WATER: SCOTT CITY, CAPE CONFER ON PROJECT

SCOTT CITY -- Members of Scott City's Public Works Committee grilled two representatives from Cape Girardeau on what benefit linking its water system with the airport and, or, Nash Road industrial area would bring to Scott City.

The Cape Girardeau representatives, who attended a meeting with Scott City officials Tuesday night, didn't have the answers; instead, they were looking for information that would determine the feasibility of a cooperative effort between the two cities.

"Perhaps there was a misconception you drew from our last meeting here," said Kent M. Bratton, Cape Girardeau city planner. "We have no definite plan in place nor are we close to negotiation in this matter."

About four years ago Cape Girardeau officials had discussed the possibility of running water lines to the airport and supplying the Nash Road industrial area with potable water. Since the city did not own its water system at the time, the idea was put aside and basically forgotten.

But, in light of the recent expansion and renovation efforts at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport terminal, the city believes it is essential that it act. The existing water supply would not be adequate to combat a major fire at the airport.

Cape Girardeau outlined its three alternatives to the Scott City committee:

A metered interconnection with Scott City, where Cape Girardeau would ask that Scott City extend its water lines to the airport, thus allowing them to draw from the city's water supply, when needed, on a metered basis.

Expanding the water supply held in wells at the airport;

Extending the Cape Girardeau water line from Old Highway 61 and South Sprigg to the airport.

"If the interconnection alternative is technically feasible, we would be very much in favor of entering into some sort of agreement with Scott City," said Tom Taggart, water supply manager with Mid-Missouri Engineering Inc., the firm hired by the city to manage the water system. "But what we need now is information."

The representatives brought with them a letter from David S. Limbaugh, mayor pro tem of Cape Girardeau, outlining the sort of information which must be made available in order for the city to complete an initial report.

Among the information requested were pressure and flows in distribution systems, source of supply capacities and system demands, fire flow requirements and flow of testing of system, anticipated demands and fire flows, and storage capacities and requirements under normal and fire flow conditions.

The letter promised that personnel for the review and field tests will be provided by the city of Cape Girardeau to work with the Scott City staff to obtain the necessary information. It also promised that there will be no costs to Scott City in relation to studying the feasibility of metered interconnection of the two systems.

Once Cape Girardeau had finished its presentation, Scott City Mayor Larry Forhan wanted to know about Cape Girardeau's intentions as far as future annexations in the Nash Road area.

"I don't know that we could supply that whole area in the future and maintain service to our people," Forhan said. "Our first responsibility is to the citizens and businesses of our city we absolutely must take care of them first."

To this, Taggart emphasized that his office simply wanted to engage in preliminary tests and analysis with the blessing and cooperation of Scott City.

"It wouldn't be in Cape Girardeau's interest to enter into a system with a built-in fragility," Taggart said. "That's why we need the information about your city's water capacity. We don't want to put a stress on the existing water system that would not solve any of our problems."

Still, the committee persisted in its pursuit of the potential benefit to Scott City.

"I personally would like to see some numbers," said Ward 3 Councilman Ron Oller, who sits on the committee. "I want to know how Scott City will profit from this; then, we can go from there."

Taggart said there was no way any precursory fact sheets can be drawn up without access to the current information on file in Scott City.

In the end, the committee consented to work with Cape Girardeau in providing the information they requested. But the committee didn't make any promises.

"This could take the Public Works Committee a considerable amount of time to look into this," Forhan told the representatives. "This whole process will be slow and deliberate; we're not making any promises."