Gaffney
PER
Gaffney
The energy companies are finding, especially in the small, struggling Southeastern towns like Gaffney where most of the plants are planned, that memories of those tragedies have faded and that local governments and residents, eager for jobs and tax revenues to replace vanished industries, are embracing them with enthusiasm. Henry B. Barron Jr., chief nuclear officer for Duke Power, which announced last month that it would apply to build its first new nuclear plant in three decades just outside Gaffney said that they were initially looking at 14 communities in the Southeast, and then they narrowed that down to four. The sites tend to be in rural counties whose hard-pressed small towns, like Gaffney, population 13,000, clutch at the chance for new jobs and tax revenue.