Regulars here know that in addition to studying Amish culture for over a quarter century, I'm also an award-winning journalist that covers breaking news, cybersecurity, and industry. I generally keep the Amish part of my life and the journalism part separate, but ever now and then I like to share. And this was an article I did for Belt Magazine about years of mismanagement at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio
This is a beautiful area of Ohio where the flat fields of the midwest butt up against the folding hills of Appalachia. This is a country steeped in history and mystery. Here is an excerpt of the article:
Vina Colley, a slight woman with a bob of thick blond hair, climbs into her white Ford Explorer. Her thirteen-year-old Maltese, Hercules jumps onto her lap, wedging comfortably between her legs and the steering wheel, and stays put as she navigates the steep ridges and plunging hollows of Pike County, Ohio. Colley is seventy-four, and, for nearly forty years, she’s been fighting the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, known locally as “The A-Plant” or PORTS. Her home library holds scores of totes filled with neatly labeled documents, a paper trail that exposes what she sees as Portsmouth’s darkest and most egregious secrets.
Leave a Reply