American Electric Power faces new call for inquiry on outages

COLUMBUS, OHIO - The Ohio Consumers' Counsel recently asked for public hearings and an investigation into American Electric Power's handling of recent power outages.

A severe ice storm on Dec. 23 left 360,000 AEP customers without electricity, some for more than a week. Most were in central and southern Ohio. A second storm in northern Ohio on Jan. 6 left 76,000 AEP customers without power.

"Customers, many of whom were left for over a week without electricity, should be part of a public process that looks into AEP's policies and practices for handling power outages," said Consumers' Counsel Janine Migden-Ostrander, who represents Ohio utility consumers.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, at Gov. Bob Taft's urging, plans to review utilities' response to the power failures.

Migden-Ostrander said a lack of preventive maintenance by AEP, such as trimming trees and replacing rotted poles, contributed to the length and scope of the outages.

"Clearly, many of the outages were not preventable, but better maintenance and planning by management may have played a role," she said.

Migden-Ostrander also asked for the PUCO to determine whether AEP is following its own policies and if it is keeping required maintenance records.

An AEP spokeswoman denied that AEP mismanagement or inadequate preparation contributed to the outages or their duration.

Alan R. Schriber, PUCO chairman, said the commission will deliver a report to Taft that will focus on assistance agreements between utilities.

Schriber said he will rule later on the need for public hearings.

While not defending AEP, he called it "absurd" to focus on tree trimming when there is no evidence that tree-trimming contributed to outages.