The hardest-hit area was Boone County, just northwest of Indianapolis, where more than 4,500 outages were reported.

State environmental officials must approve Duke's disposal plans, which include testing the site's groundwater monitoring wells at least twice a year.

The company wants to modernize the nearly 50-year-old Markland Hydro Station on an Ohio River dam, about 25 miles southwest of Cincinnati.

The company plans to cap storage basins in Cayuga, New Albany, Owensville and Terre Haute, Indiana.

Some, like Indianapolis Power and Light's plant in Indianapolis, are converting to run on natural gas.

The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor is seeking public comment on a Duke Energy coal-gasification plant in southwestern Indiana.

Duke Energy's annual "Eagle Viewing Day" will be held Jan. 30 at its Cayuga Generating Station in Vermillion County.

Duke Energy says there has been an increase in utility bill scams where customers' have been threatened with having their power cut off unless a quick payment is made.

Duke says its revised $1.83 billion plan complies with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission's request to explain its costs and confine modernization projects to its grid. But the consumer watchdog group Citizens Action Coalition says it will keep fighting the revised plan.

The northern Indiana power plant is being shuttered in the face of more stringent federal air pollution rules.