Cape mayor maintains need for funding to stay 'proactive' on water system issues after rate increase fails

Cape Girardeau city officials are maintaining a sense of "urgency" regarding water system improvements following the failure of a water rate increase ballot measure last week.

Mayor Stacy Kinder said the city needed to begin addressing the water system in a proactive way. She said with the result of the failure of the ballot measure, "We can't do that now".

"I feel the real urgency is in the ability to be proactive," Kinder said. "It would also be more efficient financially to do it that way. When we're just only reacting to emergencies, things are more expensive."

Kinder explained Phase One of the water system project is still in the works, to which the city has dedicated $9 million. Phase One includes the installation of a new lime feed system at the city’s water treatment plant, with the latest step taken by the Cape Girardeau City Council approving improvements to the filter gallery's hydraulic bottleneck.

She said projects in Phases Two and Three are still unfunded because of the measure failing.

Kinder said conversations with the community regarding the water system will have to continue.

"This was the first conversation with the public about this problem. It cannot be the last, because the problem isn't going away. In fact, the problem is going to get worse in time," Kinder said.

She said as Phase One improvements are coming online, it will help the city maintain good water quality,

"Folks can rest a bit assured that in the short term, our water supply is still great," Kinder said.

She said she understands there is a "knee-jerk" reaction to say "no" to rate or tax increases, especially while dealing with high inflation. Kinder said city officials knew it was a tough ask.

Kinder said she doesn't think the city could have done much more to make the voters aware of the water system problems. She said the city is only allowed to put information out and are not allowed to have a private campaign that would have told people to vote "yes".

"There was an effort to create a private campaign committee. For numerous reasons, that wasn't able to happen, but I think, in the future, perhaps there might be more success with that when folks understand the gravity of this whole thing," Kinder said.

She said as far as the city is concerned, officials spent a large amount of time putting out information and trying to create a better understanding of the issues.

Kinder said the first issue people will see and already feel is water main breaks in the area. She said there are already capacity issues starting to appear, and residents might see water conservation measures that will "probably have to start taking place very soon".

"So, first, you know, we would look at city properties cut back on, you know, we would cut back on irrigation. So think about your parks and your ball fields and the (Jaycee Municipal Golf Course). Those are things that we would have to start pulling back the irrigation line," Kinder said. "If things get progressively worse from there, then we have to seriously look at limiting property irrigation. ... Because we have to make sure that we have enough water for our homes, for our hospitals and medical clinics."

Kinder said, looking to the future, significant capacity issues will impact health and the ability of Cape Girardeau to grow and thrive.