The Jefferson County Water Authority, which serves the cities of Herculaneum and Festus, will pay more than $12 million to add a second collector well to supply water to the Cathy Jokerst Water Treatment Plant.
Festus City Administrator Greg Camp, a member of the Water Authority’s board of directors, expects work on the new well to begin in early 2022. He said the well is scheduled to go online in May 2023.
The Water Authority Board awarded a $12,095,000 contract to Burns &
McDonnell Engineering in Kansas City to design and build the well, Camp said.
The addition of the well will not affect water rates, he said.
The plant, off Riverview Drive in an unincorporated area between Crystal City and Herculaneum, draws its water from the Mississippi River and began providing water to residents in 2003.
Camp, the Water Authority board’s president, said the new well will be built next to the existing one.
He said the additional well will help the plant produce more water to provide for the community’s future needs.
“Our water plant can produce just short of 3 million gallons per day,” he said. “The existing well has never met that amount. With the new well working with the existing well, it would approach the capacity. There have been times, with the existing well, the plant has only produced 750,000 gallons a day.
“The water quality from JCWA is very good, and the new collector well will only improve the quality for both Festus and Herculaneum. More importantly, it gives the JCWA plant a backup well, something it did not have. With this, the cities will not have to supplement water supply from our groundwater wells, another huge plus.”
Herculaneum City Administrator Jim Kasten, the Water Authority board’s vice president, said the presence of the new well will mean the Mississippi River’s water level will not affect the plant.
“Stages of the Mississippi River will have little effect on our ability to produce the quality water our two cities require,” Kasten said. “Not having to use our groundwater wells is an ultimate, attainable goal.”