By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

St. Joseph no longer has to worry about its water supply when it floods or when ice jams form on the Missouri River.

Water supplies to Missouri American Water plant in St. Joseph dwindled in the winter of 1989 due to ice jams upstream on the Missouri. The 1993 flood knocked out the water plant, leaving St. Joseph without drinking water for nearly a week even as floodwaters surrounded the city.

Missouri American’s Lisa Adams says the company moved away from the vulnerability of relying on the Missouri when it opened its groundwater treatment plant in April of 2000.

“We’re 100% groundwater, which means all of our water comes from wells,” Adams tells Barry Birr, host of the KFEQ Hotline. “We are no longer dependent on the Missouri River and we no longer pull any water from the Missouri River to treat.”

Missouri American has one horizontal collector well which treats 18 million gallons of water a day. It also has seven vertical wells. In total, the St. Joseph Missouri American Water plant can treat up to 30 million gallons of water daily. Adams says the record use in one day was 26.5 million gallons, set last year.

Though located in the Missouri River bottoms, the wells are not susceptible to flooding, according to Adams.

“They’re at least a hundred feet deep and they’re in the river bottoms, but they’re far enough back that they are not influenced by the surface water,” according to Adams. “So, that aquifer is recharged, but we’re 100% groundwater; no surface water anymore.”