I&M to Temporarily Lower St. Joseph River For Work on Twin Branch Dam

Posted August 23, 2010

Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) will begin a temporary drawdown of the Twin Branch Hydroelectric Project Impoundment Reservoir, Mishawaka, Ind. on Sept. 23, 2010 to replace water retention equipment. The Twin Branch Project is located on the St. Joseph River.

The river will be lowered at the rate of six inches per day for ten days, which will be a total of five feet, between the Twin Branch project and the Johnson Street Bridge in Elkhart, Ind. Maintenance work will be performed Oct. 4 -11, and the river will be returned to its normal operating level by October 14, 2010.

Residents in this area are advised that watercraft moored at marinas and private piers could become dry docked if not removed from the water during the drawdown. Residents who plan to perform work on bulkheads/seawalls during the drawdown will continue to need an approved floodway construction permit from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and/or the Army Corps of Engineers.

I&M has coordinated the schedule of the drawdown with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The drawdown was approved and authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in accordance with our operating license for the Twin Branch Project.

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I&M is headquartered in Fort Wayne, Ind. Its 2,600 employees serve more than 580,000 customers in northeast, east-central and northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan. It operates 3,595 MW of coal-fired generation in Indiana, 2,160 MW of nuclear generation in Michigan, and 22 MW of hydro generation in both states.

I&M is an operating company of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.

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News releases and other information about I&M can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.IndianaMichiganPower.com