WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE; AND THANKS TO CAPE GIRARDEAU'S WATER SYSTEM, THERE'S PLENTY TO DRINK

Although it's one of life's prime necessities, it's generally taken for granted. When available, it goes largely unnoticed, but take it away for even a day and it's an invitation for calamity.

The typical Cape Girardean uses 166 gallons daily, or about 60,000 annually. Of course, this life-giving and life-sustaining substance is water, and water is Tom Taggert's life.

He's not a fisherman or skipper of a yacht. He's Cape Girardeau's water system manager.

The challenge of converting silty river swill or ground water, laden with dissolved minerals and God knows what else, into clear, tasty and environmentally clean drinking water is no small task.

"Each river's different, each surface supply is different, so we're constantly testing and changing to see what results we get," Taggert said.

And in today's climate of ever-increasing regulatory burdens, the moving target of what's considered "clean" water is becoming more murky.

"There's no question about it," Taggert said. "The Safe Drinking Act, when it was enacted, required Congress to regulate 250 or so contaminants.

"At the time it was passed, we were only monitoring about 30. That's now up to about 85, but in June they'll begin to try to get the rest of these contaminants into the picture."

Taggert said such regulations require constant technological upgrading, equipment purchases and expanded knowledge of chemistry. "Of course, that costs more money," he groaned.

"They've reacted to concerns over possible health effects of course that's all of our concern but the question becomes what is a reasonable degree of risk.

"I can say, with utmost confidence, that what we're putting out right now is clean stuff, and we're constantly improving that."

Cape Girardeau has two water plants that treat and clean water so that it's ready for the tap.

One facility in the south end of the city converts ground water, which typically has a high iron and manganese content, through a complicated process of adding certain chemicals that work to separate the minerals and other contaminants from the water.

The main water plant, Plant One on Cape Rock Drive, pulls water from the Mississippi River and filters out silt to produce clean, treated water for residential and business use.

A tour of the facility reveals a "straight-forward" purification process.

The water is pumped from the river into a "rapid mixer," Taggert said, where a polymer, alum, chlorine and lime are added. The chemicals work to make the tiny silt particles coagulate or bind together into larger, heavier particles.

The clouded river water begins to clear as gravity pulls the silt to the bottom of the mixer.

More chemicals are added as the water is sent into "flocculators" and "clarifiers." These basins further separate the silt from the water.

"The heavy particles get to the bottom of the basin and the cleanest water is at the top," Taggert explained.

The clarifier basin has a rim from which the top, "clean" layer of water is drained and sent back into the plant, where more alum and lime is added.

The secondary stage of the process starts with the injection of the chemicals ammonium sulfate, fluoride, chlorine and lime in mix basins within the plant.

The water is sent into additional settling basins, with settled sludge sent back to the river, along with backwash from large sand filters.

"This just continues to pull finer and finer particles out of the water," Taggert said.

Once the water passes through the sand filters essentially large basins filled with sand from which the water passes ammonium sulfate and chlorine is again added before the water goes to a clearwell in the plant. From the clearwell, the finished water is pumped to consumers or storage tanks.

The plant is run by a single operator with two maintenance men. The Cape Rock facility operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Taggert said.

Built in 1931, the plant is old but very functional. The city's total water system has a capacity flow of 7.5 million gallons per day, with an average daily flow of about 4.5 million gallons. The system also has a total storage capacity of nearly 6 million gallons.

"The storage tanks primarily provide firefighting reserves and reserves for maximum flows during peak times," Taggert said.

The vertical storage tanks also supply pressure for the entire water system, he said. For every 2 feet of height in a storage tank, water pressure increases a pound.

At the Cape Rock plant, computers are used to monitor water levels at the city's various booster pumping stations. The stations can be turned on and off from the plant via radio transmission.

Taggert said everything is done with one thing in mind: When the customers turn on the faucet, a clean, safe product flows forth.

"All of us are real proud of what we've done in Cape," he said. "We're operating extremely efficiently given the equipment we're working with."

City voters a year ago approved the purchase of the water system from Union Electric. It was the only water system the power company operated.

The city hired Mid-Missouri Engineers Inc., which specializes in water operations, to run the system. Taggert said he believes the efficiency and water quality has improved since then.

"We're producing far better quality water now than ever before, because we're more familiar with the business," he said.