The recently elected mayor of Scott City is teaming with the city’s new public works director to initiate infrastructure improvements they say have been a long time coming.

Ron Cummins, a former city councilman who unseated 16-year mayor Tim Porch in the April election, plans to waste no time addressing the city’s stormwater drainage problems, needed sidewalk repairs and sewage issues.

“With a new public works director, it’s like there’s new blood pumped into our city,” Cummins said.

In recent years, Scott City has seen higher-than-average rainfall.

That, combined with clogged ditches, has resulted in frequent flooding in residential areas and what Cummins called “tremendous amounts of headaches.”

Public works director Dustin Whitworth said drainage issues are the top priority.

“It’s been a lot of years, and our ditches have grown up over the years,” he said. “They just have not been maintained and taken care of well enough.”

The first step, he said will be to clear some of the ditches, followed by installing catch basins to collect rainwater.

“So, that over a period of time, the water can be released,” he said, “instead of trying to get out all at once and getting stuck.”

City engineers are designing several catch basins, but the eventual locations of the basins have not been determined, he said.

Scott City also has seen problems with its sewer system.

Several backups have been caused by excess rainwater seeping into the system.

Cummins said the problem areas include manhole lids that aren’t sealed and lines disrupted by tree roots.

To pay for the repairs, Cummins said he’d like to see a bond issue, but nothing has been planned yet.

State inspectors also have mandated an upgrade to Scott City’s sewage lagoon system because ammonia levels are too high under new regulations.

“The state has requirements that we are going to have to meet,” Cummins said. “We’ll have to pipe it from the lagoons to the Mississippi River so you have a larger body of water to displace that ammonia amount.”

Preliminary work for sidewalk repairs has begun, and Cummins said the city’s main concern is safety.

“We’ve started marking them, so the next step is removing them and replacing them with new concrete so that the public can get out and enjoy our town and not have to be in the road,” he said. “We need to get our kids to school safely, the ones who walk.”

Whitworth said repairs will be done on an as-needed basis.

“It’s part of something that will be ongoing in all parts of town,” he said. “Wherever it’s needed, not just one part or another.”

Whitworth, who was born and raised in Scott City and worked for the city from 1991 to 1999 as public-works foreman, said it’s good to be back with the city.

“I’m excited about making the city a better place. It’s not a bad place now, but we can make some improvements, and I’m looking forward to returning to what I started,” he said.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627