CAHOKIA HEIGHTS, Ill — When it rains, it pours ... out of the sewers in Cahokia Heights.
The Metro East city's water woes have lasted for years. But, finally, there's an agreement to repair the ailing infrastructure.
"We hope to start actual construction if not later this year, than early next year," Hurst Roche Senior project manager Jim Nold said in a press conference Wednesday.
Unfortunately, repair work could take up to five years ... a wait long overdue for resident Walter Byrd. He showed us around his street on a rainy February day in 2020.
When it rains on Byrd's street, sewage pours from the drains. When it's hot, Byrd says the smell is unbearable. 5 On Your Side caught up with Byrd Wednesday, he told us the sewage issues on his street have been going on for 10 years, "I'm glad they're starting, stop talking about it, be about it."
Fixing the problem is a process. Currently, 52 of 69 sewage lift stations are being replaced. Next on the schedule, repairing the main trunk line.
Nold says trunk line repairs will help with some things, but not with others. He says crews have to pump backed up flow, install bypass pumping with temporary pipes.
"This will help reduce those occurrences, but it won't eliminate them," explains Nold, "Because some backups are due to local breaks that aren't part of the trunk line."
There is a looming problem that could bring work to a standstill ... money.
"We may be, on the high end another $10 to $15 million short," Cahokia Heights Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. says. "On the low end, maybe another $8 million."
In February, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said he would get the money to Cahokia Heights.
"I'm absolutely willing to consider and help with any further funds that may be required for rebuilding," he said.
Federal and state partnerships will help push the project along.
"Infrastructure improvement projects like this are the result of partnerships among federal, regional and local agencies," Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sears, deputy commander of the St. Louis District, said.
"We are extremely proud of this project and the economic and environmental benefits it will provide to the Cahokia Heights community," he said. "This agreement we are signing gives us the latitude for future phases moving forward.”
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