May 06, 2008 09:04 am
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By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com
Brad and Melinda Gibson, with their son Ethan in tow, are looking for a place to put down roots in the Joplin area.
“We are looking for a house,” Brad Gibson said. “We’re relocating from Willow Springs, which has a population of about 2,000. I’ll be going to work at the Missouri Highway Patrol crime lab in Carthage.”
The Gibsons were shown a home in the 1900 block of East 34th Street by a real-estate agent with the Glenn Group. The owners of the house are downsizing; the Gibsons want to move up.
Buying a house in the Joplin market could prove to be a prudent investment for the Gibsons if a new population projection for Jasper County becomes reality.
The state Office of Administration recently released updated population projections for Missouri extending to 2030. Among the state’s 114 counties, Jasper County could have the 10th largest projected numeric increase.
Jasper County’s population is projected to grow by 45.7 percent, from 104,686 in 2000 to 152,490 in 2030, an increase of 47,804 people. That would be like adding a town with a population the size of Joplin’s to the county.
If the projection holds, the growth could have profound implications for the county and the area. Water, already an issue of concern, could become critical.
‘Imperative’
“By 2030, Jasper County will have 152,000 people? That sounds like more than what we projected,” said Robert Nichols, head of the Tri-State Water Resource Coalition, which believes a critical water shortage could be looming for the region in a few years.
“It tells me we need more water than we anticipated. It makes it more imperative that we look,” he said. “If those numbers are correct, the situation is a little more serious than we thought.”
The coalition a couple of years ago hired Black & Veatch, a Kansas City consulting firm, to do a study that included population projections for the area. The study projected Jasper County’s population would grow to 129,200 by 2030.
Other counties represented by the coalition also are projected to experience growth, based on the state report. Greene County, which recently joined the coalition, could have the third largest numeric increase in the state, growing from 240,391 in 2000 to 329,825 by 2030.
Members of the coalition will be traveling to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to meet with U.S. Reps. Ike Skelton and Roy Blunt, and U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond. They also will meet with representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers. The group is hoping to fast-track the construction of an off-stream reservoir in Southwest Missouri.
Pete Rausch, head of Monett’s water department and head of the coalition’s technical committee, said: “What this tells me is that we’re going to need multiple reservoirs.”
Road test
With more people will come more traffic. It’s likely that the state won’t have much money for building new roads. The county’s highway infrastructure could be put to the test.
Dan Salisbury, with the Joplin office of the Missouri Department of Transportation, said: “With the completion of our Amendment 3 projects, we will be directing our funds to taking care of our system. We’ll fix bridges and maintain roads. There won’t be money for capacity improvements. If the population growth is as high as that, it will accelerate congestion in our system.”
Amendment 3, passed in 2004, was a statewide initiative to raise money for road and bridge work.
The city of Joplin stays on top of population projections to plan for the future.
“It’s very important to look at population projections to determine what kind of services we need to provide in the future,” said Troy Bolander, city planner. “What’s just as important is to determine the makeup of that population increase. Will it be an aging population? If so, you will have to have adequate services for that group.
“Will your sewer and water infrastructure be able to accommodate the growth? These things can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to planning. If you grow too quickly, it can actually decrease the quality of life. You want growth, but you want manageable growth.”
6.7 million
Missouri is projected to have more than 6.7 million people by 2030 — a 21 percent increase over the figure from the 2000 census, according to the state Office of Administration. But Missouri is projected to grow at a slower rate than the national population. In the early 1900s, Missouri ranked fifth in total population in the nation. By the 2000 census, the state had slipped to 17th.
The census in 2010 will determine whether Missouri loses one of its nine congressional seats because of population growth elsewhere in the nation.
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Photos
Globe/Roger Nomer
Brad and Melinda Gibson, of Willow Springs, with their son Ethan in tow, are shown a home last week in Joplin by real-estate agent Mark Gibson (right). Jasper County’s projection for population growth has been revised upward to about 150,000 by the year 2030.