Contact:
Susan Gallagher Tim Fox
(314) 554-2175 (314) 554-3120
AmerenUE announced today that the company has received authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff to immediately begin implementing the projects approved for use of $5 million earmarked for enhancements at or near the company’s Taum Sauk Plant.
Those projects are the same as those recommended by a seven-person independent panel of community leaders who worked for several weeks to evaluate more than 100 recommendations for use of the money.
AmerenUE adopted the panel’s recommendation as its own and on March 21, requested that the FERC staff approve the plan as being in compliance with the FERC stipulation outlining what types of projects could be funded. On April 10, the FERC staff gave that approval. The full submission to FERC can be found on the Ameren Web site -– www.ameren.com/taumsauk.
AmerenUE will provide assistance during project implementation in managing construction and minimizing costs. Each recipient will sign a grant agreement identifying funds approved for each project and describing the scope of work, including itemized activities and any contingencies that must be fulfilled before receiving funding. This document also will spell out processes used for record-keeping and auditing procedures for tracking use of grant funds. At the end of the grant period, each recipient will be required to submit a grant closeout document verifying all expenditures and all work completed.
The Forrester Group, which facilitated the panel review process, will continue to assist AmerenUE during the implementation phase of the approved project enhancements. Beginning immediately, The Forrester Group will contact grant recipients to help them with the implementation process, including preparation of grant agreements, bid development and selection, record-keeping and other assistance, as required. The Forrester Group expects to have contacted all recipients within the next two weeks.
AmerenUE is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation. Ameren companies serve 2.4 million electric customers and one million natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area of Missouri and Illinois.
BACKGROUND:
Built in 1963, AmerenUE’s Taum Sauk is a “pumped-storage” hydroelectric plant. It stored water from the Black River in an upper reservoir, built atop1,590-foot-high Proffit Mountain, and released the water to generate electricity when power was needed. The water flowed down a mile-long tunnel inside the mountain, turning turbine-generators to produce electricity. When power demand was low, the same turbines ran in reverse to pump water back to the upper reservoir.
On December 14, 2005, the AmerenUE Taum Sauk Plant experienced a breach in its 1.5 billion-gallon upper reservoir that caused flooding in the Johnson’s Shut-Ins area.
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