ORAN FIRM BIDS LOW FOR FLOOD WORK HERE

Dumey Excavation Inc. and Brenda Kay Construction of Oran submitted the low bid Thursday for construction of channel improvements to Cape LaCroix Creek.

The firm's $7.2 million bid for the first segment of the joint Cape Girardeau and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control project was within the Corps of Engineers' estimate for the work.

At the pre-bid conference with contractors that was held in Cape Girardeau in May, corps officials said they expected the first segment to cost $5 million to $10 million.

The corps will review the bids and award the construction contract in September, officials said.

A Bloomfield Road bridge replacement over the creek and two sewer relocations that the city will fund also are included in the contract.

The contract will include construction of a vertical-walled concrete channel from south of the Bloomfield Road bridge up Cape LaCroix Creek to South Kingshighway.

A sloped-sided concrete channel will be built from South Kingshighway up to the bend in the creek behind the Aldi Food Store at 209 S. Kingshighway. The remainder of the creek's channel to the southeast corner of Arena Park will be lined with rip rap.

According to corps officials, the Bloomfield bridge will be demolished and replaced with a wider, longer span that will include a pedestrian crossing.

An eight-foot wide asphalt recreation trail also will be constructed along the creek. The trail will run beneath Independence, William and South Kingshighway.

Work on the creek channel will culminate more than 20 years of planning for the flood-control measures. Flooding of Cape LaCroix Creek and Walker Branch in the past has caused extensive property damage in some western and southern parts of the city.

A May 1986 flood that caused an estimated $56 million in property damage was the impetus for a grass-roots campaign to raise local funds for flood-control work. Voters in 1988 approved a 10-year, quarter-cent sales tax to fund the city's share of the flood control project.

The project is expected to reduce damages from a 100-year flood by 70 percent.

The entire flood-control project, which could be completed by 1994, includes three miles of channel modifications on Cape LaCroix Creek and Walker Branch, construction of a 157-acre water-detention basin north of Cape Girardeau, and construction of a four-mile hiking and bicycling trail.

The city's share of the $42 million project is $10 million, with the local funds to be retired with receipts from a quarter-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1988.