SOME QUESTION SEWER DISTRICT TACTICS; MEETING HELD AT FRUITLAND

FRUITLAND -- Some people attending Thursday night's town hall meeting accused speakers of using "scare tactics" to sell residents on the need to form a sewer district.

Voters in three Cape Girardeau County precincts will go to the polls Nov. 4 to decide whether to establish the Cape County Common Sewer District. The county will pay for the election.

If approved, the district would be empowered to appoint an engineer and undertake a study of the area's sewer needs. Voters would have to approve any proposal to actually build a system.

The district would pay for the system through user fees, grants and loans.

The charge of scare tactics came after a battery of officials who included a Cape Girardeau County Health Department sanitarian and the Department of Natural Resources' Carl Brown detailed the health and environmental risks the area faces without a community sewage system.

Brown also warned that property values could drop because banks are reluctant to loan money on property with nonfunctioning septic systems. He also said the area's development could be stymied without a community system.

Residents in the Fruitland and Pocahontas areas currently depend on septic tanks, sewage lagoons and some subdivision package plants to dispose of sewage.

Jonell McNeely, an area resident who formerly did water pollution control work for the DNR, talked about tests she has made of the water quality in nearby Hubble Creek.

"Every sample I've looked at was too numerous to count for fecal coliform," she said.

Their remarks met skepticism on the part of a few.

"Folks, they're trying to scare you to death. Don't buy it," said a man in the audience who later declined to give his name.

He said the county should be able to clean up problem systems on an individual basis.

Another man advised proceeding "logically, sensibly, not with this silliness," another reference to warnings about what has happened in areas that don't have community sewage systems.

Others defended the information officials gave at the meeting. "Why would they spend their night giving information to scare you?" one asked.

Brown emphasized that the vote Nov. 4 only authorizes a study of a sewer system. The purpose of the study is "to find out whether you can build a community-based system," he said.

About 50 people attended the meeting at VIP Industries. Among them were Gerald Jones, presiding commissioner of the Cape Girardeau County Commission, and state Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson.

Schwab said he came "to lend my support."

Jones also favors the idea. "I would hope we'd at least be for the first stage," he said.

Also backing the proposal to establish a sewer district was Martha Vandivort, the environmental chairwoman of the state League of Women Voters chapter, and Tom Tucker of the SEMO Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission.

Brown was asked whether residents would be required to hook up to the system. He said some loans, including those issued by the DNR, require that anyone living within a certain distance of the district lines must hook up, but he said the district board could determine that distance.

Brown estimated the average cost of hooking up to such a system rarely is less than $20 or more than $35 per month.

The decision to try to form a sewer district was made in May, when a five-member board of trustees headed by Chris Johnston was elected. The board submitted a petition to the Cape Girardeau County Commission, which sent it along to the Circuit Court.

Judge William Syler scheduled an election on the issue of forming a sewer district Nov. 4.

If approved, the temporary board would become an official government body with the power to appoint an engineer, hire staff and raise money from user fees, loans and grants.

The sewer district cannot levy taxes.