City of Strafford pauses plans for wastewater facility

STRAFFORD, Mo. — The City of Strafford has voted to "pause indefinitely" plans to build a wastewater treatment facility to the small town.

"The Interim City Administrator is hereby authorized and directed to take all actions necessary to pause indefinitely, all work associated with the city's current planning, design and construction of a wastewater treatment plant," Darren White, a Strafford Alderman, said while reading the language of the bill.

"I feel pretty good. It's been a long road and I really appreciate the city paying attention to the expert opinions that we brought to them to help shed light on this situation," Michael Stelzer, an opponent of the proposed plant said after the meeting.

Critics of the plant say Davis Creek would be negatively impacted by the plant, and with Davis Creek connected to James River, many say the proposal would negatively impact the James River, a significant water source for over 100,000 people.

"It began as an environmental issue with the proposed plant putting a half a million gallons a day of sewage effluent into Davis Creek and Davis Creek as a low flow losing stream, and with the Ozarks karst, our make up of our ground and rock, that allows water to permeate into the groundwater, and we were very concerned about that," Stelzer said. "We got some expert opinions geologist, bio scientists, engineers, and they also had a concern about the environmental impact that this could potentially have. We kind of dug into the cost issues for the city of Strafford, and once we started doing having expert analysis done on it, it just didn't make any sense going forward, and I believe the board appreciated that input and I think they responded accordingly to it."

The bill also allows the city to use the money that would have gone to the project, elsewhere.

"The city has other high-priority infrastructure needs that may present a more efficient and beneficial use of student state resources, whereas the city is at a critical decision point on the project," White said.

Stelzer just has one issue.

The word 'pause'.

"I'm not crazy about the word pause," Stelzer said. "I would prefer that we would have heard a hard stop on this thing, and if they wanted to consider a wastewater treatment plant in the future, then they'd have to readdress it, but now, with a pause, that's a temporary fix."

Stelzer is thankful for the wastewater relationship between the cities of Springfield and Strafford.

"I trust that with the positive relationship that Springfield is providing and has provided to the city of Strafford, I trust that everything will be fine, that Springfield will take care of them, and it will be a good partnership," Stelzer said.