“Water cooling towers of the John Amos Power Plant* loom over Poca, [West Virginia], home that is on the other side of the Kanawha River. Two of the towers emit great clouds of steam.”
This photo† (shown here with original caption) was taken in August 1973 by Harry Schaefer for DOCUMERICA, a photography project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
There are more pictures from DOCUMERICA here.
*Three-unit coal-fired power plant.
†Via the U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.
Wow! That looks so futuristic in a way. How do you compete with those?
I hope they had a nice pastoral view looking the other direction.
Hard to imagine living with that looming over you. And I’m sure they can’t just pack up and leave.
I suspect that the plant was one of the few places of steady cash employment in the area.
We drove by these on a trip out west. They are large enough to make West Virginia’s famous mountains look smaller.
There’s another good photo here: http://iancbates.tumblr.com/post/83837651926/coal-power-poca-west-virginia-march-2014
What I just realized (through Google Satellite) is that in both pictures the Kanawha River is between the houses and the power plant: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Poca,+WV/@38.472455,-81.8152797,1715m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x8848c90d9f66e265:0x3cbe3e8d31d87585