VO-TECH SCHOOL: WETLANDS ISSUE SETTLED, WORK TO START

A swampy, tree-filled patch of ground no longer poses a problem for construction of Cape Girardeau's vocational-technical school.

The Cape Girardeau School District has traded the 2.8 acres of wetlands on the school site for seven acres of wetlands on a farm north of Cape Girardeau.

Superintendent Dan Tallent told the Board of Education Monday the matter is officially resolved. The board met at noon to award a bid for site work.

Construction at the site of the school was halted in March when the swampy ground was declared a natural wetlands by the Army Corps of Engineers and Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Natural wetlands are protected by federal law.

However, the law allows mitigation -- a process of offering replacement wetlands. The district essentially traded the 2.8 acres of wetlands at the vocational-technical school site for seven acres of wetlands north of the city. So construction of the school can proceed.

The Corps of Engineers has examined the replacement property and said it will revert to wetlands if farming ceases. No additional engineering work is needed, Tallent said.

The district paid $10,700 for the property, the amount the federal government would have paid the property owner, Martha Vandivort, to revert the farmland to wetlands. At the end of the project, Tallent said, the wetlands will be sold back to the property owner for $1.

"We don't want to be property owners because of the liability," he said.

The school district is awaiting the official permits giving permission to disturb the wetlands. In the construction plan, the area of wetlands would become part of a parking lot.

The vocational-technical school site is on 72 acres west of Kingshighway and Southern Expressway on a gravel portion of Silver Springs Road. The district's master plan calls for construction of a high school and athletic complex on the property. Voter approval is needed for the second phase of the plan.

On Monday, the board awarded a contract for site preparation to the low bidder, Nip Kelley Construction Co., with a base bid of $193,000.

Kelley Construction will shape the ground in preparation of construction of the vocational-technical school. Tallent said about 90,000 cubic yards of dirt must be moved.

Architects had estimated site preparation costs at $186,400 but said at the board meeting that $193,000 seems to be a reasonable cost.