Sprigg Street sinkholes take center stage at recent meeting

The sinkholes along South Sprigg Street threaten one of Cape Girardeau's largest employers and could disrupt rail and natural gas service to the city, Mayor Jay Knudtson told U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson during a meeting of community and business leaders with the six-term congresswoman.

To check out his comments, I contacted Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the rail line owner, and AmerenUE, which delivers the city's natural gas. And I tried to reach Steve Leus at Buzzi-Unicem, the cement maker that has spent major dollars trying to plug the underground holes that are allowing water to flow into its quarry from Cape La Croix Creek. Leus did not return my call Friday.

The result was a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the six-inch gas line along South Sprigg Street is a secondary feeder to the city and Ameren local gas manager Mike Wetherell is confident that flow disruptions won't mean a shortage here even in cold weather. There's also good news in that Burlington Northern is committed to keeping the rail line in operation, spokesman Steve Forsberg said.

The bad news is that the most recent ground shifts did knock out the gas line for a time and force the second relocation of the line in six months. Ameren also provides gas to the city on a larger, 10-inch main that runs along Kingshighway. "We can handle the city on the 10-inch line but it makes us kind of nervous," Wetherell said.

The city is working with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buzzi, the railroad and Ameren to understand what is causing the sinkholes and how to mitigate or prevent damage. Along with keeping Buzzi in business and its approximately 200 workers employed, the city needs to keep the sewage treatment plant located near the sinkhole field in operation.

"We are hoping we can get a grasp on the sinkholes with the task force team," Wetherell said. "A total reroute would be extremely expensive, in the multimillions."

The railroad has dealt with sinkhole problems at other locations, Forsberg said. Burlington Northern doesn't want to lose the route and will do what it takes to keep the line open, he said.

"It is a very important line in interstate commerce and the shippers we serve on that route," he said.

The reason Knudtson brought up the sinkholes with Emerson was in part to thank her for calling Col. Lewis Setliff, commander of the St. Louis District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and to make her aware that once a solution is found, the city will need federal help.

"When they do figure it out, we won't have the money to pay for it," Knudtson said. "When it all caves in, we will have to do something about it."

• News from the Magnet lunch: I attended the annual Cape Girardeau Area Magnet lunch Friday, and along with a recitation of projects that Magnet has been a part of in the recent past, director Mitch Robinson told the assembled board members and community leaders that he wants to make the area ready for new manufacturing firms.

To do that, he said Magnet wants to finance the construction of one or more large buildings that will be ready for customizing to a particular industry's needs. There are no large buildings of at least 50,000 square feet ready for a manufacturer, Robinson said.

Magnet is the not-for-profit industrial development organization supported by donations from area governments with the purpose of landing manufacturing and other businesses. The idea has been tried before, Robinson said. In 1996, a 60,000 square-foot building was constructed on Nash Road that is now being used by Spartech.

Robinson said Magnet will establish a committee to scout locations, with the one building to be constructed in Cape Girardeau and a second to be built in Jackson.

The plan is to make payments on the building for up to three years while looking for a tenant. With luck, he said, groundbreaking on the first building can begin in spring or summer.

Another item from the Magnet lunch was pictures showing that signs are in place on Interstate 55 at the new East Main Street/LaSalle Avenue interchange directing motorists to the Southeast Missouri State University Research Park. But there's nothing built there yet.

That will change as soon as Jackson finishes work on the design for extending Old Orchard Road through to East Main Street, said Dennis Roedemeier, director of the Missouri Research Corporation.

The Missouri Legislature has already appropriated $2.6 million for an autism center that will be one of the first tenants, Roedemeier noted. The stakes are in the ground denoting where the building will be constructed on the Southwest side of I-55, but the final staking and plans must wait for the Old Orchard Road design, he said.

"That really is what opens up that southwest side," he said.

• Refinancing boom expected: The move by the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 3/4 of a point, with more likely to follow this week, should set off a rush of home loan refinancing, John M. Thompson, president of Bank of Missouri, told me Thursday evening at the annual Jackson Chamber of Commerce dinner. Thompson said the rate cuts will have an effect like similar cuts early this decade, which helped lead to the business expansion that many fear could now be over.

The rate cuts, coupled with the federal economic stimulus package announced Thursday, should have a strong positive impact, Thompson said.

A one percent rate cut on a $200,000 mortgage, for example, could reduce monthly payments by more than $160 a month.

Thompson said he doesn't anticipate a return to the free-lending ways that caused the mortgage loan crisis that is currently pushing many homeowners into foreclosure. Regulators have become much tougher, he said, and the likelihood of the return to no-income verification or "liar loans" or other questionable practices is much lower now that the markets have been burned by the results.

• Tax tip: I received several tax tips from Beverly and Larry Koehler, owners of Beverly Koehler Bookkeeping Services, at the Jackson Chamber of Commerce dinner. The three things that will bother taxpayers this year, they said, are the new rules for the Alternative Minimum Tax, the tax handling of debt forgiveness and the implications for 2008 tax returns of the economic stimulus package under consideration in Washington.

Filers who fear they will trigger the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, can't file their returns until Feb. 11, they said. Those who are filing paperwork for energy tax credits, a mortgage interest credit or a 1040A form with child care deductions are those who will see the most effect, Beverly Koehler said.

And if you worked through debt forgiveness with a lender this year and think everything is settled, think again, she said. "Debt forgiveness is taxable as income," she said. The only way to avoid it, in most cases, is to file bankruptcy, she said.

And the rebates are likely to cause headaches like those felt following the 2001 rebates. Many people made mistakes on their tax forms for that year, leading to long delays in processing, Larry Koehler said. The biggest mistake was when people came to the line on their form where they were supposed to report whether or not they had received the rebate. The biggest uncertainty, Koehler said, is the way the 2008 tax forms will account for the rebates.

"There's a lot of questions out there that I haven't found answers to," he said.

Rudi Keller is the business editor for the Southeast Missourian. Contact him at rkeller@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 126