TVA ready to revise strategic plans—Recent financial and environmental flaws push…a “new era.”

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2009/feb/16/tva-ready-revise-strategic-plans/?local

TVA ready to revise strategic plans

Recent financial and environmental flaws push agency to define a “new era.”

Monday, February 16, 2009

By: Dave Flessner

With its environmental image stained by recent spills and its financial standing weakened by the economic slump, the Tennessee Valley Authority is ready to revamp its blueprint for the future.

The changing economic and political climate for TVA requires a new look at the agency’s approach to energy and the environment, TVA Director Dennis Bottorff said.

Mr. Bottorff, chairman of TVA’s finance, strategy and rates committee, said the utility’s strategic plan needs to be modified in respond to the growing costs of cleaning up the utility’s coal plants, meeting new environmental standards and coping with a drop in both investments and sales.

“To do what we need to do for our customers and carry out our mission, we really need to be focusing on frugality, operating efficiency and capital,” he said.

TVA President Tom Kilgore also acknowledged that the agency’s reputation was hurt by recent ash pond spills at the Kingston and Widows Creek coal plants and by a January court ruling that found TVA was a public nuisance for air emissions from four of its coal plants into North Carolina.

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