NEW RULE ON WATER VALVES MAY BE COSTLY

More than 800 businesses in Cape Girardeau can anticipate a visit from an inspector in the next year, and some can expect to pay thousands of dollars to comply with a newly enforced federal regulation, or risk losing their water service.

The officials in charge of compliance say some businesses' hookups to the city water system put the entire system in danger.

Those businesses don't have the proper devices on their water systems to prevent dangerous chemicals and organisms from flowing into the city's drinking water, said Tom Taggart, division manager in Cape Girardeau for Alliance Water Resources, the company that runs the city's water system and is enforcing the regulation.

The city's water system is pressurized to make water flow from the reservoir to faucets in homes and businesses and not the other way. On rare occasions -- a water-main break or the fire department's use of nearby fire hydrants to fight a major fire -- water can flow backwards.

This can be dangerous, Taggart said, because sometimes the water lines are hooked up directly to devices that mix them with chemicals or to closed systems like sprinklers or boilers that hold water so long that it can become stagnant.

Those incidents are rare but can be deadly, said Dennis Siebert, customer service director of Alliance Water Resources.

What may be the most famous incident of problems with back-flow water was the outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in Philadelphia in 1976 that killed 34 people. Medical examiners attributed it to bacteria that grew in a hotel air-conditioning system. The bacteria flowed back into drinking water.

Less uncommon, Siebert said, are incidents that make people ill or make the water taste too bad to drink.

In 1991, Missouri promulgated rules prohibiting any water hookups that include "unprotected cross-connections." This means any drinking-water hookup that connects to anything that might contaminate the public water system must have some kind of approved back-flow protection device.

Initially, the city only inspected new construction, Taggart said. In July the city assigned Alliance the task of inspecting existing buildings.

The inspections didn't begin until last month after Alliance hired someone to do the inspections and developed a data-base for tracking the results, Taggart said.

The company set priorities on the more than 800 businesses and large apartment buildings it found needed inspection. At the top of the list were hospitals, printing plants, photo developers and car washes, because of the kinds of chemicals that come in contact with their water supplies, Siebert said.

Siebert said just one valve for an 8-inch line can run $8,000 without installation.

St. Francis Medical Center had to install more than 20 new valves, said Rick Essner, environmental services director there. He wouldn't cite a cost.

Walgreens Drug Store, which processes film, had an easier time, said store manager John Pagano. The inspector found that the store had the proper valves in place. All Pagano needed to do was arrange for a qualified plumber to inspect the valves and certify them.

Siebert said all valves must be inspected yearly to make sure they work.

At Fast Foot Printing, the inspection "took all of 30 seconds," said manager Bill Ernst. "We don't have anything hooked up to the water system."