When Andy Pettit, who lives near the closed Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon, learned that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Niles), who is running for U.S. Senate, were in town to see the shuttered school, he drove by to thank them for the visit.

But after a short conversation with the lawmakers, Pettit said he doesn’t expect any help from Congress.

“This has been a problem for years,” said Pettit, who is married to a teacher in the local school district. “They’ve crammed these kids into two other buildings. It’s very sad that nobody has given a crap until Mr. Ryan (and Senator Manchin) showed up.”

The southern Ohio community is still reeling from the middle school’s closure three years ago, after the Scioto Valley Local School District concluded that radiation levels were unacceptably high near the school, in contrast to the U.S. Department of Energy's finding that levels were acceptable.

The closure was another blow to the village of roughly 2,100, which has suffered from a disproportionate number of cancer deaths that residents attribute to the cleanup of the town's massive nuclear diffusion plant.

Manchin — who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee — and Ryan came to Piketon on Thursday to talk with community leaders and make a commitment to help.

While residents said they appreciated the visit, not everyone is optimistic about federal assistance.

The diffusion plant is one of the last vestiges of the Cold War and its radioactive legacy. The facility enriched uranium for nuclear bombs from 1956 to 2001. Federal investigations documented lax safety practices and poor record keeping, and former workers have submitted thousands of claims to a pair of funds intended to compensate ex-employees diagnosed with certain types of cancer.

Two teachers in one classroom

Rep. Ryan has visited Piketon before for listening sessions and added $5.5 million to a recent House appropriations bill for training, education and technical assistance for the community.

This time he brought with him the chair of the Senate energy committee.

Sitting at a set of folding tables arranged in a rectangle in a Piketon High School multi-purpose room, Manchin and Ryan were surrounded by school officials and local elected leaders in a room with two teachers' desks. Officials recounted tragedies the community suffered: 14 Scioto Valley Local School District students have been diagnosed with cancer since 2013 and five have died.

The district closed Zahn’s Corner in 2019 when independent monitors detected radioactive isotopes in the air and ground near the building, which is two miles downwind of the former diffusion plant.

Officials say students are now squeezed into schools.

“We have two classes in this one room,” Scioto Valley Local School District Superintendent Wes Hairston said.

The superintendent told Manchin the district is losing students to open enrollment, which he partially attributes to over-crowded classrooms.

The senator posed questions about monitoring efforts, and the community’s dealings with the Department of Energy.

Community leaders said they feel the agency is not forthcoming, and are frustrated that federal officials insist radiation levels are safe, even as the village experiences a cancer rate 16% higher than the national average.

What do Piketon residents think?

Wayne Smith, who sits on the Piketon school board and lost his teenage daughter Katyln to cancer in 2013, fought back tears as he recalled his daughter’s death.

“I never got to see her go to prom,” he said.

After the meeting, Smith said the lawmakers’ visit makes him confident the district will acquire the funds for a new building, which the district estimates will cost $25 million.

“This is the most (attention) we’ve had from the government,” he said.

Hairston concurred.

“I’m more optimistic now than I’ve been for quite some time,” he said. “I think they’ll go to the (energy) committee and I think they’ll try to find the funding to help us out.”

Pettit — who described himself as a Democrat who otherwise supports Ryan — took a different stance. The Piketon man said he’s heard promises before and no money emerged for a new building.

“They’re just blowing smoke,” he said.

Vina Colley, a former diffusion plant electrician who has helped organize groups of ex-employees fighting for benefits, is similarly pessimistic.

“We need more transparency for the community and for the workers,” she said. “People are asking questions and not getting any answers.”

For its part, the energy department says it holds regular meetings with Piketon residents.

The agency meets to “discuss risk, and present air-monitoring data from real-time and quarterly monitors located around the project area,” a spokesperson said in an email.

The department also posts up-to-date sampling data and information on the diffusion plant clean-up online, the spokesperson said.

What can lawmakers do?

Manchin told Piketon leaders he is committed to helping, but what form that help will take remains to be seen.

In brief remarks to a gaggle of local and national reporters after the meeting, the West Virginia senator said the energy department is under his committee’s jurisdiction and his staff can work with the agency to build transparency and acquire funding for a new school.

When asked if he would hold a hearing on the diffusion plant clean-up and its aftermath, Manchin replied: “I will if that’s what we need to do. Sometimes a hearing can be the last resort if I can’t get cooperation.”

pcooley@dispatch.com

@PatrickACooley

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Some Piketon residents skeptical of politicians' offers of help