RURAL LANDOWNER BUCKS JACKSON PLAN FOR WATER LINE

JACKSON, Mo. -- Jackson officials agreed Friday to examine an alternate route through the property of a woman upset over the city's plans to run a water line through the middle of her wooded five-acre parcel. But Pam Owens, who lives outside the city limits, still says the city doesn't have any business on her property.

"Why are they coming through my woods when I'm not in the city?" she asks.

A city of Jackson's size has the statutory right to acquire an easement within 10 miles of its boundaries. The water line the city intends to build will connect two lines that dead end. The looping of the lines is expected to increase water pressure on the south side of the city, an improvement both the fire department and residential customers welcome.

Owens is one of five county landowners who oppose the city's plan to lay a 10-inch water line from Highway 25 to the intersection of Highway PP and Country Road 330, a distance of just over two miles.

She was surrounded by family members and accompanied by her attorney, John Lichtenegger, Friday afternoon as Public Works Director Jim Roach and City Attorney David Beeson walked the property on Highway 25, south of the city limits.

Worried about trees

One of her criticisms of the city plan is that some of her trees will have to be cut down or will die as a result of putting in the water line. Roach said boring technology can be used to lay with line without having to dig a trench. "The line can be built without taking out trees," he said.

Lichtenegger, who is a developer, disagrees. "Whether you bore it or dig a trench with a backhoe, most likely the trees nearby will die," he said.

Owens and family members say root systems will be affected whether trees are felled or not.

Lichtenegger asked the officials to look at whether the line could follow the northern boundary of Owens' property, which would involve fewer trees and keep the line from bisecting her land. Beeson said the city will do so.

An official from the Department of Forestry has been asked to come out and give Owen some idea of how the trees would be affected. She said she recently sold one of her oak trees for $4,000. The city has offered her $1,272.52 for 636 linear feet of easement.

Owens insists she will be unable ever to sell the property with a water line running through the middle.

City Administrator Steve Wilson contends that the water line should add to the property's value and he noted that when the well of a nearby property owner went bad he was able to be annexed into the city and tied into the city water supply.

But Owens says she would rather dig another well than be annexed into the city and have to pay city taxes.