Managing Environment, Safety & Health (MESH) is an initiative to conform to the international environmental management system standard ISO 14001, and to increase knowledge and awareness to drive continuous performance improvement. Through MESH, 12 power plants are improving management of their significant environmental aspects. This includes improving heat rates to operate the plants as efficiently as possible and subsequently reduce air emissions, and improving preventive maintenance on pollution control equipment to minimize environmental impacts. We are also working with regulators to manage water resources by using water for cooling and cattle and livestock use. We are improving storm water outflows to prevent soil and erosion run-off and improving the identification and management of environmental aspects at our construction sites.
AEP's underground storage tank (UST) operations are a good example of our proactive approach to compliance. We own and operate more than 230 USTs that contain large amounts of gasoline, diesel fuel and oil. We inspect them, perform leak detection tests and maintain the tanks on a regular basis. In the last three years, there were 59 routine regulatory inspections with no enforcement actions.
