CITY AUTHORIZES STORM SEWER MASTER PLAN

City officials will pay an engineering firm about $150,000 to develop a plan to guide future water and sewer drainage upgrades.

Doug Leslie, city public works director, said Cape Girardeau has numerous master plans in place but has never developed a critical master plan for dealing with water and sewer drainage issues.

"The city has been very successful with doing a master plan effort on the water and sewer systems and solid waste programs," Leslie said. "The plans have allowed the city to develop those programs in a logical pattern along priorities set in the plans and obtain funding for those programs."

This follows that line of success, he said.

The city council, at its meeting this week, authorized Horner and Shifrin of St. Louis to develop the master plan at a cost of no more than $149,800.

The firm will analyze the city's stormwater needs, study funding alternatives, prepare cost estimates, perform cost-benefit analyses and establish priorities for the projects.

The master plan is required by some organizations that administer grants for water and sewer projects.

Leslie thinks it will take about six months for the engineering firm to finish the document.

He said the city then likely will proceed with addressing the more pressing projects outlined in the master plan.

Leslie also said residents will be invited through public notices to attend hearings about the projects before they begin.

"Stormwater projects are of particular interest to various areas of the city," he said. "We'll try to get to those areas and make sure they're addressed."

Some of the city's previous successful storm sewer projects include ones at Cape La Croix and Walker Creek, and the 157-acre dry detention facility north of town.

"These are very major projects that the city has worked with the Corps of Engineers on solving," Leslie said. "The master plan kind of follows on those and picks up where those have left off."