“Everything you see in this film is happening here, too.” – Bill Pringle, former resident of Caledonia
A smokestack looming ominously behind a squat brick house. Toxic dust wafting off mountains of coal ash. A girl with an inhaler and bags under her eyes, struggling to breathe. A family visiting their home one last time before it’s bulldozed. A vast empty field where the village once stood. 
These are just a few of the unsettling images in the newly released documentary Cheshire, Ohio: An American Coal Story in Three Acts, which was screened in Racine earlier this fall by the Clean Power Coalition-Southeast Wisconsin. For most of the audience, the film, which documented how “Big Coal” bought and bulldozed an entire small town in Ohio, was shocking. But for a few members of the audience living near the Oak Creek and Elm Road Power Plants owned by We Energies, Madison Gas & Electric, and WPPI, the story was all too familiar.
The Village of Cheshire, Ohio was founded in the late 1800s, nestled along the banks of the Ohio River. Early photos show a vibrant town with a flour mill, hotel, railroad depot, churches, and other small businesses. For over one hundred years people lived, worked, played, and worshiped in this town. This peaceful rhythm of life was disrupted forever after the Gavin Power Plant moved in next door.
At first, the coal plant seemed like a benevolent or even beneficial neighbor. Its smokestacks stretched high into the sky, spewing its worst pollution into the clouds, which later came down as acid rain hundreds of miles away. More importantly, it provided new jobs. But in 2000, a botched attempt to add pollution controls to the plant resulted in a recurring “blue plume” of poisonous sulfuric acid mist rolling the town. The plant was also found by the EPA to be in violation of the Clean Air Act.
Rather than deal with years of litigation over health problems caused by their pollution, American Electric Power (AEP), the owner of the Gavin Plant, offered to buyout Cheshire for $20 million dollars to create a “buffer zone” around the plant in exchange for residents signing away their rights to sue for health problems. The vast majority of residents took the buyout and moved elsewhere. Over a decade later, little remains of this once lively town. Those outside the village limits are left to fend for themselves against ongoing pollution from the plant. Workers, once proud of their well-paying coal plant jobs, are now suing AEP for exposing them to carcinogenic coal ash dust without protection. Many of them have now developed cancer.
In Caledonia and Oak Creek, the two towns bordering the massive Oak Creek Power Plant complex, the details differ, but the similarities are clear. Residents have raised concerns for years about toxic coal dust in their yards and homes, contaminated water from coal ash, chronic respiratory illnesses, and even cancer. While We Energies officially denies that these claims have merit, they have been quietly buying up property around the plant for three times the value to create a “buffer zone,” offering residents additional money at closing in exchange for signing an agreement to never sue for health problems. Those outside the “buffer zone” have no recourse as the pollution continues.
Sound familiar?
It doesn’t have to be this way. But in order to challenge this corporate stranglehold on our communities, we have to start speaking out. We need to demand that utilities like We Energies, Madison Gas & Electric, and WPPI transition coal out of their portfolios in favor of clean, renewable forms of energy like wind and solar. Just this week, We Energies announced the retirement of the Pleasant Prairie Coal Plant near Kenosha and committed to building a new solar farm. This is a major step forward, but it isn’t enough. The concerns at the Oak Creek Power Plant must also be addressed. All families in Southeast Wisconsin deserve to remain in their homes and live in communities free of harmful coal plant pollution.
Interested in getting involved with the Clean Power Coalition-Southeast Wisconsin? Email Miranda Ehrlich at miranda.ehrlich@sierraclub.org.
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