Across the Great Miami River near Piqua’s wastewater treatment plant stood the Piqua Nuclear Power Facility, which operated from 1963 to 1966 and supplied the city with as much as 20 percent of its power, leading Piqua to nickname itself “The Atomic City.” Part of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Power Reactor Demonstration Program, it grew from a 1956 proposal by Director of Municipal Utilities John P. Gallagher, followed by congressional funding in 1957. The facility was the first 45.5-megawatt, organically cooled and moderated thermal reactor developed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, with an electrical output of 11.4 megawatts, and it was the first reactor to use terphenyls, a mixture of aromatic hydrocarbons, as its primary coolant instead of water. It produced 150,000 pounds of 550°F superheated steam per hour at a pressure of 450 pounds per square inch, and that steam powered turbines that provided energy throughout the city. In 1964, when Piqua assumed full responsibility for operations, it became the first nuclear power plant run by a municipal utility. The reactor was shut down in 1966 for economic and technical reasons, decommissioning was completed in 1969, and the reactor vessel was entombed on-site. In 2023 the facilities were demolished, the entombment received additional waterproofing concrete, and the site became a city laydown yard, while the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management continued long-term stewardship of the onsite waste entombment to protect human health and the environment.