CHAFFEE OFFICIALS EXPLAIN BOND ISSUE VOTE NOV. 5

CHAFFEE - Chaffee's wastewater treatment plant would reportedly be the first in Missouri to use duckweed to control algae growth if a city bond issue is passed Nov. 5.

"Our engineers are telling us we'd be the envy of everyone in the state of Missouri if we're going to do this," Ward 4 Councilman Tom Cunningham said Wednesday night at a public hearing on the bond issue.

About a half dozen people attended the hearing, held at Chaffee City Hall. Also on hand was Edward D. McLiney, vice president of McLiney and Co. of Kansas City, the city's financial adviser and promoter for the project.

The $500,000 bond issue would finance improvements to the city's wastewater plant, as well as the construction of a sewer line and lift station along North Frisco Street. It needs a simple majority to pass, McLiney said.

The plant's discharge, because of high algae growth, doesn't comply with state standards. A handbill on the bond issue says the plant is at the end of its "useful life" of 20 years. The improvements are expected to have a "useful life" of another 20 years, it says.

The city plans to correct the problem, the handbill says, by having the plant's final cell deepened, implementing a treatment system to remove 95 percent of the algae found in the discharge, replacing necessary transfer structures and fluid valves, and rebuilding levees. Ward 2 Councilman Ed Gauthier said the treatment system would involve the use of duckweed.

Mayor Ron Moyers said the duckweed system is new and effective. City officials went to Mississippi to review a duckweed system there and came back impressed, he said. He and Ward 2 Councilwoman Irmgard Chronister said the city would reportedly be the first in Missouri to use such a system.

Cunningham said he and other city officials went to Pontotoc, Miss., with three representatives of the city's engineering firm on the project, S.H. Smith of Cape Girardeau.

The system would work through the use of netting and cables draped over the plant's cells. The duckweed, which would stem the algae growth by blocking sunlight, would grow through the netting and be harvested, he said.

According to city officials, the duckweed could later be used for composting, as livestock feed, or for fertilizer.

City officials Wednesday stressed what they characterized as their perilous footing regarding the wastewater plant. If the issue fails, Moyers said, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources could fine the city as much as $15,000 a day.

"I don't know any communities that have been assessed those penalties, but it could happen," Moyers said. "They have the leverage to do that.

"We've never been faced with an issue where it was a do-or-die. This is a do-or-die. We have to pass this bond issue. If we don't, then we go back and talk to the DNR on bended knees, and no one likes to do that."

Moyers said the city would pay half the going, annual prime interest rate on the project money, with the state picking up the remaining half. In addition, the city would receive a 15 percent grant.

No new city taxes would result from the bond issue. But Moyers warned that if city finances falter, the city council has the right to raise sewer rates to meet the indebtedness. The city is in good shape financially now, he said.

If the issue is passed next year, McLiney said, the cost for the project would increase from $500,000 to $560,000.