CITY PLAN WILL ADDRESS SEWER PROBLEMS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- For years, residents of Cape Girardeau's south side have asked City Hall to repair or replace antiquated sewers in their neighborhoods.

During the past several years residents have reported, mostly following heavy rains, sewage-filled basements and raw sewage discharged in drainage ditches and into Cape LaCroix Creek.

The issue was prominent during last year's City Council election campaign, when several candidates pledged to work to correct the sewer problems.

Now, thanks to a just-completed, $80,000, 20-year sewer master plan, the city may be only five years away from solving the problems.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said Tuesday the sewer plan proposes six priority projects to be completed within five years at a cost of $11.3 million. The 20-year plan includes projects totalling about $33 million.

Included among the five-year sewer priorities is a $5 million project that would separate combined sanitary and storm sewers in the College, Walnut and Henderson streets area. The city's combination sanitary and storm sewers have been blamed for most of the south-side overflow and discharge problems.

Although the price tag for the sewer-segregation project is lower than "what had been feared," Stoverink said, voters likely would have to approve the purchase of revenue bonds to fund the improvements.

The assistant city manager said the project would "effectively eliminate" the College, Walnut and Henderson sewer district overflow and discharge problems.

If additional sewer-segregation projects totalling $13.5 million are completed during the next 20 years, all the overflow and discharge problems in the city's older sewer systems would be eliminated, Stoverink said.

"In the past, we've had a lot of sewer plans, but none of those plans would have eliminated that completely," he said.

"It's a project, given the cost, that will take many years to accomplish short of going out and getting revenue bonds."

Stoverink said the major sewer segregation work could be completed in 10 to 20 years without revenue bond financing; however, if residents want the projects completed sooner, a tax or bond issue would be needed.

Stoverink said the five-year priority projects outlined in the sewer plan are needed immediately and have been included in the city's five-year capital improvement plan. The projects to be completed at the end of 10 years would upgrade existing sewer systems that likely would need expansion if expected growth occurs in those areas.

The projects to be completed over the 20-year scope of the plan would address long-range growth and development of the city, which likely will be dictated by the city's annexation efforts in the interim.

Stoverink said an important aspect of the plan is a program to allocate $182,000 annually for sewer maintenance and improvements. The program is comparable to the city's street-overlay program, which allocates funds each year to resurface city streets.

"(The program) will get us into an ongoing maintenance program because there always will be problems developing in your older system," Stoverink said. "You have to continue to monitor those and address them as they surface."

Stoverink said city voters will be faced with hard decisions on whether to support funding major street plans or some of the sewer projects.

"Depending on what kind of pace the community wants to tackle both major streets and sewers, there could be some difficulty prioritizing decisions," Stoverink said.

"But the capacity to undertake both the major street and sewer improvement programs without a great financial burden on the city is certainly there. There's no doubt the capacity is there if the will is there."

Sewer projects that have been included in the five-year capital improvements proposal include a $2.625 million project that will serve a portion of the city's north side. Last year, voters approved the purchase of Public Facilities Authority Bonds to fund the project.

The College, Walnut and Henderson segregation project is the other major sewer project planned for the next five years. Other sewer improvements include relief projects to lessen the load on some of the taxed sewer systems in the city's middle, southern and eastern sections.

"The most important aspect of the sewer master plan is that it identifies what the needs will be," Stoverink said. "The time schedules aren't really as important."

Stoverink said the city likely will update the sewer master plan every five years to make adjustments based on growth and development patterns.

"It's something that can make a world of difference in being able to address concerns of long-term maintenance, as well as the expansion of the system to serve the areas of future growth and development," he said. "It's the first plan of its scope that the city has ever done. It's been needed for a long time."