The nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) last Tuesday formally petitioned the U.S. Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of American Electric Power (AEP) for what EIP said appear to be “extensive violations” of the Clean Air Act taking place over multiple years, citing allegations made by a former AEP employee.

AEP, meanwhile, said the claims made by the former employee — Bill Wilson — were reviewed earlier this year and that review found that, for most claims, no violations had occurred and, for the remaining claims, the company had responded quickly and properly reported the incident.

But EIP said testimony and supporting documents outlined by Wilson document “massive violations” of the Clean Air Act at three large AEP power plants in Texas — Welsh, Pirkey and Knox-Lee. “The charges included repeatedly and illegally burning chemical waste in utility boilers, violating emission limits for smog forming chemicals, particulate matter and carbon monoxide, and failing to satisfy even the ‘polluter friendly’ New Source Review rules adopted by the Bush administration,” EIP said.

According to the nonprofit group, Wilson was formerly air quality engineer for AEP’s plants in East Texas and was dismissed by the power company on May 6 “after repeated efforts to obtain the company’s correction of the violations he uncovered.”

“I was told that under the recently passed Sarbanes-Oxley law I had to report any evidence of misconduct at the company that could be of material importance to shareholders,” Wilson said in a prepared statement. “Obviously, the prospect of civil, regulatory or even criminal action arising from Clean Air Act violations fell under that heading. I was just doing my job — and doing it the way they told me to do it. When I reported my concerns — which I documented fully — to the company’s ethics division, I was fired. But I wasn’t the party that did something wrong here. AEP was the one I saw breaking the law over and over again.”

“We have interviewed Mr. Wilson at length and examined the documents he has provided,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official and now director of EIP. “There is more than enough evidence to trigger a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Wilson “repeatedly brought his concerns to American Electric Power’s management, but apparently ran into indifference or denial,” Schaeffer said. “America’s largest generator of electric power apparently has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ philosophy when it comes to complying with our environmental laws.”

Included among the violations alleged by Wilson are violations of carbon monoxide and particulate matter emission limits, EIP said. The group said data from AEP’s Welsh coal-fired plant show that in Pittsburg, TX, the facility violated limits on carbon monoxide by as much as 5,000%.

According to AEP, Wilson made the claims during a telephone news conference on Tuesday morning that was hosted by EIP.

“Many of these same claims were made internally by Mr. Wilson earlier this year,” said Michael Morris, AEP’s chairman. “We take our environmental compliance responsibilities very seriously, so claims like this are also taken seriously. We conducted an internal investigation, reviewed the facts related to issues raised by Mr. Wilson and determined that appropriate corrective action had been taken or that no violations had taken place.”

Morris said that in some cases, Wilson “was taking operating permit language out of context. In other cases, language in the permits and regulations was imprecise and open to interpretation. We have filed all required reports and have cooperated fully with all the regulatory agencies on these issues. We began the process required to amend the permits with more specific language, as necessary, to provide clarity.”

AEP said it asked for, and received, a meeting in June with representatives from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) after Wilson sent copies to both AEP and TCEQ of a letter to a Dallas reporter outlining the allegations. The meeting allowed AEP to address any questions the TCEQ had about the allegations. Discussions between AEP and TCEQ continue. AEP said it also stands ready to work with other interested agencies as this issue is resolved.

Moreover, the utility said Wilson’s employment with AEP was terminated in May for causes not related to the environmental claims he had made internally. “We do not retaliate against an employee who files a complaint,” Morris said. “We encourage employees to raise issues of concern so we can ensure we are meeting high ethical and legal standards while conducting our business. But filing a complaint does not make an employee immune to disciplinary actions for issues not related to the complaint.”

AEP takes “pride in our ability to operate our power plants safely and efficiently, to comply with environmental regulations and to provide affordable electricity to our customers,” Morris said. “While we are confident that claims made by Mr. Wilson are without merit, we will continue to work with the appropriate agencies to resolve any questions they may have.”

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