By TIM ROWDEN
Oct. 26, 2000 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)—Jefferson County, MO, received an infusion of green last week with $6.55 million in federal money for park and sewer improvements.
Rep Richard A. Gephardt, D-south St. Louis County, says the money, included in the 2001 budget for housing and urban development, received House and Senate approval Friday and was awaiting the signature of President Bill Clinton.
"This is really great news for Jefferson County," Gephardt said. "I will continue my efforts to ensure that the people of Jefferson County have clean water to drink and our children have safe parks (in which) to play."
The funds for Jefferson County include $2 million to upgrade and expand services in the Northeast Public Sewer District. Northeast sold $15.5 million in private-issue bonds in February to pay for the first phase of a $40 million effort to upgrade and expand the sewer district.
District voters approved a $45 million bond proposal and a tripling of the service hookup fees for new customers last year to pay for improvements leading to Northeast's pumping sewage to a Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District plant on the Meramec River or installing its own line to discharge into the river.
Jefferson County Associate Commissioner Charles T. Heisler, D-1st District, who serves on the Northeast board of directors, said the additional money would allow the district to proceed with expansion efforts at a slightly faster pace than previously scheduled.
Heisler said the district was in the process of installing trunk lines to expand service along the Highway 30 corridor in High Ridge.
"It's not going to change the tap-on fees; those were set in the bonds," Heisler said. "But it's going to give us more money to take on these projects that we said we were going to do faster."
The funding measure also provides $3.5 million for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District to construct the new treatment plant on the Meramec River to provide service in St. Louis and northern Jefferson counties. Gephardt has secured $6.5 million for the $145 million treatment-plant project in the past two years.
Byrnes Mill will receive $700,000 under the funding measure to expand the capacity of its sewage-treatment facility to 700,000 gallons a day from 200,000. The total project is expected to cost $1.3 million to complete.
Byrnes Mill City Treasurer Bill Sehie said the current plant had reached capacity and forced the city council to postpone adding three new subdivisions onto the sewer system.
Sehie said work on the plant was expected to begin next year and could be completed by September 2001.
The Jefferson County Parks Department will receive $350,000 as part of the funding package to develop athletic fields.
Parks Director Mike Ginger said the money would be used to revamp five baseball fields purchased earlier this year from the Cedar Hill Athletic Association on a 20-acre site on Byrnesville Road southwest of House Springs.
He said some of the money could be used to build two soccer fields at River Bend Park along the Big River off Highway PP in High Ridge. Completion of the fields would be a major leap forward for the parks department, which maintains more than 300 acres of parkland but has no athletic fields of its own.
"I'm really pleased with this," Ginger said. "This is going to go a long way toward addressing those needs."
© 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
