SWEPCO Responds to Louisiana Public Service Commissioner’s Claims

Recently, much of Northwest Louisiana was directly impacted by severe storms and tornadoes. Businesses and homes were damaged. Those storms knocked out power for roughly 40,000 residents. To be frank, the impact was devastating for many in our area.

Because of that, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell announced that he was looking into SWEPCO and their response to the severe weather.

Campbell told KTBS that his team will be looking into how SWEPCO is operating and wants to make sure they're doing their job in the best way possible.

One of the main things Commissioner Campbell brought up was tree trimming and the funds SWEPCO gets to do so.

In the story from KTBS, SWEPCO spokesman Michael Corbin said that SWEPCO never builds lines over trees - that the line is there first and then someone plants the tree. Corbin went on to say that the trimming and cutting budget is outdate and nearly a quarter of a century old.

"It just cost more $18 million in 2010 does not cover but about half the line mileage that it did then as it does now," Corbin told KTBS.

When Public Service Commissioner Campbell was asked directly about SWEPCO's funding, he pushed back. Telling KTBS:

"For SWEPCO to say they don't have any money that's baloney, straight up baloney, they have money I want to see how they are spending the money, I'm not sure they are spending it wisely."

Since the original article was published, SWEPCO has issued a more in-depth response and went into greater details about their storm response and how far the funding goes:

SWEPCO designs our system to be resilient. The recent extreme weather events in the ArkLaTex, with 67 active tornado warnings and 29 confirmed tornadoes on Monday, have brought about significant challenges. This includes powerful wind gusts reaching 127 mph. These conditions, along with heavy rainfall and strong winds, can loosen the soil and raise the risk of trees falling onto power lines, even if these trees are situated outside of SWEPCO's designated right of way.

For the past decade we have used our LPSC annual approved allocation of $18 million in Louisiana for vegetation management and will continue to do so as part of our work to deliver for our customers.

For our Louisiana customers, it’s important to know that the LPSC allocation has stayed the same for the past 10 years, all while inflation and other costs of doing business have increased. Still, we’ve been spending that same amount of money without an increase. A decade ago, that $18 million would have covered 1,500-line miles. Today, because of increased costs of doing business, that amount can only provide trimming and vegetation management for about 600 miles.  

We look forward to our continued discussions with the LPSC and welcome their review about our shared mission to safely, reliably and cost-effectively serve the people of Louisiana.

You learn more about SWEPCO & their parent company AEP here. You can learn more about the Louisiana Public Service Commission and their mission here.