First off, I live in Illinois. I’ve never been to Johnson’s shut ins. However, let’s look at the whole story. No one is arguing that it was a disaster. BUT, anyone who thinks that things could be restored in a single season of work isn’t thinking. What’s wrong with Ameren buying a half-hour of TV time for a story about what they’re doing, what they’ve done, and where it’s all heading? No one else is going to tell the story in a positive light.

As far as trust goes…well, Ameren will tell the story from their perspective….but you’re assuming that anyone else who goes to tell the story won’t have their own axe to grind? Bottom line, it’s a complicated story, and it can’t be told in sound bites. A lot of work has been done…and there is a lot more to do. It’s time people accepted that.

I guess I will trust her word - I wouldn’t trust Deanne Lane or Mike Bush though! If those two had a child, it would be the AntiChrist or even a conservative radio talk-show host.

I don’t care squib about Ms. Foss. Of COURSE Ameren is going to try to come off as the good guy — even though they caused the mess in the first place. I’ll probably watch…just to see what the spin is.

In my opinion, trying to put everything back, and reroute the river, revegetate, and turn JSI into a manicured English garden with shuttles from the new campground to the picnic area is all rankly preposterous…They ought to see how the Bureau of Reclamation has left the Teton Dam disaster site. I’ve not been happy since they’ve taken all those beautiful unearthed rocks, called them sediment, and hauled them off by the truckload. Hey! state parks could have turned JSI into the next ATV park, sans lead ore. But they haven’t, because Ameren will pay any price to get the public to forget what happened as they prep the mountain for the next monstrosity.

I fully agree with what hs said in post #1. I’ll do a little adding to it.

What Ameren is doing regarding buying TV time is perfectly legal. Since the water containment area was a wetland and therefore under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers it must be restored to be a wetland. The Corps was saddled with that responsibility, by Congress, to further the goals of the “Clean Water Act”. (Unless the area was specifically excluded, and I can think of no logical reason why it would have been)

From the time the “dam” failed and the time reconstruction can begin will take many months of planning, working together with others who are in the affected area, and public hearings if the public has any interest in what will be done.

Use of a series of half-hour programs directed and produced by someone who is competant to “tell the story” about the project is just using good common sense. I doubt that the producer and director will spend a lot of time delving into any failures and miscues by Ameren. It goes without saying that the programs will be a “sanitized” version of happenings.

How is what Ameren is doing with the TV station different than what they could have done with the PD. They could easily have hired an advertising agency to lay out a series of center fold double trucks and run them in the PD. Your advertising department would have danced all the way to the bank.

Haybe your advertising department can salvage a few dollars by selling Ameren some Ads announcing when The times and dates the TV programs will be aired. The same ads could be carried in the surrounding Journals, at your column inch package rate. See how I look out for your welfare Kurt? “)

Why would anyone believe Ameren UE about anything when they’ve seen how criminally irresponsible they were for building Taum Sauk so poorly in the first place; no matter who their talking head is?

Well, I guess I trust it….because I’m PAYING for it.

I guess when you have something providing a service as basic as electricity, whose only mission is to make money for shareholders, something is wrong. Too bad nobody sees that. How many full-page ads have you seen for Ameren? And now a ‘news’ special that’s $100,000 for airtime alone? Give me a break.

re johnh (4) ”

“What Ameren is doing regarding buying TV time is perfectly legal.”

Actually it is not: Congress passed a bill (Initiative for Reform in Utilities, or something like that) in 1993 that prohibits the use of current or former media professionals to justify raising utility rates.

“Use of a series of half-hour programs directed and produced by someone who is competant to ‘tell the story’ about the project is just using good common sense.”

I am sometimes in favor of bending the law but I think Amaren will get thcaught with their hands in the cookie jar, so I don’t think this would qualify as common sense.

“Your advertising department would have danced all the way to the bank.”

P-D employees are not known for their dancing abilities. Moreover, the Post-Dispatch generally cashes their revenue checks at Dierbergs or Schnucks; P-D once had a business checking account but they racked up so many overdraft charges they had to recently lay off about 200 workers to cover the fees.

“The same ads could be carried in the surrounding Journals, at your column inch package rate.”

The Suburban Journals generally frowns upon selling advertising in their papers, because they earn nearly 100% of their income from personal subscriptions.

Trust the update? I imagine that the company will be careful to show the work they’ve done, and what they show will be accurate. However, I doubt the motivations.

I was out at Johnson’s the next day, and during the first press review, and just after it opened the first time in order to take photos. There is no denying the devastation. There’s also no denying that Ameren has put time and money into restoration.

What also can’t be denied is the fact that Ameren is using the Reynolds County school district to pressure the state into settling with the company. “Settle now, or the schools get it”, I think is how it goes. Then there’s the attempt to use the political in-fighting to shame Nixon, Blunt, and Childers into a quick settlement. But our politicos actually got their act together long enough to work on a unified solution, so that’s no longer an option.

There’s also the threat of re-building the dam and the tax revenue it generates. But there was never any doubt that they won’t, and aren’t, rebuilding the dam — it generated Ameren 98 million a year, I believe it was.

Ameren was culpable for this act, but in the grossest possible way. The company allowed the bean counters to control the safety of that dam, and the act is and was appalling. I recently heard from an engineering student in Texas who is doing his senior research thesis on Taum Sauk, as an example of companies who let the accountants control the engineering departments. Worse, there is no indication that the company has changed it’s priorities of profit over safety.

A unified DNR/DC/AG settlement was proposed and rejected by Ameren and now the issue has to go to court. This is nothing more than an attempt by Ameren to generate ‘good feeling’ towards the company so that it can begin a campaign to pressure our politicos into a lower settlement.

(Speaking of which, can’t you invoke the Sunshine a publish the settlement proposal?)

I’m just not sure why DNR gave Ameren permission to film this. I believe that the PD should have dug a little further into who condoned this at the DNR.

As for the restoration, there’s been considerable controversy about the ‘restoration’ plan, because it really turns the park less into the Johnson’s we know and more into a Disneyfication of the park. The Park we know and love is gone for good. No amount of infomercial will make this news any easier to take.

I’ve never questioned Karen Foss’s integrity. She ranks with former and current greats Julius Hunter, Larry Connors, Dick Ford, Deanne Lane. I question if AmerenUE can legitimately justify the expense of Karen Foss and her crew of nine, along with the production expenses associated with this report. HELLO! There’s no competition out there!!! Ameren doesn’t have to maintain a good image!!! They only have to provide good service. So why are they spending what is essentially PUBLIC money to improve their image?

As a retired engineer and having been in lover supervision, I can well understand what happened. The reservoir was filling with silt. Thus the effective amount of water was reduced and the measuring devices were clogged. Seems there was an awareness of this by the engineering staff. Work had been done to raise the height of the devices and new ones bought - not installed. Dam overflow had been duely noted. Doesn’t take an engineer to know that will indeed fail a dam. I am sure the the higher management who are looking for bonuses were telling the lower levels of engineering to get more power equal to when the dam was new. Technical problems were not an acceptable excuse if you want your job. The dam broke while the pumps were still putting more water in the dam to make up for what was going over the top. As fact of guilt, a supervisor and a tech immediately in the wee hours of darkness went to the top and removed evidence of wrong doing - the measuring devices.

Since the top management accepts responsibility for the failure, their sincerity could be proven if they gave back their bonuses for the year towards repayments. That will never happen.