American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report

22 Work Force Issues Target Zero is a safety campaign to prevent injuries from happening. communicating important information to prevent similar events from occurring elsewhere. Last year we began a welding survey to identify possible health hazards to employees. Because of the potentially harmful fumes associated with welding, we expect to prescribe some control measures for specific types of welding processes in 2008. Our sampling of various types of welding processes and metals will help us learn whether these exposures could create health risks for long-term welders and, if so, what precautions should be taken. RECOGNIZING HAZARDS: SCAN + IDENTIFY + PREDICT + DECIDE + ACT the event. We eliminated this type of relief device, performed a comprehensive evaluation of all hydrogen systems to ensure we are controlling the risks better, and developed new procedures for hydrogen unloading. A qualified AEP employee must now observe the unloading process – a step not previously required. The corrective and preventive actions were communicated to all AEP power plants, shared with utilities across the nation and posted to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) web site. AEP settled the case with OSHA and paid a $55,000 fine, but the real penalty was the loss of life and injuries it caused. Although every AEP employee is accountable for his or her own safety and health, employees are also asked to look out for each other. AEP encourages employees to speak up when they see unsafe situations in any workplace setting and to share information about near-misses, which can help us prevent harm. Unfortunately, our company culture sometimes inhibits people from coming forward and this must change if we are to succeed. We must do more to encourage and support employees to share information, opinions and ideas while showing concern for each other’s safety and health. AEP has initiated Significant Event conference calls with business units and safety and health leaders to ensure that information is shared across business units when a significant event or near-miss occurs. We conducted five of these calls in 2007 and found them to be effective in “I was really amazed at the candor. I like that you talk about specific enforcement actions, what you learned from them, what you did with those lessons and that you shared them with other utilities. I would like to see more leading indicators, or proactive safety activities. Injury and illness rates, or lagging indicators, do not give the full picture of safety and health performance. If you don’t recognize a hazard, you can’t take action to prevent being harmed. That rationale underlies our initiative to empower employees with the skills and tools they need to recognize and eliminate on-the-job hazards. Hazard recognition training across AEP helps our em- ” Sandra Taylor, deputy regional administrator, OSHA ployees to be proactive and take preventive actions. We seek to eliminate conditions or situations that could lead to unintended events: machinery left unguarded or poorly AEP’s Line School provides hands-on, ongoing safety training and education to those who maintain our system.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report

American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report Contents Leadership, Management & Strategy A Message from Michael G. Morris A Message from Dennis E. Welch About This Report Environmental Performance Work Force Issues Public Policy Climate Change Energy Security, Reliability & Growth Stakeholder Engagement Glossary GRI Table of Contents

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