MOUNT VERNON — Knox County Commissioners and concerned Brandon resident Lynn Calland met with AEP Community Affairs Manager Timothy J. Wells to express concerns about service both related and unrelated to the recent windstorm caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
Commissioner Allen Stockberger suggested arranging the discussion into four groups: The storm, tree trimming, energy industry deregulation and alternate energy generation sources such as “clean” coal technology and nuclear energy.
“This was a once in a lifetime, or at least once in a generation, storm,” Wells said. He said that Knox County was dead center of the worst hit area supplied by AEP. According to Wells, 700,000 of AEP’s 1.5 million customers were knocked out of power. In Knox County, 19,020 of the company’s 26,974 customers were without power. Wells said that AEP feels they coped as well as they could with such a massive storm.
Calland asked what the company did to prevent the failure of equipment during storms or even just regular rain showers, which often cause her power near Brandon to go out. Wells said that AEP was aware of the age of various parts of their infrastructure but that much of it is operated on a run-to-failure basis. Asked about whether AEP had considered underground lines, Wells said that cost and restoration time in the event of outages were prohibitive.
Calland said she’d like to see AEP do more trimming, to prevent trees and limbs from falling on power lines. Wells said that some patrons greatly object to that. Commissioner Robert Wise suggested that the AEP trimming contractors contact Knox County law enforcement officials whenever they have trouble clearing the right of way for power lines. Wells said that he would pass that word along, but that he also wanted to point out that the recent storm had brought down trees from well beyond the normal right of way, so extra trimming in itself could not have prevented the kind of damage seen in the recent storm.
Stockberger asked about industry deregulation, which was supposed to give customers some choice in energy suppliers. Wells said that deregulation, which began in 1999, is still progressing, though it is going slowly. Wells said that eventually generation charges will be subject to different competitors, though the transmission through existing lines and distribution on domestic power lines will still be through AEP.
Wells also discussed AEP’s investigations into integrated gas combined cycle technology, better known as clean coal, which controls the fossil fuel’s components to reduce pollution. AEP is considering plants that would use clean coal in West Virginia. They also currently have a nuclear plant in Michigan, though they have no plans for others at this point.
In other business, Jennifer Springer, Margaret Ann Ruhl and Emily Marth of the county employees’ wellness committee met with the commissioners to suggest a revision in the terms of the wellness contract offered to county employees. The contract offers to reimburse employees out of the employee’s own health insurance fund (not out of the county budget) if they sign a contract to participate in wellness plans such as weight-loss centers or gymnasiums. The idea is that proactive improvements to employees’ health will save in insurance expenses later.
The current contract calls for a three-month minimum commitment, with reimbursements to be paid quarterly. Ruhl said that their proposal was to pro-rate reimbursements so that employees who started programs in the middle of a financial quarter could still be reimbursed those costs. The commissioners agreed and directed Springer to update the contract’s wording, and the commissioners’ secretary Liz Price would administrate the changes. Marth said that in the future the committee may call for the administration of the program to be taken over by the auditor’s office, but that for now they would leave it as it is.
