Optimism reigns at meeting on Piketon layoffs

David Berman, Chillicothe Gazette

Resilience rather than resignation.

That was the mood Thursday during a town hall meeting about the looming threat of about 700 layoffs at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon.

The standing room-only crowd at the Pike County Government Center showed signs of optimism throughout the two-hour meeting. They applauded local officials who tried their best to be upbeat and representatives from an Ohio congressional delegation vowed to fight for funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the shuttered uranium enrichment plant and its surrounding acreage … more