Cape Girardeau City Council: Stormwater tax extension could help fund maintenance of drainage system

When Cape Girardeau voters are asked to extend a stormwater/parks sales tax in 2018, it could include funding for maintenance of stormwater-drainage structures, city council members said Thursday.

Council members voiced that view at a special study session with city staff. The session, held at the Osage Centre, focused solely on stormwater issues. The council took no formal action.

City staff are evaluating what stormwater projects might be included in such a tax proposal.

Ward 5 Councilman Bob Fox said the tax-extension proposal needs to include money for maintenance of the storm-drainage system in the city.

“You have got to have maintenance for it, and it has to be permanent,” he said.

Other council members, including Mayor Harry Rediger, echoed that view.

Ward 3 Councilman Victor Gunn said it would be cheaper to spend some of the tax money for ongoing maintenance than make more costly repairs to the system in the future.

Ward 6 Councilman Wayne Bowen said the city needs to assess the “real long-term maintenance expense” for the community’s storm-drainage system.

City engineer Casey Brunke offered what she called the “doom and gloom” regarding stormwater issues.

Brunke said the city has no money set aside for major repairs to the Mississippi River floodwall, Cape LaCroix Creek and Walker Branch drainage structures and the large detention basin that holds back floodwater.

In addition to funding for maintenance, council members suggested the city needs to regulate stormwater associated with construction of homes on individual lots.

Anna Kangas, building and code enforcement manager, told the council while the city requires subdivisions to meet stormwater-drainage requirements, it does not police construction on individual lots.

As a result, city officials said stormwater flooding can occur because one property owner builds up his property and another follows suit.

In the end, the improvements lead to increased stormwater flooding in a neighborhood, officials said.

“We need to hold individual lots to the same standards,” Bowen said.

Deputy city manager Molly Hood said Cape Girardeau faces stormwater-flooding issues because of structures built at the bottom of one or more hills or below street level; subdivisions constructed before implementation of city storm-drainage regulations and inspections; and installation of inadequate stormwater pipes in developments.

Hood told the council stormwater improvements never will be designed to handle the most catastrophic flash flood.

“There is always a larger rain event coming,” she said.

But Cape Girardeau Public Works director Steve Cook said the city has seen a reduction in stormwater flooding over the last several decades.

The Town Plaza shopping center used to look like a lake before the federally funded, concrete drainage channels were installed on LaCroix Creek and Walker Branch, he said.

“Back then, you worried about people drowning,” Cook told the council, adding the city routinely had to evacuate residents from some low-lying areas. “We don’t have that anymore.”

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