As the population grows, water requirements increase. In certain areas, domestic
needs may come into conflict with the needs of industrial and energy facilities.
Climate change can have an adverse impact on water availability. This issue is of
great concern to many stakeholders and AEP, so we will be taking a closer look at
it going forward.
AEP uses large quantities of water to operate our power plants – roughly 10.5
billion gallons per day to generate steam and to cool plants. Most of it travels
through the facility once before nearly all of it is returned to its source, in
accordance with our permits. More often than not, the water is cleaner when it is
returned than when it was withdrawn. Compliance with our water quality permits is
important to us because they are designed to address known and unintended impacts,
including water temperature impacts on fish.
We are concerned about potential changes in Clean Water Act regulations – the federal framework
that governs our water use and our impacts on water resources. A court decision
issued in 2007 could require many of the nation's power plants to replace existing
cooling systems with new cooling towers – restricting the U.S. EPA to allow
power plants to use cooling systems other than cooling towers.
AEP owns and operates 18 power plants that could be affected. The EPA estimated
the cost to AEP at $193 million and the cost to the electric industry at billions
of dollars to be spent on new capital investments and increased operation and maintenance
costs. We are working with the EPA to develop a revised rule that will keep costs
reasonable while maximizing environmental benefits.
