Stormwater Will Be Stored Beneath New Missouri State Arena

And when the fans are cheering their teams to victory, under them a stormwater detention facility will be at work, controlling excess precipitation and runoff.

The $1.7 million project involves burying six 400-foot long tubes and channeling up to 900,000 gallons of stormwater into them.

"It's designed to contain a 25-year rainfall event and discharge it slowly over time," Todd Wagner, principal stormwater engineer with the city of Springfield, told the "Springfield News-Leader" this week.

The city has indicated a willingness to share in the cost of the project and a Memorandum of Understanding is in development. The University’s Transit fund also will share in the cost.

The city could contribute up to $850,000 if the plan meets with City Council approval in a vote to be taken at its June 30 meeting.

Plans call for three of the concrete culverts - each 10 feet wide and 6 feet tall - to be buried side-by-side at the arena.

At a nearby soccer field, three steel tubes the same length and six feet in diameter will be buried and linked to the concrete tubes at the arena.

Once the tubes are in place, the soccer field will be restored. A valve will let stormwater in the tubes slowly drain out. The university is considering how to make use of the stormwater for irrigation.

The work is supposed to be complete by November 1 for the arena's opening day.

Storing stormwater underground is not a common practice, but there are two other such projects in Springfield at St. John's Hospital and at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant.

Wagner the city recently received a $1.6 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for stormwater improvements within the James River watershed area.

With that grant in hand, Wagner said his department can move some city funds once set aside for another project to the underground storage system at JQH Arena.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.