#2: [23-May-05]

14-Jul-2001 -- I had just bought my GPS the day before, and was excited to try it out. I logged onto the site, and found that the last remaning confluence in Ohio was about 2 hours east of my home in Cincinnati.

So, after convincing my wife to go with me ("What? You want to drive 2 hours to the middle of nowhere, take some pictures, and then drive 2 hours back?!?!?") we set off eastwards on OH-32 around 5 p.m. As we approached the road to the confluence, there was a big sign indicating that this was US Government property, and there was No Trespassing, entrance on Official Business only. We circled around to see if we could get to the confluence off of a different road, but no dice. Where we stopped was approximately 38°58.12' N, 83°1.11' W.

Not wanting to get shot or anything, and as it was getting kind of late, we decided to return home, make some phone calls and try again another day.

Doing some 'Net searching we found out that the confluence is located in the Portsmouth Gasseous Diffusion plant, a plant that extracts Uranium for use in Nuclear Power. Or so they say..... :-)

Another 'attempt' (no pictures) was made by Hank, he adds:

05-Jan-2000 -- I want to add some additional information about this confluence. Dan Miller is correct - he very well could have been shot at if he entered the plant grounds with a GPS and a camera. I worked as a consultant for about 6 months in 1999/2000 about 100 yards away from this confluence, and had always wanted to go out and photograph the actual spot for the confluence project. (If you look at the terraserver image, there is a small dark building with a parking lot and an oval track due east of the confluence - this is where I worked.) While I did bring my camera and GPS unit several times, I never attempted the confluence for fear of losing my job (I was only a consultant, after all), not to mention being shot at. While you can get to this confluence on foot without passing thought any security checkpoints, this confluence is very close to the secured fence and guard house (small square building to the north/west), with heavily armed guards. They surely would have seen and quickly acted upon anyone wandering around the grounds that close to the secured perimeter. USEC did recently shut down the Uranium enrichment that was going on here, but I'm sure it is still heavily guarded, especially after Sept. 11. Kudos to Dan for attempting this confluence!