As part of this process, between Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, The Forrester Group company representatives will be on the ground answering questions and providing information. These representatives can be found beginning Jan. 26 at Lesterville High School or at the Shepherd Mountain Inn in Pilot Knob. They are also available to meet with applicants at their homes or places of business to offer help. Please call 573-645-0306 for an appointment and details about locations and times. Evening appointments are available.
"Our goal is to make this process as easy on the applicants and as efficient for the panel as possible," says John Young, managing principal of The Forrester Group. "We encourage anyone with questions about the application itself or about the process to feel free to contact me or a Forrester representative at any time."
The Forrester Group will discuss their plans in more detail at a meeting in Lesterville this evening\-the first of four public meetings of a seven-person independent advisory panel AmerenUE established to evaluate the recommendations.
The aim of the Jan. 25 meeting is to establish the process for reviewing the applications. Subsequent meetings are set for Feb. 1, 8, and 15 at the same time. Locations will be announced. All meetings will be open to the public, and all who submit recommendations will be given an opportunity to make presentations to the panel at the Feb. 1 or the Feb. 8 meetings.
The independent panel will review all recommendations and develop a final plan for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff's review and approval.
In December, AmerenUE announced that the company is soliciting recommendations for using the $5 million. All recommendations must be submitted to AmerenUE by Feb. 1. AmerenUE will submit the final plan proposed by the panel to the FERC staff by Feb. 28.
The process for submitting recommendations is simple: Individuals and groups can file their recommendations by Feb. 1 by visiting the "Taum Sauk Enhancements" link on Ameren's Web site, www.ameren.com/taumsauk and printing out a form. Forms are also available at the Central Office, Lesterville Reorganized School District 4, State Highway 21, Lesterville, MO, 63654. Typed or printed forms and any attachments must be mailed to Brianne Lindemann, AmerenUE, Mail Code 100, P.O. Box 66149, St. Louis, MO 63166-6149. ALL RECOMMENDATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY U.S. MAIL. NO RECOMMENDATIONS POSTMARKED AFTER FEB. 1 WILL BE CONSIDERED.
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 is 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.
# # #