AP PHOTO/ED REINKE
KENTUCKY’S
KING
Cross says. That meant promising
job security.
There were good reasons to
be concerned about the Paducah
plant’s survival. With the Cold
War arms race giving way to the
Three Mile Island disaster in 1979
and new hope for arms treaties
between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, the Atomic City began to
lose its luster. In 1980, the Paducah plant employed about 1,940
workers in production activities. Within five years, more than
650 of them were gone. In 1987,
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
a similar uranium enrichment
facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was
shuttered, leaving Paducah and
a third plant in Ohio as the only
such operations left over from the
Manhattan Project. The technology was fast becoming obsolete.
Among the workers, rumors of
the plant closing became an everpresent part of the job.
If the Paducah plant were to
close, it would have a devastating effect on the local economy.
Production only accounts for a
fraction of the plant’s economic
significance: Hundreds of guards,
drivers and other contract workers are employed at the plant,
McConnell
(left) and
former
Senator Jim
Bunning
lean across
McConnell’s
wife, Elaine
Chao, to
exchange
words at
the annual
Fancy Farm
picnic on
Aug. 7, 2004.
Politicians
from across
the state
flock to
the picnic
each year to
meet voters
and make
speeches.