Ranchito residents' request finally fulfilled

For most Cape Girardeau residents, the routine for Ranchito subdivision homeowners during a rain is unimaginable.

How they must anxiously search the skies and watch the downpours, knowing that it can't end well.

The neighborhood, located between Cape Rock Drive and Hopper Road, is without an adequate sanitary sewer system. The one in use was installed in the 1930s and doesn't have much of an angle on it, which doesn't work for a gravity flow system. There are several holes in the pipe.

When heavy rains fall, those pipes get overwhelmed. Buckets and buckets of smelly, filthy sewer water back up into the basements of homes in that neighborhood.

But after 10 years of complaining, residents are getting their wish. City workers are acquiring easements, and construction on a new system is expected to begin in the fall. This is an excellent example of a group of people who banded together for something they really needed and fought until they got it.

The project will cost $1.57 million, be paid for with a 1/4-cent sales tax for wastewater revenue bonds and will include approximately 4,000 feet of 15-inch sanitary sewer line. It will replace the existing sanitary sewer line from Arena Park to the north of Hopper Road and across Kingshighway north to Margaret Street.

But that's not all: The city will address the rest of the problem with an upgrade to the area's stormwater system, but there's no timeline set for that project yet.

In the meantime, the new sewer line should help Ranchito residents breathe easier when the skies become cloudy.