BELPRE — Multiple plants along Ohio 7 form “the foundation and core of our manufacturing base” in Washington County, a local development official said.

The facilities that operate today as Eramet Marietta, Solvay Specialty Polymers and Americas Styrenics were all part of the same Union Carbide facility, along with the former AMP Ohio power plant site across the state route from them, said Jesse Roush, executive director of the Southeastern Ohio Port Authority.

Kraton Polymers and Orion Engineered Carbons are two other significant industrial employers that have gone through various names over the years.

“The economy would suffer without any one of them,” Roush said.

In addition to paying the wages of local residents who spend that money in the community, the facilities are major contributors to the local tax base.

“Our school districts rely heavily on real estate taxes,” Roush said.

The businesses contribute to the community in a variety of other ways. Solvay and Eramet have been significantly involved with Building Bridges 2 Careers, a nonprofit that works to link area students and employers. And Roush said Solvay has offered a variety of internships and apprenticeships to bolster the local workforce.

“I wish more of our employers led … workforce development in the way Solvay has done historically,” he said.

Solvay employs 310 people at its Marietta facility, which was acquired from BP Amoco in 2001. The plant makes sulfone polymers, which are used in a variety of products, said Tim Zoller, site manager.

“We don’t make any of the final products here. We just make the resin,” he said, adding customers then use that resin in a variety of applications, such as medical and dental instrument handles or membranes used to filter and clean water.

Solvay supports the United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley, as well as local fire and rescue agencies. The plant employs its own EMTs who often serve on local volunteer fire departments as well.

“Not only do they use it here in the plant … but they also, since they’ve been trained, typically put that to use in their own community,” Zoller said.

The plant has been active over the last couple of years with various improvements, including adding assets to increase capacity, he said.

Less than a mile to the south on Ohio 7 is Eramet Marietta, which makes manganese alloys, a critical component in steel manufacturing.

“You cannot make steel without manganese,” said Marc Mounier-Vehier, CEO of Eramet Marietta. “We distribute our alloys to all the steel producers in the United States.”

The Marietta plant was purchased by the French company in 1999 from Elkem, which had bought Union Carbide’s alloy production facility in 1981, Mounier-Vehier said. It produces alloys by heating manganese ore ,mixed with carbon in the form of coke, coal or anthracite, up to 3,000 degrees with electric arc furnaces, Mounier-Vehier said.

About 180 full-time employees work at Eramet, he said. The company has made significant investments over the last decade to reduce its emissions and carbon footprint, Mounier-Vehier said.

The Eramet Foundation partners with Washington State Community College to provide scholarships for family members of employees. A second scholarship, open to any member of the community, was recently added, Mounier-Vehier said.

“If I don’t have access to education, I will go somewhere else,” he said. “If they don’t get support in the community and they go somewhere else, they may never come back here.”

Eramet also serves as the lead sponsor for the Memorial Health Foundation’s annual fashion show, which raises money to fund transportation and access to health care, Mounier-Vehier said.

Closer to Belpre, Orion Engineered Carbons employs 65 people at the facility where it manufactures carbon black, a petroleum-based substance used to strengthen materials and protect them from ultraviolet damage.

“It’s one of these materials that people use and encounter every day,” said William Foreman, director of corporate communications and government affairs for Orion.

Carbon black is “a highly engineered material,” Foreman said, with specific types needed for different uses. The two types manufactured in Belpre are used in tire treads or in inks, plastics and coatings.

Orion’s corporate lineage stretches back 160 years to the A. Wegelin AG company in Germany. The local plant was built in 1968 by Ashland Chemical. It was under the DeGussa banner for many years before that company was acquired in 2007 by Evonik. Evonik spun Orion off in 2011, and the company was publicly listed in 2014.

The local facility is prepping a major project to upgrade its air emissions technology, Foreman said.

Orion supports a variety of local entities, including the United Way, Memorial Health System, Little Hocking Volunteer Fire Department and Belpre Elementary School, Foreman said.

“One of our three main core values is building enduring relationships, and that’s all about being a good member of the community,” he said.

Nearly 400 people are employed directly by Kraton Polymers in Belpre, though when contractors are factored in, there are an average of up to 600 people working there, said Kathrine Cline, senior HR business partner.

The facility opened in Belpre in 1961 as a Shell Chemical plant producing polyisoprene and latex rubber. In 1970, Shell merged its synthetic rubber and plastics and resin operations to form a polymers division producing a synthetic block copolymer under the proprietary name of kraton.

The moniker came from Kratos, the Greek god of strength, because SBCs “enhance the performance of other products,” Cline said. Kraton was purchased by a private equity firm in 2001, then by a joint business venture of Texas Pacific Group and JP Morgan Partners in 2003. The company went public at the end of 2009 as Kraton Performance Polymers Inc. Last spring, it was acquired by DL Chemical Co. Ltd.

“It’s an exciting opportunity for Kraton,” Cline said. “They aspire to be a global leader in basic material and the specialty chemical business. And getting the expertise on the polymer side is key to achieving that.”

Kraton’s focus on sustainability includes an emphasis on making a positive impact on its community, Cline said. Toward that end, the company and its employees contributed more than $200,000 to the community through fundraisers, donations and the United Way in 2022, she said.

Although American Municipal Power’s Richard H. Gorsuch generating station shut down in late 2010 and has since been demolished, Roush said the site is poised to once again play an important role in the area. The Port Authority is under contract to acquire the property “to develop a publicly owned and operated multimodal port,” he said.

The site has access to a “maritime highway,” Roush said, pointing to the Ohio River, which between Huntington and Pittsburgh is the No. 1 inland waterway, by tonnage, in the United States. It can be reconnected to a rail line that will link it to the former AEP site in Waterford, which is also owned by the Port Authority, Roush said.

“We need to lay about half a mile of rail,” he said.

With a brownfield grant from the Ohio Department of Development, the authority is completing an environmental study and other due diligence before finalizing the acquisition process from American Municipal Power Inc., Roush said.