City to seek approval to overhaul Jackson water system

On Aug. 4, Jackson residents will vote to adopt a plan for an overhaul of the city's water system.

Public works director Rodney Bollinger said the proposed upgrades and associated water system improvement bond issue that will finance them are necessary for the city to keep up with increasing demands on the system as Jackson grows.

"It's no different from our street plan," Bollinger said. "You have to update these things every once in a while."

The aging water system has been a topic of discussion for about a year, and both of Jackson's mayoral candidates have expressed similar thoughts on the issue while campaigning. Residents each consume an average of 5,000 gallons a month.

A number of too-small cast-iron pipes and water mains give residents -- and public entities such as the Jackson Fire Department -- inadequate and unreliable water pressures and volumes. Bollinger said broken mains have become a too-common occurrence, not to mention a costly headache.

Fire hydrants in Jackson are color-coded according to output capacity: blue and green hydrants are the best; black ones mean low flow.

"We want to get rid of those black hydrants," Bollinger said, adding there are other priorities outlined in the improvement plan. "Our goal is to provide enough water to meet the projected maximum daily demand of the year 2017, which is 3.09 million gallons per day."

An engineering analysis of the system in 2012 provided the city with the blueprints necessary to phase out problem areas. Residents were surveyed in 2014 to determine whether they would prefer a project that would raise water rates by about 50 percent or one that would increase rates by 100 percent. The results were nearly 2-to-1 in favor of the less-expensive option.

After a water-user rate study to verify the original estimates, city officials settled on a plan that not only improves the water system, but expands it and adds an eighth well in the northwest section of town and a fifth water tower on the east side near the old landfill. All told, the upgrades include 21,355 feet of upgraded and new water mains and will cost $11.3 million. That means the average customer's monthly bill would rise to $31.41.

The last time the water system saw upgrades of a comparable measure was in 1997, with water/sanitary sewer upgrade.

Despite half the project being dedicated to the sewer system, Bollinger said the 1997 project serves as a useful example in understanding the current plan. Not only did it cost about the same ($11 million) and install a water tower and well, but the city received assistance in funding the project from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The city again plans to go through the agency's State Revolving Loan Fund program, which could help alleviate up to 70 percent of interest costs on the project, compared with privately financing the bond.

"They offer to municipalities significantly reduced interest rates," Bollinger said. "We had tremendous success utilizing that program [during our last upgrade project]."

The proposed figures for the water bond issue were calculated anticipating the financing the city has obtained for previous projects, Bollinger said.

But the plan can't go anywhere without the green light from the voters in August. To get the water bond issue on the ballot, the mayor and board of aldermen must approve an ordinance calling for the water bond election and submit it to the county clerk by May 26.

"We have to see what the voters do first," Bollinger said. "We're putting that election ordinance together now. ... We're hoping for that to be voted on next month."

If the voters approve the project, installations and renovations will begin in 2016 and likely be completed within 10 years. If voters reject the project, then, Bollinger said, the city will have to continue managing the current system.

"We'll continue to fix them, but [this project] is intended to help us maintain growth," he said. "We know what the problem is and we know what the solution is; we just have to get from point A to point B."

tgraef@semissourian.com

388-3627