Clearing the air; Indiana utilities tout their commitment to the environment.

• Author: Beck, Bill

Next April, it will be 25 years since the celebration of the first Earth Day, and environmental activism in the corporate sector shows no sign of slacking off.

Indiana's electric and gas utilities are particularly affected by society's fascination with things environmental. As major consumers of assorted fossil fuels, utilities are constantly concerned with environmental compliance in many areas, including air quality, ozone depletion, global climate and water quality. In recent years, the state's utilities have become increasingly aggressive in dealing with environmental issues and in communicating their efforts to the public.

Marni Lemons, spokesperson for IPALCO Resources Inc., the holding company for Indianapolis Power & Light Co., notes that IPALCO's communications department currently is producing a brochure of the utility's environmental programs.

"The attitude around here has been 'Let's not toot our own horn,'" Lemons says. "Now, we're beginning to change that attitude."

IPALCO is trying to communicate to its public that emissions from the coal it burns in steam electric-generating stations around the state are treated by giant scrubbers that remove pollution from the coal plant's smokestacks.

For Hoosier Energy in Bloomington, environmental communication is facilitated by state-of-the-art flue-gas-desulfurization equipment on its power plants. Hoosier Energy is a generation and transmission cooperative that serves 18 member distribution cooperatives in Central and Southern Indiana. Hoosier Energy's Merom Plant in Sullivan County is fully scrubbed and meets compliance standards set by amendments to the Clean Air Act.

Environmental communication has become a hot button for the utility industry. In mid-May, 125 utility environmental directors from around the country gathered at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis for an "Environmental Excellence" conference. Jointly sponsored by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the industry's major trade association and PSI Energy Inc. in Plainfield, the two-day conference was dedicated to exploring the industry's response to environmental issues.

Arend Sandbulte, chairman and CEO of Minnesota Power in Duluth, Minn., and chair of an EEI committee dealing with the environment, gave conference attendees ample reason to pay attention to the environment. The public wants it, Sandbulte told the conference, as does the government. "It can make you some money," he added, "and it's the right thing...