SEWERS COULD BE TALK OF THE TOWN

It's not a topic often discussed at the coffee shop or around the evening dinner table. But for the next three months, city officials hope to make sewers the talk of town.

On April 5, Cape Girardeau voters will decide whether to extend the city's quarter-cent capital improvements tax and issue revenue bonds to separate combined storm and sanitary sewers in older sections of town and make other sewer improvements.

Assistant City Manager Doug Leslie left his soap box at home, but did discuss the ballot measure with Chamber of Commerce members gathered for the First Friday Coffee at Drury Lodge Friday morning.

"Sewers are something that are out of sight and out of mind until you have a problem with them," Leslie said Friday. "The problem exists, and we need to correct it."

Although sewers typically are taken for granted by most people, residents of the older sections of town know too well the problems associated with the combined sewers.

For years those residents have asked city hall to repair or replace their outdated sewers. They have reported -- most often following heavy rains -- sewage-filled basements and raw sewage discharged in drainage ditches and into Cape LaCroix Creek as the combined sewers overflow.

The issue was prominent during the 1990 city council election campaign, when several candidates pledged to work to correct the sewer problems.

Finally in 1991, the city completed an $80,000, 20-year sewer master plan, which proposed specific projects to complete segregation of all the city's combined sewers and make other needed sewer improvements.

Now for the first time a funding mechanism to make the repairs has been proposed.

Voters will decide whether to extend the city's capital improvements tax through 2020, which will finance sewer revenue bonds totalling $25 million.

The bond issue would be the first opportunity for the city to address the perennial problem with the combined sanitary and storm sewers.

"The capital improvements tax doesn't expire until 1999, but we really don't feel we can wait until then to tackle this project," said Leslie. "By doing it now, we can get lower interest rates on the financing through the state's revolving loan program and take advantage of lower construction costs then we'd have in 1999."

Leslie said interest on the bonds would be only about 2 percent.

The measure would fund more than sewer separation work, which comprises about half the cost of the $25 million issue.

Included in the sales tax measure would be money for sewer relief lines to alleviate surcharging. The program also includes the completion of the trunk sewer system within the existing city limits.

Leslie said that not only would the project eliminate combined sewer bypasses and reduce wet-weather surcharges, it also would improve the efficiency of the city's wastewater treatment plant.

"By removing storm water from the sewer lines, we can extend the design capacity of the wastewater treatment plant," he said. "The problem we now have is the water from storms goes to the plant, which takes up excess capacity at the plant.

"Also, it forces us to pay for the cost of treatment," Leslie said. "You don't want to have to pay to treat storm water."

The problem with combined sewers is not a problem unique to Cape Girardeau, Leslie said, and following the flood of 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state's Department of Natural Resources began pushing for replacement of all combined sewer systems.

The EPA already has mandated cities with populations exceeding 100,000 to segregate combined sewer systems.

"This is typical of any city along the river in the United States," Leslie said. "The issue of combined sewers will be addressed by federal legislation for cities of our size in the not-too-distant future.

"When that happens, it may be untimely from a financing and planning standpoint for the city. The time now is really beneficial to get this work done."

At the First Friday Coffee, Leslie was asked whether state grant money is available to help the city with the project.

But the assistant city manager said such grants no longer are available, replaced by the revolving loan program.

A small portion of the sewer separation work was included in a community development block grant last year, but Leslie said that program would be insufficient to address all the needs.

"The block grant program is very limited," he said. "But this is a real substantial problem in terms of cost and magnitude."

Leslie said there are 70,000 feet of sewer lines in the combined system in Cape Girardeau. Much of the system is in difficult places to get at to make the repairs, which further adds to costs.