FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT; SENATE COMMITTEE ENDORSES $10 MILLION

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee this week approved funding for several Missouri water projects, including the Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch flood control project in Cape Girardeau.

Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., announced this week that the Senate committee authorized $10 million for the Cape Girardeau project.

"Funding of these Missouri water projects will enable continued economic development, growth and environmental progress for Missourians who rely on our waterways for transportation and recreation," Bond said. "Today's approval makes Senate passage of this legislation virtually certain."

If the full Senate approves the legislation, the package would go to a conference committee with the House of Representatives where Senate and House conferees will hammer out the differences between their two versions of the appropriations bill.

The Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch flood control project is expected to cost about $42 million, up from $34 million to $36 million estimated when the project was first approved in 1989.

The city's portion of the project will come from a 10-year quarter-cent sales tax approved by Cape Girardeau voters in 1988. The tax is expected to take in about $10 million during the decade.

The city's share for the flood-control project will be about $9 million, with remaining funds earmarked for development at a dry detention site north of the city and other city storm-water projects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will fund the remainder of the project.

Several other Missouri projects also received funding approval in the Senate committee. They include:

$945,000 to complete engineering and design of a Missouri River levee in the Riverside-Quindaro Bend Levee District near Kansas City. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $42.6 million, with a federal share of $31.9 million.

$15 million for construction on the Blue River channel project in the Kansas City area.

$140,000 for a survey and preconstruction engineering and design for a flood control project involving the Blue River Basin

$5.77 million for continued construction on the Brush Creek project, also in Kansas City.

$500,000 to correct a siltation problem on the Missouri side of St. Louis Harbor and to improve docking facilities on the Illinois side.

$700,000 for construction of a levee along the Meramac River in Valley Park.

$200,000 for a flood damage prevention study in the St. Joseph area.

$4.6 million for continued construction at the Truman Reservoir.

$125,000 for an on-going study of flood damage prevention in the Turkey Creek Basin in the Kansas City metropolitan area of Kansas and Missouri.

$160,000 to expand a study of possible development of an industrial site along the Mississippi River in St. Louis County.

$370,000 for flood control work at Hannibal.