A costly plan will keep a steel plant in JD Vance’s hometown running. Locals are aghast: ‘It’s horrible’

Fossil-fuel burning at Ohio facility could burn longer, leaving Middletown residents to face environmental risks

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It was just a few months after moving from Louisville to Middletown, Ohio, four years ago that Vivian Adams’s six-year-old daughter’s asthma problem worsened.

“My daughter was born prematurely so she already had lung issues,” she says, “[but] it’s gotten worse. She stays sick and coughing and can’t breathe. She’s had to go on everyday medication for her asthma, plus she has a rescue inhaler.”