Cape Girardeau switching from river water to well water

Boston had the Big Dig, a highway tunnel under Boston Harbor. This year, Cape Girardeau gets the big ditch, a seven-mile project to lay pipe from new water wells near the Diversion Channel to the water treatment plant on East Cape Rock Drive.

When the pipeline is complete, the city water system will no longer draw water from the Mississippi River. That will save the utility nearly $150,000 a year on just one of more than a dozen treatment chemicals when it no longer needs the more than 700,000 pounds of polyaluminum chloride used to remove silt from river water.

The pipeline is the last part of a 14-year project to increase the capacity of the city's water system. In 1996, voters passed a quarter-cent sales tax that pays the principal and interest on bonds that have financed the upgrades.

"It has been a long time coming, but there are reasons for that," said Kevin Priester, water systems manager for the city.

Cape Girardeau purchased the water utility from AmerenUE, then known as Union Electric, in 1992. The system is operated by Alliance Water Resources under contract. At the time of the purchase, the system provided 105 million to 110 million gallons of water per month. The upgrades since then have increased that average delivery to about 175 million gallons per month, with a capacity to deliver more than 300 million gallons each month.

The switch from river water to well water will have several advantages, Priester said. Polyaluminum chloride isn't the only chemical that will be eliminated or significantly reduced -- nearly 46,000 pounds of coagulant costing $28,000 annually will not be needed, and in the future the city will use just enough chlorine to ensure safety instead of the 197,000 pounds used now to kill microscopic contaminants in the river.

Some of those cost savings will be offset by the price of electricity needed to pump the water through the long pipe, Priester said.

"It will make this job a lot easier," Priester said.

Last year, the city completed four new wells that each pump 1,800 gallons per minute. Those wells have been tested at higher pumping rates of 2,700 gallons a minute, he said.

The maximum capacity of 10.3 million gallons per day won't change, but the system would support an expansion, with one more of what Priester calls a "treatment train," that would bring the total to 14 million gallons per day. The most the city ever pumped was 8.9 million gallons in a single day, but that came on a hot summer day when the city was also filling storage tanks.

"Right now, the bottleneck would probably be the filters," he said.

The city has two treatment plants, one on East Cape Rock Drive and one on South Sprigg Street near Old Highway 61. The water is delivered to 17,033 customers through 303 miles of water mains, with 2,208 hydrants to support fire protection.

When voters approved both the bond issue and sales tax to support the expansion in 1996, it was critical to support the city's growth, much like the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge was needed to replace the narrow bridge opened in 1928.

"This was looked on as a once-in-a-lifetime shot," Priester said. "The bridge lasted 70 years. I think the water plant" expansion "will be that way too."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Did you know...

• The Census Bureau estimated last year that Cape Girardeau's population has grown 5.6 percent since 2000, to 37,370, the fastest growth since the 1970s.
• The city issued permits for 30 new homes and $50.2 million worth of commmercial construction in 2009.
• Cape Girardeau employs 388 full-time and 361 part-time people with a total payroll of $15.8 million.
• The city, which will start a new automated trash collection system on May 1, collected 8,021 tons of residential trash last year.
• Mayor Jay Knudtson, who is serving his last term, is a member of the Harley Owners Group and was once a hockey referee.
• Cape Girardeau maintains 215 miles of streets and 13 miles of alleyways.
• City manager Scott Meyer marched in the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl parades.
• At the most recent census, 31 percent of Cape Girardeau residents said they were of German ancestry.
• The median family income in Cape Girardeau was $47,785 in 2008.
• The Street Department collected 1,034.05 tons of leaves from residents from November 2009 through January 2010.
• On April 6, voters will elect the the city's 51st mayor since 1843.
• The city Fleet Division maintains 1,016 pieces of equipment.
• Emergency dispatchers for the city 911 system answered 15,837 calls in 2009.
• That 66 percent of the calls to the 911 system are from mobile telephones.
• The city sewer system has 250 miles of sewage mains that carry more than 6 million gallons of wastewater daily to the treatment plant.