Regulatory staff won't seek penalties against Ameren for Taum Sauk fire

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Staff members for the Missouri Public Service Commission will not seek penalties against Ameren Missouri for not quickly reporting a problem at its Taum Sauk reservoir.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports a generator automatically shut off and began smoking in June. It will cost $11 million to repair. Utility commission staff saw the damage eight days after the incident and filed a complaint against the St. Louis-based utility for failing to promptly report the incident to regulators.

Utilities must report within one day accidents or events at power plants that involve serious injury, death or damage in excess of $200,000. Ameren classified the incident as an outage that does not require immediate notification.

St. Louis-based Ameren agreed to report any similar incidents in future at its Missouri power plants.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com