RESIDENTS: BUYOUTS BETTER THAN CITY WATER AND SEWER HOOKUPS

The city of Cape Girardeau plans to hook up Gene Hahs' home on Meadowbrook Drive to the city water and sewer systems later this year, but he would rather pass on the offer.

Hahs has lived in the neighborhood near Interstate 55 and Missouri Highway 74 for 34 years, has drunk well water and flushed his sewage into a septic tank. In the last year, Hahs has seen the city buy seven of his neighbors' homes to get them out of the flood plain.

"If there's any possibility of them buying us out, why go through the expense of the water and the sewers?" he said.

But Hahs' house and three other homes sit a little higher than those bought out.

"Their elevations were above base flood elevation," said Steve Williams, who helped administer the city's flood buyout program.

Floodwaters from nearby Ramsey Branch Creek never reached Hahs' home nor those of his three closest neighbors. At the height of the 1993 and 1995 floods, Hahs sandbagged around his home and had to get in and out by boat. He said the water covered most of his yard and reached the wall of sandbags.

"I don't like the idea of worrying every year about whether I can walk in and out, or if I have to boat in or out," Hahs said.

His father-in-law and next-door neighbor, Jake Riehn, agrees, as does his next-door neighbor on the other side, Thomas Key.

"I'd be interested in getting bought out," Key said. "The next one that comes will be a little higher."

Only four families remain in the little neighborhood where just a year ago there were 11 homes. The city bought out the other homes because they are in the floodplain of the Ramsey Creek.

Williams said the list of homes eligible for buy-out money comes from a federally-mandated formula that includes a cost-benefit ratio. The federal government can set the terms because it supplies most of the money.

The idea is that the government will buy out a home if the buyout will save more money than it will cost the government in disaster relief or insurance payouts the next time it floods, Williams said.

If, after the current buyout program is over, there is money left to buy out Riehn, Key and Hahs, "we are going to have to justify to (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) why they should be on the list," Williams said.

The other remaining home belongs to Lennert Reisenbichler, and he wants to stay. But he doesn't want the city bringing water out to him.

"I like it here," Reisenbichler said. "It's nice and quiet, close to the interstate, but not too close."

What about floodwaters?

"It screwed up my basement," he said. "I had a lot of seepwater...You have to put up with a certain amount of stuff in life."

And the drinking water?

He uses a well with a softener and a filter. "I have terrific water now," he said. "I've tasted city water, and I don't like the way it tastes."

But he said he won't fight it if the city charges him for hooking up to the water and sewer systems.

The city capital improvements budget calls for spending $840,000 from revenue bonds to extend the sewer main to serve the area. In addition, it calls for assessing property owners $104,000 to hook up their sewers and $72,350 to hook up their water to an existing main.

For Key, Riehn and Hahs, the question is, why spend that money instead of more modest sums to buy out their homes.

Councilman Richard Eggiman, who represents the area, said it was difficult getting the other seven families included in the buy-out program. He said the water and sewer line would be useful for other purposes -- serving nearby Younghouse Distributing and for eventually expanding city services across the interstate.

He said one of his priorities has been making sure all his constituents get city water and sewer.

It just doesn't make any sense to Hahs. "If they're going to buy out an area, they ought to buy out the whole area," he said.