We reorganized! Our District was originally organized as the Cape Girardeau Common Sewer District. We added "#1" to the end of the name in the event a second sewer district was formed in the County. Last summer, we "reorganized" under the Revised Missouri Statutes to become the Cape Girardeau County Reorganized Common Sewer District. This was done with the cooperation of and through the County Commission and the Circuit Court. The Reorganization allows the District to borrow money through the use of Revenue Bonds. These bonds must be payed through the revenues of the District. We are not able to levy taxes. This reorganization gives the District the needed flexibility to borrow money for our operations or expansion without a voter referendum. This is important and the District is responsible for maintaining, operating, and upgrading wastewater systems in an increasingly strict regulatory environment. It would be impractical and difficult to be responsible for systems that face required upgrades, if the District needed a voter referendum every time a project was required.
Sewer District Activities: The Sewer District operates under Missouri's Sunshine Law. All our meetings are open to the public. We want to be transparent in our operations and let people know what is going on. I'm going to briefly discuss each system we operate now. This is by memory so I may have some specific facts wrong.
The system at Westbridge Place was the first to be transferred to the District. The homeowner's association transfered the system according to their covenants. This system has 14 homes on it, and is a two cell lagoon with a small aerator on the first cell. The HOA had just completed adding a UV disinfection unit just prior to the transfer. Since the District took over, we have treated the lagoon with herbicide to control excessive duckweed (a floating plant), and dealt with several problems, including the replacement of the aerator unit. Weekly monitoring and cleaning of the aerator is required. The DNR permit has a "compliance schedule" attached to it. This gives the District six years to perform a major upgrade or replacement of the system to deal with increasingly strict ammonia limits. It would be prohibitively expensive to perform such an upgrade or replacement for 14 homes.
The lagoon system at Spring Lake Estates was also transferred to the District. Like Westbridge, it is a two cell lagoon system with disinfection installed by the HOA prior to the transfer. The permit for this system has the same type of compliance schedule on it as Westbridge Place.
The homeowner association of Pleasant Lake Estates transferred their collection and treatment system to the District. The treatment facility is called a mechanical plant, a package plant, or an extended aeration unit. There is a major rust problem affecting the tanks of the plant. The District will "nurse" this system along for as long as possible in hopes that alternatives to a major renovation or replacement can be found.
The Forest Meadows homeowner association transferred their system to the District on the advice of their attorney. This is a large four cell lagoon. The HOA completed some repairs to the facility prior to the transfer of the system. The District will be doing some repair to the piping system in order to better operate the system. This lagoon system will not meet the DNR ammonia limits in the long term and will need eventual upgrade or replacement.
Arbor Trails is a fast growing development located near the intersection of highways 177 and W. This is a relatively new extended aeration facility servicing approximately 85 homes. Prior to the transfer, homeowners paid for the operation of the system through their homeowners association fees. In my opinion, the HOA was loosely organized and finances were always limited. As a result, virtually no maintenance was performed over a two year period prior to the transfer to the District. With 85 users, this system brings in a significant revenue stream to the District. Folks may think we are overcharging or that the system is a "money maker" for the District. To the contrary, the District has spent almost $9,000 in the first few months of operation of this system. It required a complete cleanout, new diffusers, fence repair, access road construction, and other maintenance and improvements. Because of an increasing amount of District customers, we have the ability to cash-flow these expenses, something most Homeowners Associations have difficulty doing. The plant is now running better than ever and its discharge has been cleaned up significantly.
A recent addition to the Sewer District is Sun Valley Estates, a system serving the subdivision near the intersection of Highways 61 and C. This system serves 14 homes in a subdivision with 37 lots. With the small number of users, the developer was having trouble keeping up with the costs of operation and maintenance of the plant. The homeowners have paid their HOA fees up to June 2015. With that understanding, the Sewer District will wait to send an invoice for the deposit so that homeowners are not "doubling up" their sewer costs. The $100 deposit will be due June 16, 2015. The first montly bill will be due July 16, 2015. As with Arbor Trails, this system will benefit by being operated by the Distrct. With our revenue, we can address problems as they come up, without the need for the HOA to levy special assessments to cover the costs. Our operator, Strickland Engineering, also has the talent and ability to keep the systems running efficiently, to protect the water quality and health of the citizens in the area. The Sun Valley treatment plant has been operating for a number of years while exceeding its ammonia limits in the permit. Our initial inspection revealed two blown pumps and a nonfunctional blower. Repairs will likely exceed $2000 or $3000 initially. We also diagnosed the problem with the poor performance of the plant and will take immediate action to rectify the situation.
The latest addition to the District is Saxony Lutheran High School. The School has been "under the gun" of the DNR to address a lagoon leakage issue and add disinfection. With the transfer of the system to the District, it is no longer a problem between the DNR and the school. It is an issue that will be handled by the DNR and the District. I'm sure the school board is happy to be out of the sewer business! The District is working with the DNR to evaluate both short and long term solutions to the problems with the lagoon system. At this point, it seems the worst-case scenario is that the School will have to pay the cost directly of converting the system to a "no-discharge" system. The District will work to prevent this, in the hope that we can come up with better alternatives in the longer term.
Now what? As the District continues to acquire and operate more of the 24 permited wastewater treatment facilities in the Fruitland Area, we must look at the longer term. For the most part, we can say that lagoon systems are on their way "out" Basically, a lagoon system will have a hard time meeting the more stringest ammonia discharge limits that are being put in place. Whenever a new 5 year permit is issued by the DNR on a lagoon system, there will likely be a compliance schedule that requires a major upgrade or replacement of the lagoon system to meet the new limits. If a HOA or business owns the lagoon, they will be given three years. If a municipality owns the system (such as the District), the DNR has given a six year window. The District must come up with a plan to deal with this timeframe as the clock is ticking on the various lagoon systems in the District, including three systems we now own and operate. I see the District has having a "dual mandate". The first is to do something about the unsewered areas. We received this mandate by a vote of the people in an election in 1997. With increasingly stringent DNR regulations on the existing wastewater treatment systems in the area, our second mandate is to help address those systems.
To take on our "dual mandate", the District has hired Strickland Engineering to draw up a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) to investigate alternatives to address both the existing wastewater treatment systems as well as the unsewered areas served by on-site septic tanks and leach fields (septic systems) . Strickland Engineering has subcontracted the services of Horner & Shifrin, Inc. Engineers to assist with the PER. This is made possible because the District now has a revenue stream to pay for the PER, something that wasn't possible when the District was first formed in 1998.
The PER was completed on August 29, 2014. The preferred alternative is a $14.2 million wastewater collection and treatment system that will service approximately 1200 customers. The system could eliminate up to 20 wastewater treatment systems, while providing sewer service to nearly 500 customers currently on on-site septic systems. I will provide a draft servcie area map and post here when I get a chance. It will take several additional posts to fill you in on the details for the PER and where we go from here! Stay tuned!