PIKETON — Dennis Foreman didn't want it to be true.

He watched bone-marrow cancer take his mother in an agonizing death, and he doesn't want to see the same suffering for the great-niece and great-nephew who attend Zahn's Corner Middle School in southern Ohio's Pike County.

The Piketon village councilman is distressed over recent reports showing that radioactive materials have been detected inside and outside the school and elsewhere beyond the walls of a shuttered uranium-enrichment plant that looms large in the area.

Foreman and others living near the sprawling Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in the village are afraid — for their children, for themselves and for the future of their communities.

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Federal and state officials have tried to quell the fears, stressing that radioactive elements found outside the school were in such minuscule amounts that they pose no health threat.

But members of the communities that have been neighbors to the plant for more than 60 years are slow to accept that analysis and note that it does not consider some of the concerning findings.

Foreman, a science teacher who serves on a citizens' advisory board regarding the plant, said he has gotten "off-the-hook emails" since Zahn's Corner was closed by the local school board last week over contamination fears.

"My community right now is more upset than it ever has been. These people are rallying. ... It's waking the giant," he said, stressing that he does not speak on behalf of the advisory board.

The plant was used to enrich uranium from 1954 to 2001, initially for weapons production and later for U.S. Navy submarines and nuclear power plants. The site remained in standby mode until 2005, when hazardous oils, chemicals and uranium still in production equipment were removed. Cleanup work began in 2011.

At issue, local officials say, are 2017 and 2018 U.S. Department of Energy data showing radioactive metals detected by an air monitor across the street from the school northeast of the plant, and 2018 data showing a metal detected at a separate air monitor to the southwest.

They also say an independent study by Northern Arizona University researchers, completed in April, shows enriched uranium and radioactive metals detected in the school, homes, other buildings and waterways — in some instances at levels 50 and 100 times higher than that found in comparison samples.

The DOE has agreed to a new round of third-party environmental testing near the plant, with local authorities choosing the investigating agency.

Trust is slow to come. Piketon is a place where there have been numerous health and environmental concerns about the plant over the decades and where a number of people can tell their story of being diagnosed with cancer or of family members, neighbors or pets dying with the disease.

Pike County, near the western edge of the Appalachian region, has the second-highest cancer rate in Ohio.

Residents know that finding has never been linked to the plant. But many wonder, and some believe, it is more than coincidence.

Some also wonder whether being Appalachian — often stereotyped as uneducated, uncultured and economically desperate — means elected officials, members of the media and others don't care.

Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said the county of about 28,000 residents doesn't have the voting power to gain lawmakers' attention.

"I think it goes back to kind of getting ignored," he said. "... If we were in Dublin or Upper Arlington or Cincinnati or Cleveland, as opposed to southern Ohio, I think it would be looked at a lot differently."

The source of the contaminants is unknown, but local officials suspect dust from recent cleanup efforts.

The DOE has declined their requests to halt work until the new independent testing is complete, and Brewster said other government officials haven't pushed to make that happen. That sends a message, Brewster said, that continuing the project is more important than the children of southern Ohio.

"Our kids are not expendable. They're absolutely not expendable," he said. "They should be treated like kids anywhere, and they're not."

Anne White, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, visited the area last week and said she plans to reach out and work alongside local officials to quickly obtain new data and move forward.

Dr. Amy Acton, new director of the Ohio Department of Health, also visited the area last week. She hopes the issue provides an opportunity to address the community's overall health and well-being.

Acton said "absolutely" that the sentiment was "we have been forgotten."

"I fell in love with these people, just being here today," she said Thursday following her visit. "... In the end, people want the same things: a chance in life and opportunity for their children, and they want to stay in their communities and thrive."

Contacted Friday, U.S. Rep. Dr. Brad Wenstrup, a Cincinnati Republican and a podiatric surgeon who represents the area, said it's important that local voices are heard.

"Pike County and the region served our nation for decades while operating this facility, and we must ensure the site is safely cleaned up for both the health and future economic opportunity of southern Ohio,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said he is working with the DOE and Ohio agencies to better understand the data to ensure the community's safety and health.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said parents and residents need answers, and his office also is working with the DOE and the state, as well as the community and outside experts. He said the community "deserves the best scientific and public health experts in the nation" for the third-party testing.

Various municipalities and other groups want the plant cleaned up, but oppose a planned on-site waste disposal area of 1.4 million cubic yards, despite the DOE saying virtually all radioactive material at the plant would be shipped elsewhere.

Overall, cleanup work is expected to cost as much as $18.5 billion and last until at least 2039.

Vina Colley of McDermott in Scioto County, a former plant worker who has voiced environmental concerns for decades, said the government has "dumped on this community since 1952," when construction of the plant began, and has sacrificed people who were desperate for jobs.

Foreman becomes emotional recalling his mother's painful death and says some in the community have become hopeless, resigned to accepting whatever comes their way.

Advocating for his community has consumed his life, and that's one of the reasons learning about the contamination at the school was so disheartening.

"You think the worst, but you don't want it to be this way," Foreman said. "... I don't want to think it's actually there, because I fight so hard."

Dispatch reporter Jessica Wehrman contributed to this report.

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano