Clean Air Trial Starts Against AEP

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The nation's largest power generator broke clean air rules when it made major modifications to nine plants without installing equipment that would have cut pollution drastically, a Justice Department lawyer said at the start of a trial Wednesday.

 

The case against Columbus-based American Electric Power is the biggest among several filed in the waning days of the Clinton administration against utilities in the Midwest and South.

 

The government and eight states say AEP's refusal to add new pollution controls means the coal-fired plants in four states continue to spew dirty air that cause smog and health problems and hurt the environment.

 

"The plaintiffs expect to establish that AEP's conduct has resulted in an environmental harm," Leslie Bellas, an attorney with the government's environmental enforcement section, said in opening statements.

 

AEP and the utilities have argued that the work done on the plants was routine maintenance, which doesn't trigger the requirements for expensive pollution controls.

 

U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus could require AEP to pay billions of dollars for pollution controls and millions of dollars in penalties.

 

The work done at the plants was common throughout the company and the industry, AEP lawyer Mike Miller said.

 

"We will show that completion of projects like those here do not necessarily translate into increased generation or emissions," he said.

 

The government says the utilities rebuilt old power plants without installing pollution controls required under the Clean Air Act.

 

Bellas said that the modifications extended the life expectancy of the plants built in the 1950s and '60s from 35 or 40 years to 50 or 60 years. The changes also made the plants more efficient so they could produce more electricity, which increased pollution, she said.

 

Sargus, who is hearing the case without a jury, ruled for the government in the first case to go to trial against Ohio Edison's W.H. Sammis plant in eastern Ohio. The company, owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy, later agreed to pay $1.1 billion on equipment to control emissions and $33.5 million in fines and environmental initiatives.

 

AEP's nine plants on trial are Muskingum River, Cardinal and Conesville in Ohio; Tanners Creek in Indiana; Amos, Kammer, Mitchell and Sporn in West Virginia, and Clinch River in Virginia.

 

This case involves the most plants of any of the lawsuits.

 

AEP has more than 5 million customers in 11 states.