussion to one about carbon emissions and climate change. The Ohio Valley’s power plants, rather than parts of a local and regional irritant, or even a regional engine of acid rain, now had to contend with causing global problems due to their carbon output. The potential problems to come from climate change outweighed the problems caused by acid rain, and using any type of coal for fuel seemed increasingly foolish to a larger number of people.

Lawsuits against American Electric Power and other coal-burning utilities filed in the late 1990s and early 2000s demonstrate the continuing problems of using coal for electricity. Despite the changes made to control Gavin’s pollution, the plant faced a new legal problem. Two of the local power plants were targeted by a lawsuit filed by New

York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in November 1999.636 This list of plants included

Gavin and neighboring Sporn in New Haven, West Virginia.637 New York was joined by other states including Connecticut, and that state’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement, “These companies have flagrantly defied the law by overhauling the plants without installing pollution control equipment,” and this “has extended their lives

636 Spitzer’s suit is discussed in William B. Eimicke and Daniel Shacknai, “Eliot Spitzer: “The People’s Lawyer”—Disgraced,” Public Integrity, (Fall 2008), 368, http://academic.udayton.edu/richardghere/POL%20318/Eliot%20Spitzer.pdf, accessed March 23, 2014.

637 Attorney General New York, Spitzer Files Lawsuits Against Out-of state Power Plants, New York Attorney General’s Office press release, November 29, 1999, on the website of the New York Attorney General, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/spitzer-files-lawsuits-against-out- state-power-plants.

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and expanded their capacities—also increasing their coal consumption and contamination.”638

In 2007, American Electric Power settled with states and environmental groups in a dispute over improvements to its plants, which plaintiffs argued should have fallen under “Non-attainment New Source Review.”639 According to the EPA, this was “the single largest environmental enforcement settlement” and required AEP to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions again and to pay millions.640

The political efforts to protect the coal mining industry and coal-fired energy in

Ohio in the late 20th century reflect efforts by regional leaders to keep jobs in the southeastern Ohio region and to maintain a system of home-grown energy that had existed for decades in Ohio. The situation in Ohio did change in the 1970s, as noted by

Richard L. Gordon in his study of coal energy, and so the high-sulfur coal industry did grow in output with the expansion of coal-fired energy production in the Ohio Valley.641

Though this increase in use of Ohio coal by electric utilities could have been predicted by

Philip Sporn and other leaders in the 1950s, the decline of the steel industry and greater use of coal by utilities than by industries may not have been as clear in the early days of the OVEC-AEC development. After all, a number of Ohio Valley industries were related to the steel industry.

638 Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, Lawsuit filed against out of state plants, Connecticut Attorney General’s Office press release, November 29, 1999, on the website of the Connecticut Attorney General, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=1774&Q=282906&pp=3.

639 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, American Electric Power Service Corporation, October 9, 2007, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/american-electric-power-service- corporation#overview.

640 Ibid.

641 Gordon, Coal in the U.S. Energy Market, 26-28.

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The number of Democrats in Ohio working in favor of the state in the fight against acid rain may be surprising, but the industrial state’s focus remained on the bottom line in the 1980s rather than on the air of distant places in the northeast. The effects of the Clean Air Act of 1990 could be seen cynically as the just rewards for the

Valley after years of postponing real change, or could be seen as a punishment for utilities trying to curb air pollution regulations by installing tall stacks rather than more expensive scrubbers.

The eventual changes that the pollution controls brought to the Ohio Valley, in the manner of the local pollution in Cheshire and the cost of financing these controls locally and through electric rates, were a mixed bag. In Cheshire the pollution came raining down on the small village with new controls.

The efforts of coal miners and those supporting coal miners to maintain the coal industry in the area around the Gavin plant represent a conscious effort to protect jobs in a struggling region. The frustrations that bubbled up over northeastern interference in day-to-day life in southeastern Ohio represented the difficulties of utilizing the rural Ohio

River Valley for power production. While locals could accept a certain amount of pollution in exchange for jobs, they had more to lose with new regulations. Consumers in other areas of Ohio, far from the Ohio River and disconnected from coal mining jobs, had only to worry about whether pollution controls would cause their utility bills to shoot up.

Living in the shadow of the stacks was a different perspective, and one that has declined in areas of the Midwest over time as deindustrialization and environmental regulations pushed polluting industries out or to clean up their acts.

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The changes in regulations at the federal level reflected the change over time of accepting industrial and polluted regions of the country for the better good of the defense state and the economy. The corporate and defense state use of the Ohio Valley’s rich coal reserves, water resources, and land in the mid-to-late 20th century hit a major wall with the 1990 Clean Air Act. Other changes, including the movement of population away from the Ohio Valley utilities’ region and the development of western coalfields in Wyoming meant that the Ohio Valley’s prosperity was limited by more than environmental concerns.

The perfect storm of resources, economic growth, and defense state needs that brought OVEC to the Ohio Valley had completely dissipated by the early 21st century, and moderation in the region became the new normal. One change that did not occur was a move in networks like American Electric Power to produce power in the direct vicinity of people consuming that power. This idea, which was brought up by environmentalists including STV members in the 1970s, did not materialize, and central production of power continued into the 21st century.

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Conclusion: The Twenty-first Century Comes to the 19th Century Town

Driving along the Ohio River Scenic Byway, which traces the Ohio River in

Indiana and Ohio, and other roads near the Ohio River, can be educational for those looking to find what is intended—“small river towns with historical significance to the state as well as the country.”642 It is also a window into the still-beating heart of U.S. coal-fired energy, with plants pouring out steam and smoke across the Ohio River.

The Byway’s path through Cheshire and Madison reveals the different directions these places took after they became the sites of the OVEC power plants. A brief consideration of the terrains reveals the importance of small towns in the post-World War

II era—these are not simply places people leave and they are not simply places stuck in stasis or in decline. Instead, these are living communities with physical evidence of their connections to national trends in industrialization, defense, and power production.

Entering Madison on U.S. Route 421 from Milton, Kentucky is a new experience on the 2013-built Madison-Milton Bridge crossing the Ohio River. The cheery brick skyline of Madison stretches out ahead, with the tremendous stacks of Clifty Creek off to the side. In Madison today, the beauty of the small town is in full bloom. Driving along

Main Street, the liveliness of the place is clear. Madison has people actively using its downtown. Cars line the streets, stores fill many of the buildings, and even the historic movie theater is still operating. A few more troubling signs indicate Madison has not

642 Ohio Scenic Byways Program, Ohio River Scenic Byway, accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.dot.state.oh.us/OhioByways/Pages/OhioRiverScenic.aspx.

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survived the new century unscathed, as neighborhoods spiraling out from Main Street look much worse for the wear, and a sign warns of the harms of synthetic drugs.

Photo 2. Image of Downtown Madison, Indiana643

The impressive façade is no accident. In 1982, the City of Madison created “a municipal Historic Preservation Ordinance” “and established a Historic District Board of

Review to undertake the historic preservation program and to guide the future preservation policies, planning, and programs.”644 The city’s participation in the Main

Street Program in 1977 led to the dismantling of some of its modern signage along Main

643 Megan Chew, Photo 2.

644 Thomason and Associates, Madison: Residential Design Review Guidelines Madison, Indiana Prepared for the city of Madison, Indiana, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomason and Associates, Preservation Planners, 2009), accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.madison-in.gov/DocumentCenter/View/18.

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Street and the city held special events to celebrate National Historic Preservation

Week.645 It is estimated that 300,000 visitors a year come to the town “and these tourists add some fifty million dollars to the economy of Jefferson County.”646 A local tourism brochure cites Charles Kuralt’s view on Madison: “The most beautiful rivertown in

America.”647

Madison is also breathing easier. The OVEC plants, Clifty Creek and Kyger

Creek, saw major pollution controls installed in the 2000s, first with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in 2002, and then with scrubbers to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in 2007 and beyond.648 This left Clifty

Creek with a wider stack releasing “more visible” emissions, like the water vapor clouds extending from nuclear power plants.649

645 “Preservation Week Begins,” Madison Courier, May 13, 1985, 11, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=brpJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mRANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3610%2C528568 8.

646 Thomason and Associates, “Madison: Residential Design Review Guidelines.” It is also a “Preserve America community.” See: Preserve America: Explore and Enjoy Our Heritage, “Preserve America Community: Madison, Indiana,” accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.preserveamerica.gov/PAcommunity-madisonIN.html.

647 Visit Madison, “A Brief History,” Madison, Indiana (Madison, Indiana: VisitMadison).

648 “Ohio Valley Electric sells $305M in notes,” Columbus Business First, February 11, 2002, , accessed March 23, 2014, http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2002/02/11/daily7.html. G. Annette Hope, “Kyger Creek Plant to Reduce emissions through new scrubber system,” Ohio Valley Electric Corporation press release, October 8, 2011, on the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation website, http://www.ovec.com/News%20Release%20-%20Kyger%20Creek%20FGD%20-%2010-28-2011.pdf, accessed March 24, 2014. Melissa McHenry, “OVEC-IKEC to restart construction of Clifty Creek scrubbers,” Ohio Valley Electric Corporation Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corporation press release, December 15, 2010, on the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation website, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.ovec.com/News%20Release%20Clifty%20Creek%20Scrubbers%2012-15-10.pdf.

649 Appalachian Power, “Scrubbers & Other Environmental Controls,” https://www.appalachianpower.com/info/projects/ScrubbersAndEnvironmentalControls/, accessed March 23, 2014.

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Photo 3. Image of Clifty Creek Power Plant.650

In addition, one of the planned power plants of the 1970s came online. Louisville

Gas & Electric opened a power plant near Wise’s Landing in Trimble County, Kentucky in the 1990s.651 The plant’s successful construction occurred despite earlier intervention by Save The Valley.652

As the Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station faded into memory, the 19th century history of Madison continued to take root in the 20th and 21st century versions of the city. Madison created a Riverfront Development Committee in the 1980s and the

650 Thomas Chew, Photo 3.

651 LG&E and KU, “Neighbor to Neighbor: Trimble County Generating Station” and Dave Taylor, “Trimble judge: plant decision was a good one,” Madison Courier, July 5, 1988, 3, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2oVjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0HkNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1908%2C550798.

652 “Save The Valley organizing in Trimble,” Madison Courier, April 3, 1979, B1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=q3tbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7VANAAAAIBAJ&pg=2228%2C112518.

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city’s riverfront became a place for recreation. Within easy driving distance from large populations in Louisville and Cincinnati, Madison had regional tourism potential.

Madison was a stop for historic riverboat cruises, including those of the Delta Queen, and became noted in national publications in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s for its historic, small town atmosphere.653

The biggest honor for the city came with its admission to a list of important historic sites across the U.S. In 2006, Madison’s downtown attained the status of National

Historic Landmark, as a 133-block district. This honor, bestowed by the National Park

Service, is only given to cities with “national significance”—meaning that Madison was far more than just another pretty city along the Ohio River.654 It also made Madison

“Indiana’s largest historic district,” a major accomplishment for a city that had fallen from its perch of power in the mid-1800s.655

A trip through southeastern Ohio on the Scenic Byway brings a much different picture. Route 7 is the Ohio River Scenic Byway in the area around Cheshire, but it is also an industrial route that connects Cheshire to Marietta, Ohio and other industrial places along the Ohio River. “Scenic” visions off Route 7 include trailers, plants, towns, and, of course, the Ohio River itself.

653 This ad is from the 1970s and lists “historic Madison, Indiana” as a stop for the riverboat. The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg), February 17, 1976, 10-B, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Yv4LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GVgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4984%2C35254 6.

654 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, IX. Summary of the National Historic Landmarks Criteria for Evaluation, accessed March 24, 2014, http://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb15/nrb15_9.htm.

655 Visit Madison, “Historic Sites,” accessed March 23, 2014, http://visitmadison.org/historic-sites.php.

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Entering Cheshire on Route 7, the power plants dominate the town. An observer without any knowledge of the buyout would notice the gaps between homes in Cheshire, the strangely placed fields of grass, and the Gavin power plant. Cheshire grew by annexing parts of Cheshire Township.656 The image of the village in 2011 years after the pollution problems seemed dire; a local pizza place still operates and the 19th century

Cheshire Baptist Church still stands.

Photo 4. Image of Cheshire Baptist Church with James Gavin Power Plant.657

The death of the small town is a common trope in American literature and

American thought, and it is a trope with a kernel of truth in it in the early 21st century in the Ohio Valley. Cheshire can serve a visual for this, or as a physical manifestation of

656 Mary Beth Lane, “Bought-out Cheshire village lives on,” Columbus Dispatch, June 24, 2012.

657 Megan Chew, Photo 4. 214

what sociologists and others have considered “hollowing out the middle” and the effects of outmigration on rural places and the small American town.658 Geographer Richard V.

Francaviglia has considered the small towns in the U.S. as well as the ideas they create:

“places like Main Street need to be interpreted as both real places and as expressions of collectively shared or experienced assumptions, designs, and myths.”659 A place like

Madison, which Francaviglia mentions in brief, is drenched in this type of Main Street collective memory, as is Cheshire.

Rather than on paths of continuous decline, these places saw their fortunes shift.

The OVEC power plants in these places brought renewed hope to these towns and set the minds of local boosters spinning with visions of future industry along the Ohio River.

Though these places did not become powerful, they became centers of power production and places where industry reshaped the local identity.

Places like Madison and Cheshire are a little different than the typical Main

Street, or at least they have more apparent distinctions. They are underwritten with histories of the Cold War and U.S. defense, histories of coal and nuclear industries, and histories of negotiation between environmentalists, consumers, industries, and politicians.

They also still have the looks of 19th century villages. They are places where intense negotiation over the future of power production, interstate pollution, and regional economies took place, but to a passerby they just look like strange little towns dwarfed by industry.

658 Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to an Iowa town, Ellis, in order to understand the effects of out-migration from rural communities in Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009).

659 Francaviglia, Main Street Revisited, xxii. 215

Cheshire has brought a wealth of reflection, as the buyout by AEP in 2002 sent journalists, observers, and researchers into a wave of reflection about what went wrong.

One of the strongest discussions comes from geographers Geoffrey Buckley, Nancy Bain, and Donald L. Swan in Geographical Review. Bain, Buckley, and Swan noted the village

“appeared to strike a much deeper chord, for it reminded us that our energy consumption has negative consequences.”660 They argue the residents of Cheshire “had been compelled to react to forces largely beyond their control…their complaints and concerns were often tempered by the perceived—and largely unrealized—economic benefits that the Gavin plant brought to the region.”661 They note that the frustrations in 2001 “should be viewed not as isolated events but as the latest in a series of responses dating back more than thirty years” and call Cheshire one of the “largely hidden ‘landscapes of power.’”662

Cheshire does represent an ugly consequence of using electricity. That it has provided energy to customers outside of the region is not surprising, and its current physical environment is an undeniable consequence of the centralizing forces in the electric utilities industry in the Ohio Valley in the post-World War II era. This type of relationship has occurred throughout the U.S., where power plants provide energy for those living far away. But Cheshire also is part of a network of Ohio Valley cities, villages, and towns that saw the light of potential industrialization and economic development in the years following World War II.

660 Buckley, Bain, and Swan, “When the Lights Go Out in Cheshire,” 551.

661 Ibid.

662 Ibid.

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These quaint, yet industrial, places represent some of the least-acknowledged industrial developments in Ohio and Indiana, where the aging industrial centers of Gary,

Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo have taken more conspicuous space. They are physically

“hidden” as Buckley, Bain, and Swan have noted, but they were also close enough to natural resources, a network of power companies, and to metropolitan areas to matter to the electric utilities and to the federal government’s Atomic Energy Commission.

Becoming part of Sporn’s “integrated power system” meant becoming home to mammoth plants that outsized just about everything in town. Producing power for

Piketon in southeastern Indiana and southeastern Ohio provided the important

“decentralization” needed for safe production of power in the 1950s and made the footprint of the Piketon plant far greater than its 4,000 acres in Pike County. These places had local business people and state politicians like Frank Lausche who saw the needs for development in southern Ohio’s rural and struggling areas. By providing the “factory in the garden” lifestyle, they were something between suburb and city.

Workers could enjoy the beauty of these rural areas while remaining gainfully employed—a reality that the Goodyear Atomic Corporation acknowledged. The OVEC-

AEC projects occurred because of public-private cooperation, but locally the OVEC plants were touted as a “victory for private enterprise” and politicians and business people gained political capital over the TVA because of these huge, quickly built projects.

Before the OVEC-AEC developments, there were problems in these small towns, and those problems did not go away with operation or with the gaseous diffusion plant going on cold standby. But the towns themselves represent years of consideration of what

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to do with America’s small towns that provided such a beautiful picture of American melting pot culture in The Town.

While the power plants brought an economic surge, they could not be replaced by the “cleaner” industry of nuclear power, and the crash of the nuclear power plants in the

Ohio Valley reveal the persistence of coal-fired energy after its negative effects were acknowledged. Recently, new regulations have forced new pollution controls and planned shutdowns at Ohio Valley coal-fired power plants, finally decentralizing that power concentration that developed in the postwar era.663

In the Ohio Valley, observers have to look closely for the remains of the nuclear past, while the coal-fired past and present is clear. In southern Ohio, American

Centrifuge, the project underway at the uranium enrichment site, has only a small sign marking its exit on Route 23.

In Clermont County, population growth continued in the 21st century and in 2010.

The County’s population centers reflected this trend of growth along Cincinnati’s edges, as the highest population counts were in the northwest corner of the county and

Washington Township—where Zimmer was located—was one of the least-populated townships.664

663 From AEP, a list of future changes to power plants: AEP Ohio, “Impact of New EPA Rules,” in AEP Ohio News, https://www.aepohio.com/info/news/NewEPARules/. Quaint Marietta, Ohio diversified beyond that coal-fired power concentration into heavy industry in the mid-to-late 20th century. However, the problems of pollution facing Cheshire and Madison have not been lost on Marietta. The nearby DuPont Washington Works has become a target of interest locally because of a chemical known as C-8, which was released into local waters. This byproduct of Teflon was found in the drinking water in the Little Hocking River watershed, and its discovery led to a variety of research, investigation, and lawsuits. The Marietta Times newspaper has covered this issue extensively, and a former Times writer, wrote a book on the C-8 issue. See: Lyons, Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof, and Lethal.

664 Clermont County, Ohio Geographic Information Systems, Clermont County 2010 Population by Township & City, accessed March 23, 2014, http://gis.clermontcountyohio.gov/2010PopulationbyTwp.pdf.

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The success of coal over nuclear here may seem inevitable when looking back, but the stories of Piketon, Zimmer, and Marble Hill reveal how complicated these stories could be, and how the coal industry could both act as a promoter and an escape hatch for nuclear energy.

The power plant development in the Ohio Valley occurred for a number of reasons related to available resources, economic trends, technological capabilities, defense, and consumer needs. The American small town has usefulness for observers, as it provides a place for some to disparage and generalize and others to idealize as a place of safety, high morals, and community connection. The stories of the Ohio Valley power towns reveal that classic small towns were relevant in the 20th century, to some of the most major industrial, defense, and environmental events and fights.

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Photo 5. Image of Clifty Creek Power Plant from Madison Riverfront665

665 Megan Chew, Photo 5. 220

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Appendix

Appendix A.: Power Plants developed in Ohio Valley adjacent to Ohio and Indiana,

1944-1965.

Year first unit online Name and Location

1944 R.E. Burger, Shadyside, Ohio

1945 Tidd Generating Station, Brilliant,

Ohio

1949 Willow Island Power Station, St.

Mary’s, Ohio

1949 Miami Fort Generating Station, North

Bend, Ohio

1950 Philip Sporn, New Haven, West

Virginia

1951 Union Carbide, Marietta, Ohio

1951 Tanners Creek, Lawrenceburg,

Indiana

1952 W.J. Beckjord, New Richmond, Ohio

1953 Muskingum River, Beverly, Ohio (not

on Ohio River)

1955 Kyger Creek, Cheshire, Ohio

1955 F.B. Culley Generating Station,

Evansville, Indiana

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1956 Clifty Creek, Madison Township,

Indiana

1958 Gallagher Generating Station, New

Albany, Indiana

1958 Kammer, Moundsville, West Virginia

1959 W.H. Sammis, Stratton, Ohio

1962 Cane Run, Louisville, Kentucky

1964 Elmer Smith, Owensboro, Kentucky

1964 Alcoa/Warrick, Newburgh, Indiana

666

666 Plant data comes from the following sources, fully cited in paper and bibliography: For American Electric Power plants, see: Feck, American Electric Power: A Century of Firsts, 249-251. This is a chart of all the American Electric Power Plants with the years units came online, the size of units, etc. Alcoa, “Alcoa Warrick Power Plant: About Alcoa Warrick Power Plant,” “Beckjord Station (Coal),” Conn and McDermott, “The Path to Profit Optimization at OMU,” DBJ Staff, “Duke Energy to shut down unit at Miami Fort Power Plant,” Dayton Business Journal, Duke Energy, “Gallagher Station,” FirstEnergy, “Power Plant Profile,” First Energy, “W.H. Sammis Plant,” UP, “Pitt Consol To Build Plant On Ohio River: 25-Million-Dollar Unit to Supply Coal For Power Station,” Pittsburgh Press, Russell, “Steubenville Power Plant Being Enlarged: New Generator Guards Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh Press, Ryan, “New Alloy Plant Operating In Ohio: Electro Metallurgical’s Works to Be Completed Next Year Is Already in Production,” The New York Times. Vectren, “F.B. Culley Generating Station,” “Willow Island: One Year Later,” The News Center, February 8, 2013.

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Appendix B.

Power Plants developed in Ohio Valley 1965-1991

Year Name and Location

1967 Cardinal, Brilliant, Ohio

1968 Jasper Generating Station, Jasper, Indiana

1970 J.M. Stuart, Brown County, Ohio

1971 Mitchell Power Plant, Moundsville, West

Virginia

1971 Amos, Winfield, West Virginia (located

on the Kanawha River)

1972 Mill Creek, near Louisville, Kentucky

1974 General James M. Gavin Power Plant,

Cheshire, Ohio

1974 Ghent Generating Station, Outside of

Carrollton, Kentucky

1976 Gibson Generating Station, Montgomery

Township, Indiana (located on the

Wabash River)

1977 Spurlock, Maysville, Kentucky

1980 Mountaineer, New Haven, West Virginia

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1981 East Bend Generating Station, Rabbit

Hash, Kentucky

1984 Rockport Generating Station,

Rockport, Indiana

1988 Trimble County Generating Station,

Wise’s Landing, Kentucky

1991 W.H. Zimmer Generating Station,

Moscow, Ohio

667

667 Plant data comes from the following sources: For American Electric Power plants, see: Feck, American Electric Power: A Century of Firsts, 249-251. American Electric Power and Battelle Institute, “Mountaineer Power Plant New Haven, West Virginia,” AEP, “Power Generation: John E. Amos Plant,” Duke Energy, “East Bend Station,” Duke Energy, “Gibson Station,” Duke Energy, “Stuart Station,” Freymiller, “The Jasper Clean Energy Center: How did we go wrong and why?” Dubois County Free Press, June 23, 2011, LG&E KU, “Neighbor to Neighbor: Ghent Generating Station,” LG&E and KU, “Neighbor to Neighbor: Trimble County Generating Station,” Neville, “Top Plants: Rockport Power Plant, Rockport, Indiana,” Power, October 1, 2009, “Power Plant Information: Mill Creek Station,” South Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, “Part IV: East Kentucky Power.”

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