Public Water Supply District #7 of Cass County, Mo. was incorporated in 1972 with final approval to sell water to the Public in 1980.
The first water that was sold was in the fall of 1981 which totaled approximately 200 water meters or customers. The actual cost of the initial construction topped the scales at $3,300,000. By 1986 there were 900 active meters on line and today the district has approximately 1585 active water meters. The District covers about 95 square miles with its borders on the north being 215th street, on the East Cowger road, with the western boundary being State Line Road and on the South at 319th street.
The District is located in a portion of Cass County, MO. where even today water is a precious commodity. As it was initially the District maintains and operates a Water Treatment Plant along with a Distribution system that has 360 miles of water main in the ground. The Water Plant was reconfigured in 1998 and 1999 by doubling its treatment capacity from 350 gallons per minute to 700 gallons per minute or approximately 1,000,000 gallons per 24 hour day. The actual cost of those improvements were $1,729,000.
The 1998-99 improvements established Cass #7 as the first in the world to incorporate both a Sand ballasted Rapid Rate pretreatment process with finished treatment containing Ultrafiltration Membrane cartridges.
In 2006-2007 the district built a new 200,000 gallon water tower near Cleveland, Mo. Included within this project was about 5+ miles of 8 Inch and 12 inch water main also around Cleveland, Mo. The cost of the project was nearly $1,000,000, which also included 21 new fire hydrants.
The District is split into two (2) sections, a South section and a North Section, the South portion is mostly rural with water meters sometimes as much as ¼ mile apart with the North section both rural as well as residential, with residential being the predominant resource. In an emergency either section can feed the other.
Raw water is stored in a Sedimentation basin on site that contains
130,000,000 gallons or about a one (1) year+ supply of water for treatment. Raw water is pumped from the South Grand River just north of Freeman, Mo. to the sedimentation basin and then into the Treatment Plant based upon need. The pump station consists of one (1) pump @ 1000 GPM and the 2nd pump @ 2000 GPM.
The entire Plant and Distribution system is operated by a SCADA system with provisions for manual operation in emergencies. This SCADA system was upgraded from the 1995 version in 2012 at a cost of $98,000.
To provide for emergencies where the Water Plant looses it’s capabilities to treat water, the District stores approximately 1,400,000 gallons of potable water for customer usage. This is accomplished by three (3) elevated storage tanks and one (1) ground storage tank and supplemented by an in ground Clear well that contains 96,000 gallons. This stored Potable water would last easily 48 hours.
Below is a picture of our South Tower which holds 400,000 gallons located at 28122 S. State Route D.
Above is a picture of our North Tower which holds 400,000 gallons, located at 9205 E. 227th Street
Above picture shows our South Northwest Tower which holds 200,000 gallons located at 25501 E. 254th St.
To the right is our Ground Storage tank that holds 300,000 gallons of Potable water located at 8906 East 267th Street.
Water District #7 is unique among Public Water Supply Districts, out of approximately 104 + or – Surface water treatment systems in the State that are classified as Public Water Supply Districts, District #7 is one (1) of four (4) remaining plants. Almost all systems purchase their water.
The District is a system that operates under high pressures with those ranging anywhere from 40 PSI to 160 PSI. This is do to the valleys and hills within the boundaries of the district.
Do to this high pressure the district has numerous leaks which are costly to repair. To offset this cost the district repairs all of its distribution leaks in house with our staff and our own equipment and trucks. To cover the needed supplies that are required to repair the leaks etc. as the water mains range anywhere from 2 inch mains to 12 inch mains an inventory worth approximately $75,000 is maintained. This allows the district to make repairs at any time of the day, weekends and or on holidays. This allows for much less down time from those needed repairs and provides for minimal water outages for the customers along with significant savings over contracting the repairs to an outside source.
Also, within this inventory are the supplies that are needed to install new water meters for new customers.
To the left is a picture of our equipment with all of it totally paid for. It will last for years into the future. It is also used for water main extensions and customer repairs and service line installations as time allows.
The Water Plant consists of two (2) separate buildings with two (2) Contact Basins two (2) separate pump stations and the ground storage tank. On any given day there are 17 water pumps operating that range from 200 Gallons per minute to 2000 Gallons per minute.
Four (4) computers, of various configurations, along with eight (8) on line monitoring instruments which depict various water conditions and chemical contents. The District maintains a fully stocked Laboratory where daily testing and recordings are transferred to five (5) daily work sheets.
All records are maintained for ten (10) years. There are numerous chemical addition points throughout the Plant operating constantly or as needed.
Due to the age of the Water Plant along with the detailed and intricate nature of treating water for the Public a significant inventory is maintained. The electronic components are countless buried within the various automatic operational devices which includes, relays, contactors, Motor controllers, Frequency drives and so forth. With that in mind, to acquire many of the components if they were to fail takes special orders and lengthy lead times, thus the District maintains approximately $175,000 in inventory specific to the Water Plant. This allows repairs and fixes to be accomplished within minutes or within a few hours. Again all of which allows for a more consistent supply of water to our customers.
If for some unforeseen reason the District cannot supply water to the Public or where our reserves are depleted we have three (3) Mutual aid connections, two (2) with Water District #2 and one (1) with the City of Peculiar. Those would allow for us to purchase the necessary water to operate the District at nearly full capacity where the Customers would not realize any significant loss of pressure or supply. As the wording suggests we also can provide water to those two (2) entities if they needed it.
For a complete Water Treatment Plant such as #7’s one of the most important emergency items to have available is a way to provide a constant supply of electricity. Below is a picture of our Cat 500 KW, 480 volt Generator. This unit can be up and operational within a few minutes of loosing electricity. Since it’s installation in 1998 it has operated the Plant hundreds of times with the longest being about 6+ days straight. We also have generators at all towers so that those remote locations can also continue operate in the automatic mode.
Our main office is located at the same location as the water plant and it has its own generator so that customers will always have access for their payments and other account questions. During early summer of 2019 we are connecting the office to our Cat generator so that within minutes it will be up and on line 100%.
