[mobglob-discuss] Buying the right to pollute

[martin william fournier]

Smoke, tears, anger - then emptiness - in the village bought by a power 
company

Utility firm pays $20m for ghost town to stave off health claims

David Teather in New York
Tuesday May 14, 2002
The Guardian

The hamlet of Cheshire, in Gallia County, Ohio, was always a safe and 
peaceful place to grow up. Nestled on the Ohio river, bordering West 
Virginia, it has just 221 residents. Locals say it is the kind of place 
where back doors are left unlocked.
Within a few months Cheshire will be a ghost town. All of its 90 homes will 
be empty. The little pizza parlour and the post office will be closed. Both 
its churches will be shut. Even the petrol station will stand disused and 
vacant.

The strange and sudden death of Cheshire comes at the instigation of 
American Electric Power, a giant utility firm with annual revenues worth 
$61bn (£42bn). Faced with a two-year legal action brought by the residents 
who complained that Cheshire was being polluted by gasses from a local AEP 
power plant, the company came up with a staggeringly audacious plan.

It would make the problem go away by buying the hamlet, down to its last 
home, church and petrol station. The deal is believed to be the first by a 
company involving the dissolution of an entire town, and will cost AEP $20m 
(£14m).

For its money, the utility firm will avoid the on-going drain on its balance 
books of costly litigation that could go on for years. Residents will be 
given up to three times the value of their homes, but in return they have 
pledged never to sue the company over any health problems. So everyone is 
happy. Well, almost every one.

Boots Hearn is one of just eight Cheshire residents holding out against 
AEP's deal. She recalls how she was weeding in her garden when the first 
incident of pollution literally descended on her in the form of a blue cloud 
of smoke billowing from the power plant. Mrs Hearn, 82, made for the house 
but claims to have suffered a burn on her lip that has never gone away.

For the past year she has also suffered a sore throat, nausea and headaches. 
Once in a while, she said, her mouth feels as though she has drunk scalding 
coffee.

The offer to destroy the town has wrenched apart what was once a tight knit 
community, she said. The hamlet has become embittered by suspicion and 
friction, not only between those who have accepted and those who have not, 
but over how much individuals are taking from the settlement.

Some argue that they settled too quickly and for too little. The deal was 
brokered on behalf of the local residents by a set of Washington lawyers.

"I don't want to move. I have been here for 64 years and am kind of 
sentimental about this place," Mrs Hearn said. "My husband's buried right 
out here - I can see the cemetery. There are too many memories."

The plant, which sprawls along the river, has two of the world's largest 
coal-fired electricity generating units. It burns 25,000 tonnes of coal a 
day, enough to power 2.6m homes.

It was first built in 1974 and the company installed "scrubbers" to reduce 
carbon dioxide emissions in the mid-1990s at a cost of $616m (£423m). The 
smoke stack was also reduced to allow the plant to continue burning 
locally-mined coal - which has a high sulphur content - rather than import 
it from other sources, thereby protecting local jobs.

Last year, the company spent another $195m (£134m) to install a system that 
would reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. But the two together had an 
unexpected result - the blue cloud of sulphuric acid.

Jeannie Elkins Mollohan, a 41-year-old grocery store worker, attended the 
local high school, River Valley High, and is trying to organise a 25-year 
reunion for the class of 1978.

"This a sad end for the town," she said. "I have a co-worker in his 50s who 
lived there all his life with his mother and now they have to pull up their 
roots. What else can they do? It's a tragic situation and for the people 
affected I can see a righteous anger."

The future of the school is still one of the unresolved issues in Cheshire. 
River Valley and the nearby Kyger Creek Middle School have 800 students from 
the surrounding areas. As they both lie just outside the town limits, the 
company has not made the same offer to buy the property. AEP maintains there 
are no long-term health concerns but local people fear otherwise.

Charla Evans, superintendent of Gallia County schools, has had two meetings 
with lawyers for AEP, based in Columbus, Ohio, but so far nothing has been 
re solved. "If it's not safe for the residents then it's not safe for the 
schools," she said. "At this point I'm trusting that the company will do the 
right thing but I'm not ruling out legal action. Their attorneys continue to 
argue that there are no health concerns but I'm not convinced.

"People here are trusting. They are good people. But there is anger that 
this corporate giant is willing to subject innocent children to this."

Ms Evans recalled her first encounter with the cloud. "I was in my office 
and my throat became sore, and my nostrils and eyes were burning. I started 
to cough and got up to get some water which was when I saw it - the blue 
cloud coming down."

AEP admits the blue cloud was "irritating" for local people but maintains 
that its offer to buy the town was not driven by health concerns. Company 
spokesman Pat Hemlepp said it was local people who approached AEP with the 
proposal. Rather, he said, it was a matter of needing to expand the plant 
and a recognition of the effect that would have on local property prices.

Mr Hemlepp said the problems had now been fixed and the emissions remained 
within federal limits. The test will come in the summer when the newer 
equipment is put back in use.

Mr Hemlepp said the settlement was the best solution for both sides. "This 
addresses our concerns and the concerns of the local community. It's the 
best situa tion for both sides. There has been no long term health impact, 
just a short term impact.

"Any attempt to sue on health grounds would have a slam dunk for us because 
all of the monitoring has shown it is not an issue."

So what of the clause preventing residents from legal action? "It is just 
the lawyers doing their jobs."

While she wants to keep fighting, even Mrs Hearn, on her acre and a half of 
land, admits it may be a hopeless battle. "I'm pretty much out on a limb 
saying I won't sell out. There are a lot of tears in this town at the 
moment. But I'm not crying, I'm fighting. You can't fight if you have tears 
in your eyes."

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and 
Clarifications column, Wednesday May 15 2002

The "scrubbers" referred to in our report about the power plant at Cheshire, 
Ohio, were installed to reduce the emission of sulphur dioxide, not carbon 
dioxide.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002


_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com