NIPSCO wrong to shut down Mitchell power station

| Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The recent Business news article of NIPSCO's rate hike request, coupled with the "decommissioning" of the Dean Mitchell power station, shows how out if touch NIPSCO is. Having spent almost 30 years working in power distribution at Atlas Cement a couple hundred yards away gave me an opportunity see Mitchell in operation.

Mitchell was the cleanest plant on their grid, according to the people that worked there, as well as articles appearing in the Times at that time. Normally, nothing was visible coming from Mitchell's stacks, except in the winter time when the cold outside air produced a steam cloud at the stacks.

It was geared to burn high-sulphur coal, with scrubbers that removed a sulphur byproduct that was sold to a local chemical plant, with fly-ash from the plant sold to Atlas Cement. So, Mitchell's operation was a win-win situation.

Had Mitchell continued to run, even with the downturn of local industry (which came later), any excess power could have been sold on the grids of Indiana and Illinois, with our electricity being much cheaper than it is today, with a greater profit for the shareholders.

NIPSCO has been seemingly trying to get out of the generation business and become simply a distributor for a long time -- on the backs of the consumers, with the shareholders getting their guaranteed profit. It's time for NIPSCO to get Mitchell back on line -- or drop the "Public Service" from it's name.

Allen K. Hoppel, Highland