May 01, 2008 08:07 pm
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By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
WEBB CITY, Mo. — A waterline that accidentally was broken as part of work in the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup of 75 acres of former mining land may result in an unexpected expense for Webb City.
The broken line served as a backup to Carterville’s water supply.
The 8-inch line was broken a month or so ago during the EPA’s $1.9 million cleanup project in the former mining field west of Carterville. Snyder Construction Co. is the EPA’s contractor on the project. The work began in November.
“Any skeleton from the past comes back to haunt you,” said Steve Garrett, city administrator for Webb City, about the old waterline that was destroyed.
Mark Doolan, project manager for the EPA, said the design plan showed an easement for a waterline, so the contractor called Webb City to locate the line. He said workers marked off what they said was the site of the line, but the contractor was skeptical. Doolan said city workers returned at the contractor’s request and again identified the same location for the line.
He said that when the equipment began digging up sections of pipe, it wasn’t unusual and didn’t create immediate concern.
“There’s pipe everywhere” from the mines, Doolan said. He said the contractor dug up a 2-inch line, a 4-inch line and an 8-inch line, none of which had any water pressure because the valve had been shut.
Garrett said it was the 8-inch line that connected Webb City to Carterville. He said the location of the old line was not plotted on any city maps because it was installed so long ago.
“The contractor did what they were supposed to do,” Doolan said. “They did their due diligence. We don’t feel it’s Snyder Construction’s responsibility.”
The EPA also won’t be paying to replace the line, he said.
“We’ve barely got enough money left for the project,” Doolan said. “I sympathize with them, but there’s not a whole lot I can do with it.”
Garrett said Doolan has made him aware of the EPA’s position regarding funding.
“One of the questions is who’s more likely to be in a position to get some emergency funding or funding from some source to fix the problem we have here,” Garrett said. “Who has the wherewithal to follow up on leads and get it done?”
He answered his own question.
“Right now, I think that’s us,” he said.
Garrett said his rough estimate is that replacing the line could cost $100,000.
A concern about the waterline is Carterville’s water supply.
“Carterville is required to have a backup to its water supply,” Garrett said. “This was the backup. It does put Carterville in a tighter spot than it puts us in. It would be better to have the line than not have the line.”
Carterville Mayor Dale Davenport said his primary concern is maintaining the water supply for residents.
“Fortunately, we’re in pretty good shape right now,” he said. He said that in a short-term emergency, Carterville could get water from Duenweg, but that wouldn’t be adequate if there were an outage that lasted as long as the one caused by a power outage that resulted from the December ice storm.
“Everybody’s been working together,” Davenport said. “They know the importance of it. I appreciate Webb City and EPA working with us to get this resolved.”
Garrett said the waterline needed to be replaced anyway, but it would have been more convenient if the city could have planned for it and budgeted for it.
“With the remediation that the EPA is doing, it was going to expose this line and it was going to have to be replaced anyway, because we want the remediation to happen,” Garrett said.
Davenport said Carterville is taking the situation in stride.
“Accidents happen,” he said. “You just have to deal with it.”
Big picture
The current project is the first in a series of projects that will clean up about 7,000 acres of former mining land over 10 years, at a cost to the Environmental Protection Agency of $57 million.
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