CHESHIRE, Ohio — For Chuck Reynolds, moving to this hamlet on the banks of the Ohio River three years ago was paradise found.

        Soon, though, it will be paradise lost.

Chuck Reynolds speaks of the deal to sell Cheshire. His home and the power plant are behind him. (Craig Ruttle photos) | ZOOM |

        He gave up his workaday job in nearby Gallipolis and settled in a white clapboard house with a wide porch. He could sit and watch the sunlight dapple the waters of the Ohio, the fish jump as the sun drops over the West Virginia hills on the far shore, the coal barges as they plowed relentlessly through the murky channel.

        Next door, he had the business he always wanted — a bait-and-tackle shop in a prefab building — the Reel 'Em In Bait Shop — where he could dispense buckets of bass and crappie minnows, night crawlers and goldfish, along with free advice to the amateur anglers who roam the Ohio River shores in search of game fish.

        “I'm going to hate to give it up,” Mr. Reynolds said Thursday, standing in the bait shop's doorway. “But we've got to go.”

        Mr. Reynolds, his wife and the 219 other residents of the Gallia County village could well be gone by the end of the year, their village bought for $20 million by American Electric Power (AEP). The Columbus-based utility operates the Gen. James M. Gavin power plant that abuts the west end of Cheshire.

        For decades, residents have complained about the emissions from the Gavin plant's towering 830-foot stacks. Last summer, on at least a dozen days when the plant was operating full bore, the entire town was blanketed by blue-black clouds of sulfuric acid gas.

        Village officials hired lawyers to work out a deal with AEP, one in which the power company will buy their properties and the residents will give up their rights to sue for property damage or potential health problems caused by the pollution.

        The village, long a port for the coal that came down to the river from the hills of southeast Ohio and West Virginia, meanders along Ohio 7 by the river for less than a mile.

A resident pedals his bicycle past the Cheshire United Methodist Church. Smoke and steam rise from the Gavin power plant beyond. | ZOOM |

        For many residents, it has been the family home for generations; for others, like Mr. Reynolds, it was a place to come because of the tranquility and ease of life.

        But the pollution has many ready to leave.

        “I remember driving back from Gallipolis one afternoon last summer and seeing this cloud of blue smoke hanging over the town,” Mr. Reynolds said. “I thought the whole town was burning down.

        “I want to stay,” he said, “but in good conscience, I can't. It is not a healthy place.”

        Eventually, AEP will tear down the dwellings and bulldoze the land.

        The gentle curve of the river where Mr. Reynolds' home and bait shop stands, right next door to a new village park with a playground and large brick grills, will be the site of a new unloading dock for the barges delivering coal to the Gavin plant and the Kyger Creek power plant a mile down the river.

        Early Thursday in Cheshire, plant workers stopped in the town's gas station/convenience store for a cup of coffee and a lottery ticket; the village post office in a tiny brick blockhouse opened its doors; and traffic buzzed up and down Ohio 7 past the town's one traffic light.

        Some Cheshire residents were reluctant to talk about the impending sale of their town; many signed confidentiality agreements insisted on by AEP at a town meeting a week ago.

        But others were outspoken about their desire to stay.

        “That company doesn't have enough money to get me out of here,” said 84-year-old Harold Mack, a retired worker at the Kyger Creek plant who was Cheshire's mayor in the 1950s.

        “They'll have to bulldoze my house down with me in it.”

        Mr. Mack rode his electric motor cart from his home on Second Street to the post office Thursday morning, where he had to mail payments to the gas company.

        “I don't get around so good on my own anymore,” the former mayor said. “But I'm not going to be pushed around.”

        Some residents, including Mr. Mack, say they weren't invited to the town meeting where the AEP deal was worked out.

        Mr. Mack said he is not alone in believing the environmental threat is exaggerated.

        “A sore tooth, a headache — they blame it all on that plant,” Mr. Mack said.

        For the handful of business owners in Cheshire, the future is less certain. The deal announced this week included only homeowners; a separate arrangement is likely to be made with business owners.

        Arthur Wojtaszek owns the only restaurant in town — Deanie's Pizza Place, across the street from the Methodist church.

        Most of his lunch business comes from Gavin plant employees, who come down for the pizza and the daily specials like the pinto beans and ham Mr. Wojtaszek was dishing up Thursday.

        Mr. Wojtaszek rents the small frame building, so he is not sure if he will be compensated in any way for being forced out of business.

        “I've got nothing against the plant; they've been great to us,” Mr. Wojtaszek said as he prepared for the lunch-hour rush.

        “But I really have no place else to go,” he said. “I wanted to retire in a few years and pass this business on to my son and daughters. But now, there won't be any business to pass on.

        “No town, either.”
       

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