The Public Service Commission is looking for gaps in information about the Taum Sauk reservoir collapse…and hopes to close them by the end of next month.

Commission chairman Jeff Davis says staff members are going through what they’ve collected since the collapse a year and a half ago. He says the staff is trying to fill in the gaps between what AMEREN has said and what the Highway Patrol has said. 

The PSC said in 1963 that Union Electric, the predecessor of Ameren, did not have to staff the reservoir 24 hours a day, seven days a week, although some union members recommended that monitoring.  Davis is not sure the commission could order Ameren to have someone on site because the power plant is regulated by the federal government.  But he thinks it would be "a good idea" to have somebody "stick their finger in the water once a day" and look at the water level.

Davis wants the Taum Sauk part of the investigation done by the staff by July 30th.  The administrative audit of Ameren will continue beyond that.

Download Bob Priddy’s interview with PSC Chairman Jeff Davis (5:43 mp3)