Cassville advancing on water, sewer repairs
Engineering firm working on plan design
July 11, 2018
Charlea Estes-Jones
The City of Cassville is moving forward with the $11 million water and sewer work that voters approved in April 2017. At Monday night’s, July 9, city council meeting, there were multiple bills and resolutions passed to ensure the city can continue the process for securing the loans to get work started.
David Brock, Public Works director, said he anticipates the loan approval from USDA should come through any day. Some changes in the loan led to the council approving different resolutions and ordinances to move forward. He said, “We had initially applied through the State of Missouri for the water side of things. But we are hearing some positive things from USDA so we are going to apply to USDA for the water improvements, as well. The attractive features are they are willing to let us do that loan over a 30 year period instead of 20 years on the State side of things, and they have grant money possibly available.”
Brock continued, “The wastewater is a little bit more advanced. We are just waiting for USDA to approve the engineering contract and the engineer is going to draw up plans and specs for the engineering work.”
Voters approved the city to get a bond to make the improvements primarily to get the city in compliance with an agreement made with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The city agreed to fix the wastewater treatment issue, where untreated water was being released into Flat Creek, usually due to heavy flooding and rain, voluntarily through an agreement in 2011. With extensions granted in 2015, the city was faced with a $5.4 million sewer repair issue, but no funding to complete it until the bond passed.
With the city needing to make sewer repairs, water repairs went hand in hand with that issue, and voters approved all of the funding, a total of $11 million, to complete the rehabilitation and repairs side-by-side.
The sewer project will involve replacing most of the aging main line, which is allowing water to infiltrate the lines and causing an excess of ground and rain water in the sewer system to be treated at the wastewater plant. The plant is not equipped to treat the additional influx of water through leaks, which is what was leading to untreated water being released into the Flat Creek.
The water system plan will involve increasing pipe size and looping dead-end lines to prevent stagnant water that has to be pumped out.
Brock said a lot of the sewer repairs are expected to be non-invasive, but the water repairs will require more excavation. More will be known once the engineering company finishes their plans and puts the job out for bids.
One of the bills passed at the council meeting was approving the city’s financial company, D. A. Davidson, to pursue a $350,000 interim bond to secure the engineering services of Allgeire, Martin and Associates so the project can be put out to bid. The $350,000 will be rolled into the $11 million once the USDA loan is secured.
Brock said, “The engineers will go back through all of the smoke testing and flow testing and all the videos the city has taken with our closed circuit TV system and they’ll go through and for each deficient area, they’ll decide the best rehab for the sewer lines. Do they dig it up or fit it with a sleeve.
“It’s essentially a PVC sleeve that goes inside the existing pipe if there is enough structural integrity left.”
The timeline for completion of the project will be more certain once the project is bid. Brock said that should happen later this year or early 2019.
Brock said, “The projects will be bid separately, and the water will trail the sewer work. The application will go through a little faster for the water side of that. It should trail by six or eight months.”
The city is using the same engineering firm for both projects.
Charlea Estes-Jones
The City of Cassville is moving forward with the $11 million water and sewer work that voters approved in April 2017. At Monday night’s, July 9, city council meeting, there were multiple bills and resolutions passed to ensure the city can continue the process for securing the loans to get work started.
David Brock, Public Works director, said he anticipates the loan approval from USDA should come through any day. Some changes in the loan led to the council approving different resolutions and ordinances to move forward. He said, “We had initially applied through the State of Missouri for the water side of things. But we are hearing some positive things from USDA so we are going to apply to USDA for the water improvements, as well. The attractive features are they are willing to let us do that loan over a 30 year period instead of 20 years on the State side of things, and they have grant money possibly available.”
Brock continued, “The wastewater is a little bit more advanced. We are just waiting for USDA to approve the engineering contract and the engineer is going to draw up plans and specs for the engineering work.”
Voters approved the city to get a bond to make the improvements primarily to get the city in compliance with an agreement made with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The city agreed to fix the wastewater treatment issue, where untreated water was being released into Flat Creek, usually due to heavy flooding and rain, voluntarily through an agreement in 2011. With extensions granted in 2015, the city was faced with a $5.4 million sewer repair issue, but no funding to complete it until the bond passed.
With the city needing to make sewer repairs, water repairs went hand in hand with that issue, and voters approved all of the funding, a total of $11 million, to complete the rehabilitation and repairs side-by-side.
The sewer project will involve replacing most of the aging main line, which is allowing water to infiltrate the lines and causing an excess of ground and rain water in the sewer system to be treated at the wastewater plant. The plant is not equipped to treat the additional influx of water through leaks, which is what was leading to untreated water being released into the Flat Creek.
The water system plan will involve increasing pipe size and looping dead-end lines to prevent stagnant water that has to be pumped out.
Brock said a lot of the sewer repairs are expected to be non-invasive, but the water repairs will require more excavation. More will be known once the engineering company finishes their plans and puts the job out for bids.
One of the bills passed at the council meeting was approving the city’s financial company, D. A. Davidson, to pursue a $350,000 interim bond to secure the engineering services of Allgeire, Martin and Associates so the project can be put out to bid. The $350,000 will be rolled into the $11 million once the USDA loan is secured.
Brock said, “The engineers will go back through all of the smoke testing and flow testing and all the videos the city has taken with our closed circuit TV system and they’ll go through and for each deficient area, they’ll decide the best rehab for the sewer lines. Do they dig it up or fit it with a sleeve.
“It’s essentially a PVC sleeve that goes inside the existing pipe if there is enough structural integrity left.”
The timeline for completion of the project will be more certain once the project is bid. Brock said that should happen later this year or early 2019.
Brock said, “The projects will be bid separately, and the water will trail the sewer work. The application will go through a little faster for the water side of that. It should trail by six or eight months.”
The city is using the same engineering firm for both projects.