Aldermen Address Sewers, Streets During Work Session
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David Bova, acting city administrator, points out upcoming street repairs during a board of aldermen work session.
BY MARK EVANS
STE. GENEVIEVE HERALD
Cory Litterst, local manager for Alliance Water Resources, went over findings from a sewer crawler camera used to check out sewer lines in the Pointe Basse part of town.
The sewer issue was the first topic of last Thursday night’s Ste. Genevieve Board of Aldermen work session.
Residents had long complained of the sewer backing up into their basements on Point Basse Drive and surrounding streets.
Litterst said the crawler camera shot about 1,300 feet of pipe interior. He said behind the shopping plaza they found some joints that had separated and some in which iodine appeared.
He said he would make the video and a full report available to the board as soon as possible.
“We’re still putting the full report together and you guys have something a little better to look at,” he said.
Some of the pipes have laterals meeting them at strange angles.
David Bova, acting city administrator, noted that there is more than one issue to deal with.
“So there’s several problems there,” he said.
Bova reiterated that Litterest would be providing a more detailed look for the board. Meanwhile, CIPP (cured in-place piping, a liner that goes inside a sewer pipe to prevent leaks) can be used to address the issues.
The aldermen also looked at 2026 priorities for street repair, funded by the successful. $10 million Prop S bond issue passed in April.
“I had some time to get with Cochran, go back and kind of review what we had committed to in Prop S, what was feasible for next year,” Bova said. “We had originally talked about $1.5 million, Looking at this year’s projects, we made some changes throughout the asphalt project to streets that didn’t need to be done or portions of streets that didn’t need to be done. So I would estimate that project’s probably going to come in about a half million under budget.”
He gave further explanation.
“But if you take the 1.5 and just take a portion of that at $300,000, And then you would also factor in, if you remember, we had to go at the tax rate adoption a second time to add the $0.27. That was passed. That $0.27, Happy (Welch) and I missed it, so it’s not in the budget.
“So that’s revenue that’s not in the budget. So if you add that approximate $200,000 in to the $300,000, that’s a conservative estimate of where we’ll land in this year’s project.”
Bova also said that after talking with Cochran Engineering and with City Attorney Mark Bishop, it was determined that the cost of tearing out and replacing water lines when redoing streets (like on LaHaye) can be paid for with Prop S funds.
“So if you include the road reconstruction funds, in the Prop S money, that gives us more money for water line,” Bova said. “Throw in the fact, also the fact that metered sales are coming in over budget, or not over budget, but where they should be. But we conservatively budget that revenue, so it’s coming in slightly higher.
“And then we put some money in the budget for water lines. So there’s approximately $493,000 available for water lines, if you throw in the $193 ,000 budget for Oakwood, $75,000 that the immediate sales are coming in over budget, and $225,000 that’s in the capital budget for water.”