The West Virginia Record

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

By John O’Brien - Charleston Bureau

CHARLESTON — On a clear day, it’s said a person can see forever.

On a windy day five years ago, the citizens of Mason County may have been able to see a blue cloud of sulfur rolling toward them over the Ohio River.

“It just depended on the weather conditions,” AEP Director of Media Relations Pat Hemlepp said. “If it was windy …”

That cloud, part water and part sulfur trioxide, helped spawn a lawsuit against AEP that ended with a settlement being recently reached in an Ohio federal court.

The settlement, entered Dec. 6, sets certain limits on sulfuric acid emissions from American Electric Power’s coal-burning General James M. Gavin Power Plant, located just across the Ohio River from Mason County in Cheshire, Ohio. ([1] Full Story, off-site)