US Village Bought By Polluting Power Giant

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."