For Immediate Release

SM&P Offers Underground Locating and Marking Services

for Private Residential Customers

(Indianapolis, IN, July 30, 2006) SM&P Utility Resources, Inc., a utility locating and marking service that supports the nationwide One-Call system, now offers similar services for private residential customers in Indiana and Wisconsin. SM&P will eventually expand this service for homeowners to its entire service area, which includes an additional eight states in central and southwestern U.S. Effective locating and marking is necessary to protect the public from injury and preserve valuable underground facilities.

State laws across the U.S. require all buried utility lines be located and marked prior to digging or excavation.  Most homeowners already know to call their state’s One Call hotline for locating and marking services.  What many homeowners do not realize, however, is that the One Call hotline only serves public utility companies.  Placing a call to the One Call center means the utility-owned lines and cables will be marked and located.  Any privately-owned utilities could go undetected, leaving both those utilities and the home in danger of being damaged.  Privately owned facilities could include water lines to swimming pools, piping to gas grills and buried power lines and cables to out-buildings such as guest houses and detached garages

Ryan Hyman, SM&P Vice President of Emerging Enterprise Development, explains that the new residential locate service in Wisconsin and Indiana is provided by the company’s highly trained and well-equipped core work force. Requesting private locate services from a company like SM&P is a prudent precaution to take prior to digging or excavation. When a homeowner requests SM&P’s private locate service, their request is integrated with the same work order management system used throughout the company for core locating work. This allows a seamless interface for SM&P’s technicians and allows them to protect both public and private facilities efficiently. The homeowner’s property is thoroughly prepared for digging or excavation with both privately-owned and utility-owned facilities located and marked.

“SM&P technicians follow precise procedures to ensure that all facilities on private property are located and marked, period,” said Hyman. “This residential work is done on a flat fee basis so that a homeowner knows the full cost at the outset, regardless of the amount of work that might be required. The price includes liability coverage to protect the property owner’s facilities against repair costs should something go wrong during the locate.”

For more information on SM&P Utility Resources, Inc. call 1-800-575-5594 or visit www.sm-p.com.

About SM&P

SM&P Utility Resources, Inc., Carmel, Indiana, is a subsidiary of The Laclede Group, Inc., which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LG. With more than 2,500 employees, SM&P is one of the nations largest underground locating and marking service businesses, performing more than 15 million locates annually in southwestern and central U.S. for telecommunication, cable, water, gas and power companies. SM&P operates in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.