Ameren is planning to rebuild the Taum Sauk Reservoir—once all of the state and local legal issues tied to the reservoir collapse are resolved. The company has been criticized because it had no one on-site when the wall collapsed 18 months ago, sending billions of gallons of water down the mountain and into Johnson Shut-in State Park. 

CEO Thomas Voss says the company would station someone at the reservoir around-the-clock if it is required. But he’s not sure that action would be useful and says it would not have made any difference in December of 2005.  He says there is no single place on the upper reservoir to see the entire wall.   

Ameren plans to rebuild the reservoir to its previous capacity but will update the technology on it and improve parts of the reservoir not damaged by the collapse. He says new reservoir also will have more safety features, including a spillway.

DownloadThomas Voss on the politization of the collapse (:37 mp3)