Date: 2025-07-02 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00020552
US Society
Society and Corporate Behavior
BBC ... POLLUTION from energy generation ... The strange deal that created a ghost town
Peter Burgess
BBC ... POLLUTION ... The strange deal that created a ghost town (Image credit: Harmon Leon) The small Ohio town of Cheshire was bought almost in its entirety by a nearby coal-fired power plant after residents complained about pollution (Credit: Harmon Leon) An infamous blue plume of pollution from one of the US's largest coal-fired plants changed the course of history for one once-thriving town. I round a sharp bend in the road, and emerging over the crest of the snowy hill is the General James M Gavin Power Plant. It suddenly appears on the horizon, thick clouds emerging from its smokestacks. I'm approaching Cheshire, once thriving small-town USA, but now a ghost town. The JM Gavin coal-burning power station is the seventh-largest emitter of CO2 of all power stations in the US. In 2019 it emitted 12.9 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. But the power plant's legacy in its immediate vicinity has been far more visible. It is responsible for the demise of an entire community. Built in the 1800s, Cheshire once had two churches, playgrounds, a high school, all nestled on the banks of the Ohio River. Now there are empty lots where quaint wooden houses once stood before being bulldozed. Just a few scattered homes remain. Even the city limits have been expanded, to encompass the 132 people living in the surrounding area to offer more of a semblance of community. Cheshire was once a bustling small town, but now the majority of its residents have gone (Credit: Harmon Leon) Cheshire was once a bustling small town, but now the majority of its residents have gone (Credit: Harmon Leon)
As I park in town, I can smell the sulphur from the power plant. The deserted Cheshire streets on a Friday night are eerie and the sidewalk is crumbling. The names of the streets, Walnut and Mulberry, tell a story of a different era.
In 2002, American Electric Power (AEP), who owned the Gavin plant at the time, agreed to buy the entire town for $20m (£14.2m) after residents complained about air pollution problems – blue plumes containing sulphuric acid that were emerging from the power plant's smoke stacks and enshrouded the surrounding area. Homeowners who agreed to sell were allowed to stay on in their homes rent free if they wanted, or they could move out and transfer their property to AEP.
A total of 221 residents packed up and moved – 90 homeowners in total. This was believed to be a first, according to the New York Times: a corporation buying a town. But it also led a thriving community – some of whom had been there all their lives – to dissolve away.
Mark Coleman remembers what Cheshire was like before the arrival of the blue plume clouds – and the mass exodus from the 150-year-old town. 'White picket fences. Going to high school. Going to the high school football games on Friday nights,' recalls Coleman. 'It was very middle America.'
The town was founded in 1834 and some families could trace their time there back generations.
Coleman, the appointed mayor of Cheshire for the past 10 years, now serves the remaining few residents who refused to take the buyout and decided to live out the rest of their days in the shadow of the power plant. 'Nobody's running against me now,' Coleman says with a laugh. A lifelong resident, Coleman resides on the outskirts of Cheshire, a short jaunt down the road from the plant. The 2.6-gigawatt facility is the largest coal-burning plant in Ohio, and ranks ninth in size in the United States. Though he says he experienced adverse effects from the Gavin plant, only those who lived inside the incorporated village at the time were privy to the buyout. His house became part of the official village when its boundaries were extended. The postal office in Cheshire still serves its last remaining residents (Credit: Harmon Leon) The postal office in Cheshire still serves its last remaining residents (Credit: Harmon Leon) But the falling population has left the community with dwindling services. 'We used to have a traffic light in town,' says Coleman. 'But the state took that away from us.' Coleman also mentions that the town no longer has police or even a reduced speed limit. 'People didn't understand. They were like, 'There's nobody living there. What's the big deal in not having a speed limit?'' Although AEP no longer owns the Gavin plant – it sold it in 2017 to Lightstone Generation, a private equity firm, along with three gas-fired power plants as part of a $2.1bn (£1.5bn) deal – the power station continues to operate. Large trucks still drive through the stretch of road leading to the Gavin plant, and a one-mile-long (1.6km) conveyor belt carries waste from the power plant to a landfill site behind the town. Still, Coleman takes the challenges in his stride, including the sulphuric smell, similar to rotten eggs, and having to power wash soot covering his porch. 'It's part of living in this area. You've got the chemical plants. You've got the power plants. My dad was a coal miner – so you get used to that sort of thing… It's a part of life here.' As one of the last remaining residents, Coleman doesn't bear a grudge against the Gavin plant, and the other nearby coal-fired power stations. 'They're our neighbours. They need to be responsible. If they want to do the blue plume – they need to fix it. And that's what they did. In my opinion they fixed it.' It didn't feel upsetting to residents that there was going to be a plant right next to the town. It just sort of symbolised potential work and progress – Eve Morgenstern So, if Coleman believes that things are manageable, why haven't people moved back to Cheshire? 'Gavin still owns the properties,' he says. 'They can't resell it to individuals.' AEP confirmed that the property it owns in the town cannot be sold, but added that it does not own all parcels of land in Cheshire. 'In many cases, the structures were then demolished, creating green space,' adds Melissa McHenry, managing director of external communications at AEP. At the time of the buyout, AEP agreed to let senior citizens take the money and remain in their homes. Under the terms, AEP bought the property, but allowed the residents to stay rent-free for the remainder of their lives. At the time of their death, the property would transfer to AEP. When Lighthouse Generation bought the Gavin plant, they also inherited the property in Cheshire that AEP had purchased, McHenry says. Now, once the remaining people in town die or leave, workers from the Gavin plant will be free to bulldoze the last of the houses that were part of the buyout deal. Earlier in my visit to Cheshire, I saw a house that was boarded up. Coleman says it belonged to an elderly woman who recently passed away. It's next on the list of properties scheduled to be torn down. The boundaries of Cheshire have been extended, helping to increase its population after residents left following the buyout (Credit: Harmon Leon) The boundaries of Cheshire have been extended, helping to increase its population after residents left following the buyout (Credit: Harmon Leon) 'I see it a little bleak, for the simple fact that a lot of the people who live in the area are older. You don't see the families moving here,' says Coleman. 'We did get the reputation of being next to the power plant.' New neighbour Eve Morgenstern spent 10 years filming the documentary Cheshire Ohio, which chronicles the buyout of the town. 'I was just completely struck by the story that an entire centuries-old village was going to be bought out by this huge coal-fire power plant.' Morgenstern first went to Cheshire in 2002, after reading a New York Times article on the plight of the tiny town taking on a huge corporation that had annual revenues of $61bn (£46bn). 'It's so ridiculous, this idea that you buyout a town,' says Morgenstern. 'Cheshire was a place that the residents really loved,' she says. 'It was a quaint village that hadn't been taken over by the strip malls and developers.' In 1974, when AEP built the Gavin power plant, there wasn't a lot of resistance from the residents. 'It didn't feel upsetting to them that there was going to be a plant right next to the town,' says Morgenstern. 'In fact, it was kind of exciting and it just sort of symbolised potential work and progress.' After all, south-east Ohio is coal country. Just a few kms away is the older Kyger Creek power plant. Built in 1954, it is smaller than the Gavin plant, but its owners – Ohio Valley Electric Corporation – have spent millions trying to address its own pollution issues. Not all of the residents chose to leave Cheshire after the buyout, preferring to remain in their home town (Credit: David Howells/Getty Images) Not all of the residents chose to leave Cheshire after the buyout, preferring to remain in their home town (Credit: David Howells/Getty Images) '[Residents] were very accepting when the industry came because it brought jobs,' says Morgenstern. The Gavin plant tried to be a good neighbour. But, in 1995, things began to sour. There were noise complaints about the high-powered fans used to reduce pollution, until the plant installed mufflers. Prior to 2000, the plant began storing huge tanks of anhydrous ammonia to control nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. They also stored chlorine gas that was used to prevent fouling of cooling or steam generation water. Anhydrous ammonia offered a cheaper method for reducing NOx emissions required by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but it wasn't welcomed locally. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, if exposed to open air this volatile chemical can blind, suffocate, burn and kill humans. The chemical is also a key component in producing crystal meth. People would sneak in at night and shoot holes at the tank to get at the anhydrous ammonia, local resident Jennifer Harrison recalls. This prompted protests. In December 2000, the plant agreed to switch to a safer method, spending $9m to use a urea-based system. When it first opened, about a third of a mile of open space existed between the Gavin plant and the northern fence line that sat outside the town of Cheshire, according to AEP. But each new environmental control measures increased the footprint of the plant, bringing it closer to the community of Cheshire. Then, in 2001, blue plume clouds began to blanket the entire town – caused by sulphur trioxide and sulphuric acid emissions from the coal-burning power plant. A sulphuric smell was everywhere – and could even be detected inside people's homes. 'It made people start to feel very upset and freaked out about their health and what's going on here,' says Morgenstern. AEP says the blue plume was transient and would only touch down 'in different locations for extremely short periods of time'. The blue plume would occur mostly on high-humidity days. Sometimes residents say it was so thick that people had to have their car headlights on when they drove through the Cheshire streets at noon. The plant had one really enormous stack that went really high up. And that smoke was going all over the place way up here into New York and Canada – Eve Morgenstern Harrison, who moved to Cheshire in 1980, and was on the village council when the buyout happened, remembers emerging from a pool in her backyard and noticing a strange taste in her mouth. 'It was cloudy all of a sudden, and I thought, man, the chlorine must be too strong,' recalls Harrison, who has now relocated 16km (10 miles) south of Cheshire. 'By July, the clouds would come down and hit the ground. And I mean we were smoked in – all over town. Like fog.' Harrison and other Cheshire residents began to experience burning sensations in their eyes and throats. Asthma, and other breathing difficulties, were also side-effects, along with, as Harrison recalls, 'blisters on your lips and tongue.' AEP admits that the mist was a 'short-term irritant' that could cause itchy, burning sensations in eyes and nostrils and potentially triggering asthma problems with those suffering from the condition. But what caused the blue plume? In 2000, the US EPA cited the Gavin Plant in violation of the Clean Air Act. 'They had one really enormous stack that went really high up,' says Morgenstern. 'And that smoke was going all over the place way up here into New York and Canada.' The high school football ground in Cheshire now lies abandoned following the 2002 buyout (Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) The high school football ground in Cheshire now lies abandoned following the 2002 buyout (Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) The sulphur and nitrogen compounds emitted from the 1,100ft (335m) smokestack were claimed to be causing acid rain hundreds of miles away, prompting protests. Greenpeace activists even scaled the tall smokestack – and parachuted off to raise awareness. AEP denied any wrongdoing in a long-running legal battle with a number of states and the EPA over acid rain from Gavin and a number of its other power plants. The company eventually settled the case by agreeing to upgrade its pollution control measures. Acid rain is caused by a chemical reaction when compounds such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the air. In response to the Clean Air Act violation and concerns from the community, AEP says it spent $850m (£610m) installing systems aimed at reducing the harmful emissions. First it installed a scrubber to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions and then selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide. This also allowed the plant to keep burning a high-sulphur type of coal. AEP says it chose to install the scrubbers rather than switch to low-sulphur coal following concerns from the community about job losses from local mines as the coal would need to be sourced from further away. Though the measures cut down on acid rain affecting locations hundreds of miles away, it still meant pollution fell locally. The number of houses in Cheshire is falling, as many properties have been demolished after being vacated (Credit: Harmon Leon) The number of houses in Cheshire is falling, as many properties have been demolished after being vacated (Credit: Harmon Leon) And then a new problem emerged over the summer of 2001. A statement provided by AEP's McHenry says that the interaction between the two emission control systems the company had installed at the Gavin plant had an unexpected side-effect. AEP says the SCR caused a slight increase in sulphur trioxide being released and when this mixed with water vapour from the scrubber, it created a sulphuric acid mist that had a blue tinge. Although the company insists there were no long-term health issues caused by the mist, those who lived close to the plant, however, say they were affected worst. Morgenstern also claims she experienced adverse effects during her numerous Cheshire visits while making her documentary. 'There certainly were times I would go down there and you would have a sulphuric smell, but the times that there was the burning eyes and mouth and throat, those were particular episodes of this blue haze touchdown,' she says. 'Kind of disturbing.' Monthly meetings between Cheshire residents and a representative from the Gavin plant became shouting matches. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) solution was to install a monitor, although AEP was able to submit the reports themselves. Heidi Griesmer, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA, told the BBC that before the Gavin plant's monitoring data is sent to the national EPA, the data undergoes quality control through Ohio EPA. 'There has been a handful of times over the years since the monitors were installed that a single hour has exceeded the value of the standard, 75ppb,' says Griesmer. 'But compliance with the standard is not based on a single hour, rather, compliance is determined if the 99th percentile of one-hour daily maximum concentrations, averaged over 3 years exceeds 75ppb.' We wanted it done with. It caused us great stress after that many years. Plus, we were tired of the fight. So we took the buyout and I was glad – Jennifer Harrison A representative from the Gavin plant would come to the town's monthly council meeting, who would say they knew they had a problem, and were working on it. 'That's all they would ever say. And they would never do anything,' says Harrison. 'We finally went after them because they were not going to ever change their answer – it would still be that way.' AEP eventually put forward a $7m (£5m) technical solution it thought might solved the problem, but by then the community in Cheshire had had enough. The town got their congressman involved – who advised them to hire a team of attorneys who were involved with driving the Clean Air Act. The legal team met with residents, and then negotiated with AEP behind closed doors. They came back with a $20m buyout offer – a fraction of the cost of the pollution control measures AEP installed that led to the blue haze in the first place. The houses were bought at three times the market value – 90 homeowners each received roughly $150,000 (£106,000). The attorneys got $5.6m (£4m) of the $20m settlement. The town took the offer. The residents say they thought there was no way they could take on such a big corporation, and a legal battle would likely drag on for years. They felt it was a good solution. 'We wanted it done with. It caused us great stress after that many years,' says Harrison, reflecting on her history with the Gavin plant. She felt the buyout was fair. 'Well, first of all, our property was worthless. No one is going to want to buy a house in that environment,' she adds. 'Plus, we were tired of the fight. So we took it and I was glad.' The terms of the settlement meant no further legal action could be taken – the residents couldn't sue the plant in the future, even if major health issues arose. After the deal was signed, the residents had six months to move out of Cheshire. Once they moved, their homes were torn down. When Harrison's wooden house, built in 1901, was bulldozed, her husband stood on the corner by their pear tree and cried. 'He never cried. Big burly guy, but it broke his heart. Even though we'd won it was still sad,' says Harrison. However, some people were angry. 'To this day – there's still people that won't speak to each other.' Some residents of Cheshire opted to sell their homes but remain living in them until they passed away – and some have since been buried in the town cemetery (Credit: Harmon Leon) Some residents of Cheshire opted to sell their homes but remain living in them until they passed away – and some have since been buried in the town cemetery (Credit: Harmon Leon) A few holdouts refused to take the buyout and stayed in their homes. Coleman, who at the time lived outside the incorporated village limits, only learned of the buyout on the news on the night it happened. He was more upset with the people that went to Gavin and sold than he was with the plant. 'When that buyout happened, that's when you just found out people's true colours,' he says. 'Have people in your village council that love the village – more than they do themselves. I'm sorry. That's just the way I look at it. People that want the village to succeed – instead of their own greed.' Now, he notes, his property is not very valuable. Some of those who sold stayed in the general area, buying homes in neighbouring towns, but the community itself fragmented. 'It was a very, very sad, emotional time,' Harrison sums up. 'The town died. People went away. All your friends.' Coal country What happened in Cheshire is a microcosm that exemplifies a coal plant worst-case scenario. 'Gavin is particularly startling, but it's not like it's a new thing,' says Neil Waggoner from Beyond Coal – a branch of the environmental nonprofit the Sierra Club, whose mission is to promote renewable energy and close coal plants in the United States. 'These are issues that we see in coal plant communities across the country.' Coal-fired power plants around the United States release roughly 2.5 million tonnes of toxic chemicals into rivers, lakes, and streams each year. There are about 600 coal or oil-fired power plants in the US and between them are the dominant emitters of mercury, acid gases and many toxic metals. The reason Cheshire stands out is the buyout, says Waggoner. 'It made Cheshire ground zero for the impacts of that plant – and this bigger conversation of what impacts are these giant coal plants having to the country.' In 2007, AEP settled a major legal case by the federal EPA, eight US states and a number of environmental groups over pollution from 16 of the company's coal-fired power plants. Among them was the Gavin plant. AEP agreed to cut its air pollutants by 813,000 tonnes a year at a cost of $4.6bn (£3.2bn). It also agreed to pay a $15m (£10.6m) penalty and spend $60m (£42.4m) cleaning up the effects of past emissions. So how do you clean up a town like Cheshire? Dealing with the waste heaps of coal ash is one of the more pressing local environmental issues. The Gavin power plant is a dominant feature in the landscape around Cheshire (Credit: Getty Images) The Gavin power plant is a dominant feature in the landscape around Cheshire (Credit: Getty Images) In 2014, Beyond Coal challenged the permitting process for the expansion of the coal ash ponds at the Gavin plant. Ponds of coal ash, the leftover waste from burning coal, can cause contamination from arsenic, mercury, selenium, lead, boron, bromine and other compounds that can harm human health. Chris Yoder, research director of the Midwest Biodiversity Institute, notes that elevated contaminant levels have been found near the Gavin plant. 'The price of having burned coal for 40 years is you're left behind with all these coal ash ponds that have a discharge and it contains pollutants and their liability; that is tremendous.' As well as heavy metals, burning coal also releases organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, some of which can cause cancer, Yoder notes. The Gavin plant is issued with permits from the Ohio EPA that allow it to discharge certain pollutants including mercury into the Ohio River because it is unable to find technology capable of removing them from wastewater running off its site. Campaigners such as Beyond Coal want more to be done to improve the treatment technologies available. Pikes peak Solid waste from the Gavin Plant is hauled to a landfill site that locals have nicknamed Pikes Peak. This heap of coal ash is the highest point in Cheshire, just above the tree line, stretching for roughly 255 acres (1 sq km) and filling three valleys. 'It looks like a white mountain,' says Harrison. 'That's a wasteland up there. There's 20 years of crap there.' You've got people from the area who are fighting to keep the power plant online because it's the economic engine of the county – Neil Waggoner 'We're dealing with enormous amounts of coal ash – just the legacy of how much of these chemicals are going to be left in the water, in the ground, long term health consequences,' says Morgenstern. 'It has been almost 20 years since the story broke… and here we are. It's still there. It's still dirty. This is still going on.' In Georgia, a recently proposed billwould require coal ash to be stored in safer conditions. To improve safety, the ash would need be removed to lined landfills – which have a barrier between the ash and the groundwater to help prevent contamination. But no such legislation is being considered in Ohio and the costs of removing ash from a landfill site can be vast. 'I don't know what you could ever do to clean that up,' Harrison says. 'What would you do with it? Where would you put it?' Crucial jobs The Gavin plant's new owner, Lightstone Generation, is now responsible for the ongoing clean-up and reducing pollution. The company did not respond to requests for comment from the BBC for this article. But the writing may already be on the wall, as by 2027 two of Ohio's largest coal plants are set to close. As the distance between the power plant and the boundary of the town decreased, tensions within the community rose (Credit: Harmon Leon) As the distance between the power plant and the boundary of the town decreased, tensions within the community rose (Credit: Harmon Leon) If the Gavin plant were to close tomorrow, things would not be easy for Cheshire. What would be the impact on the remaining community? 'Oh, it would die,' says Coleman. 'If Gavin went under, that's your biggest employer in this area. People will still need to heat their homes; still need electricity,' he says. 'But renewable energies, right now, doesn't get it there yet. Until then, we have to have what we have.' Waggoner, too, recognises this tension. 'Here's the plant that poisons the air and destroys the community,' he says. 'But now you've got people from the area who are fighting to keep it online because it's the economic engine of the county.' Harrison agrees. 'There's no good solution,' she says. 'People are either without jobs and cleaner air, or you've got people working in dirty air – which impacts the people that live there.' This is already a low-income area with a raft of other community issues, including a huge opioid epidemic and wider drug problem. Driving towards Cheshire, you can't help but notice all the billboards for veteran support groups and drug addiction recovery. This area is already struggling. 'These communities provided the backbone for the United States being an industrial power,' says Waggoner. 'Through cheap power and access to power these communities bore a way higher burden than most other communities in the country. These communities did so much for everyone else. It's imperative that the rest of the country is giving back as this change occurs.' If plants are eventually to close, Waggoner wants to see a commitment to cleaning up and taking care of local people by creating new industry in the area. 'For coal plant communities,' says Waggoner, that's clean up. 'They have to start recognising reality and planning for the future,' Waggoner says. Failing that, he fears the story of Cheshire could be played out elsewhere. For the residents of Cheshire, such a clean-up would transform the town. 'I wish that we could be able to rebuild,' says Coleman. 'Before I pass away, I would love to see that. It is very empty streets now – which was once very Americana.' Even after nearly 20 years since the buyout, that vision of the town as it once was is still fresh for the remaining residents. 'It was a wonderful town, it was,' Harrison tells me, with emotion in her voice. 'And I think I knew just about everybody there. We'd lived there for 23 years. You know, our kids were born and raised there, they learned to ride their bikes and swim there. Friends were there. And then suddenly people packed up and moved. And it's very sad.' -- Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called 'The Essential List'. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. You might also like: The dystopian lake filled by the world's tech lust Russia's grand plans to clean up nuclear waste The end of the world's brown coal capital