Water Treatment
The primary water plant for the City is the Cape Rock Treatment Facility with a capacity of 7.5 million gallons per day. The water at the plant passes through aeration, softening/iron removal, disinfection, pH adjustment, and filtration before being pumped to the system.
The Ramsey Branch Water Treatment Plant has a capacity of 2.8 million gallons per day and is primarily run in the summer months during periods of high water demand. The Ramsey Branch Plant employs aeration, coagulation/settling, disinfection, and filtration.
The total system pumping capacity of both plants is 10.3 million gallons per day. The average daily water production is 5.411 million gallons, and at its peak production has reached 8.05 million gallons per day.
The City is divided into several pressure zones that are served by system storage and booster pump stations.
Water System History
Cape Girardeau's first water system was established in 1894. More than three decades later the Cape Rock Treatment Plant opened, and it was expanded in 1954 and 1967. A second Ramsey Branch Treatment Plant was built in 1978 and expanded in 1990. The Cape Girardeau Water System was purchased by the City from Union Electric Company in 1992, and Alliance Water Resources assumed operation of the system.
The system was purchased through the passage of a revenue bond issue of $11.84 million, approved by voters on Nov. 5, 1991, by a 77.2 percent positive vote. An $18 million dollar bond issue for plant expansion and system improvements was passed in 1996 and funded with a 1/4-cent sales tax.
The river was the sole provider of drinking water until 1977, when Union Electric drilled its first wells. Later, treatment capacity was doubled with more wells near the secondary water treatment plant. Union Electric used well water sparingly, mainly during the summer's peak use times.
In 2006, city voters passed a $26.5 million bond issue and sales tax, which was partially used for a $17.6 million expansion to the City's Cape Rock Water Plant.
The city identified a well water supply with a safe water yield of about 250 million gallons a day, and new wells were drilled. In April 2012, the city completed its 15-year effort to switch solely to well water.