Weather delays final phase of Chaffee water project

For almost five years, Chaffee, Missouri, city employees have been planning to tear the town apart in an effort to make it better.

Some serious piping issues ran through the town, and with old iron pipes, the water was "notoriously bad," city administrator Lee Horton said.

Ground breaking for the $6.2 million water system project began in September 2013 and since then has provided cleaner water to 1,136 customers, according to previous reporting.

The project began in March 2011, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the project through a series of loans.

In mid-February, Horton said the city was finishing up its last few water meters, and by the end of the month, the town would be ready for its last phase of the water project: the landscaping.

"We put in new water meters at every house, so basically everybody's been impacted," Horton said. "Everybody's yard got dug up, everybody's streets got messed up, but part of the project is to go back and smooth everything around the meters and seed it and put straw over it so the grass will grow back."

With the weather being less than favorable lately, Horton estimated landscaping wouldn't begin until April.

Three Missouri contractors worked on the project. Zoellner Construction of Perryville built the water plant; water line installation was handled by Kajacs Contractors of Poplar Bluff; and water tanks were installed by Ozark Applicators of Van Buren.

The new water plant was installed and running by October 2014, but multiple setbacks prolonged the installation of the water lines.

It originally was expected to take 18 months from its groundbreaking in 2013. While the project took longer to complete than anticipated, Horton said not all of the $6.2 million has been spent.

Things that took more time included installing extra, unanticipated meters and adding more fire hydrants on certain roads within Chaffee. Horton estimated about 1,250 new meters have been installed in the city limits. He also said adding more fire hydrants would increase the town's ISO (International Organization for Standardization) rating.

An ISO rating gauges a town's property and casualty insurance risk.

Horton said less money was spent in legal fees than anticipated, and by digging under city sidewalks and not destroying them, money was saved in concrete and asphalt costs.

Since the water plant went online, Horton said he hasn't received any complaints. To get to this point, however, he compared the process to "breaking a few eggs to make an omelet."

"Everyone's been really patient, and they appreciate that we're getting better water," he said.

One drawback to these new city water lines is older homes that use iron pipes still may have cloudy water where the city lines connect to the residential lines. But, Horton said, "for the most part, it's still going to be good."

The second part of Chaffee's construction overhaul is a new sewer system that's still in the planning stages.

The sewer project is expected to cost about $2.6 million and includes replacing or relining sewer mains and manholes throughout town and replacing the sewer treatment lagoon.

Horton said there were two main options to bring the city's sewage issues into compliance: Build a new lagoon or come to a land application agreement with a local farmer.

The latter is a contract with strict guidelines in which farmers allow the city to export its clean, filtered wastewater onto their fields in exchange for free irrigation.

"There's all these specifications we have to meet," Horton said. "You would think it wouldn't be that difficult, seeing as we're surrounded by fields *... but it has to be so many feet, can't be close to any wells, can't be near any drinking water, houses, sources of drinking water, and that's just some of the specifications, so it's been hard to meet all those."

Horton said the city is leaning more toward modifying its current lagoon.

He said plans have yet to be finalized.

The first step of inspecting the sewers was scheduled to be completed by the end of February.

The next step would be a bidding process from interested contractors.

"I have never seen so much construction in a town as we have seen right now," Horton said. "We're turning the city upside-down, shaking it, and then we'll turn it right side up and have a better town for it."

smaue@semissourian.com

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