WATER IMPROVEMENT PROJECT WILL TAKE CITY INTO NEXT CENTURY

Construction is slated to begin later this year on a major expansion of Cape Girardeau's water system.

The project will be funded by the sale of $26.5 million in bonds approved by city voters in November. Also approved was a quarter-cent sales tax to pay off the bonds.

Collection of the tax will begin in April, raising an estimated $750,000 per year. The total sales tax inside Cape Girardeau will be 6.725 cents per dollar, including state and county sales tax.

The expansion was deemed necessary as water demand continued inching toward the system's capacity.

"We are going to be able to provide safe, clean water in needed quantities for the immediate future," City Manager Michael Miller said of the project.

The city was expected to award a contract for the construction and design of the project in late February. Burns and McDonnell Engineering Co., which conducted the preliminary study of systems deficiencies prior to the election, was expected to win the contract.

Without the expansion, water system manager Tom Taggart feared that demand would outstrip capacity in 1998.

Water usage in the city was steady from 1985 to 1991, averaging 4 million gallons a day. Now the daily average is around 5 million gallons.

The combined daily capacity of the system's two plants -- one near the Diversion Channel and the other on Cape Rock Drive -- is 7.3 million gallons. Last summer, usage hit 6.84 million gallons one day.

Water usage has risen 20 percent since 1992, when the city acquired the system from Union Electric. Most of the increase is due to commercial development.

Under the capital improvement project, Water Plant No. 1 on Cape Rock Drive will be expanded, increasing the amount and quality of water it can provide hourly.

Other aspects of the project is expansion of the distribution system, adding additional storage tanks and better pumping stations.

Officials plan to increase the two water plants' daily capacity to a total of 10 million gallons per day over the next five years. They want to total daily production to reach 12.75 million gallons over the next 20 years.

Instead of getting water from the river, it will come from 21 new underground wells. Ground water is less expensive to treat and easier to bring into compliance with new federal clean-water regulations.

"We will ultimately be ahead of other communities facing the challenges brought about by these regulations," Miller said.