JEFFERSON CITY -- A proposed $10 million payment by a major utility to Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon's office launched a neat piece of street theater in downtown St. Louis yesterday.

Nixon's potential windfall was part of an undisclosed settlement proposal with the state made by St. Louis-based energy utility Ameren Corp. for damages after a hydroelectric dam burst in December 2005.

Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Director Doyle Childers revealed the payment proposal at a news conference he held yesterday outside Ameren's corporate headquarters in the city. He said the DNR rejected the offer and valued DNR's counter-offer at $115 million.

The DNR offered last December to settle its dispute with Ameren for the destruction to nearby resources following the Taum Sauk reservoir collapse. Nixon filed a separate suit against Ameren soon after the collapse and has been feuding with DNR ever since.

Childers told the media Wednesday that Ameren's proposed $10 million to Nixon's office was "for no specific purpose" and represented "a cash payment that we find totally inadvisable."

Ameren's proposal offered the DNR a similar amount.

Nonetheless, Childers, an appointee of Republican Governor Matt Blunt, called the payment proposal an effort by Nixon "to put $10 million in his political slush fund" and "totally unacceptable." Nixon is expected to face Blunt in the 2008 governor's race.

Towards the end of Childers' news conference an Ameren official appeared on the sidewalk carrying a box of small plastic footballs, which he offered to assembled reporters.

The toys symbolize what the company considers its role in what's essentially a Nixon-Blunt skirmish. "We're tired of being the political football in the middle," Ameren senior vice president Richard Mark told reporters.

Nixon later referred to the DNR news conference as "a circus" and "a traveling road show" in an AP interview.

Mark claimed Ameren had already spent "tens of millions of dollars" on restoring a badly-damaged state park near the reservoir. He added that Ameren accepts "full responsibility for the park for the breach of the dam."

Local Republican state Sen. Kevin Engler blasted both Blunt and Nixon in an "irate" speech Wednesday, reported MissouriNet.com. He accused the two of ignoring the area's rising unemployment while "maintaining their political feud" over Ameren restitution.

Childers said yesterday that rather than going to Nixon to "hand out to his political cronies," the $10 million should instead go to Reynolds County, site of the dam, to pay for damages there.

Ameren recently won a victory over Nixon by forcing the attorney general's lawsuit against it to shift from a St. Louis court to a district court that includes Reynolds County, LegalNewsLine reported in March.

The DNR's $115 million counter-proposal also claims ownership of nearby Church Mountain and a railroad right-of-way from Ameren, Childers said yesterday.