Blackout Probe Focuses on Ohio Utility

Aug. 18, 2003 — -- Investigators say it will be weeks before they know for sure what caused last week's massive power failure, but their principal focus is on the actions of one Ohio power company where the blackout seems to have started.

Akron-based FirstEnergy, the largest utility in the country, has a long record of troubling safety, operational and financial problems, an ABCNEWS investigation has found.

Unionized employees complain the company cut back on workers who maintain its transmission lines. In addition, its Ohio nuclear plant was shut down by federal regulators last year because of safety violations, including a football-sized hole in the top of the reactor vessel.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate and former mayor of Cleveland, filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to revoke FirstEnergy's operating license for the power plant after the hole in the vessel was found. He said the company has a long history of mismanagement.

"Serious questions have to be raised about FirstEnergy's ability to effectively serve the residents of Northeast Ohio," Kucinich said in a written statement.

The utility has other critics.

"The mentality of the FirstEnergy senior management [is that] they place a higher regard for profit and power production than the safety of the public," said consumer lawyer Howard Whitcomb, a former FirstEnergy senior manager and a longtime of critic of the utility.

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"It's going to skimp on expenses to make profitability look better than it really is," said lawyer Mel Weiss, who represents shareholders suing the company for allegedly deceiving the public by "cooking the books" to impress Wall Street. "And that, of course, ultimately hurts the consumer and in this case, maybe 50 million people."

FirstEnergy officials said it is unfair to blame them alone and that it is a "very complex situation far broader" than just the outages in Ohio, involving "unusual electrical conditions."

The blackout that began Thursday afternoon affected 50 million people, making it the largest in U.S. history. It crippled parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Canada.