History And Overview Of Municipal Utilities

Municipal Utilities, your city owned Utility company since 1917, operates the electric, water, sewer and cable systems for the City of Poplar Bluff.

Municipal Utilities, under the jurisdiction of the City Council and under the administration of the City Manager and with the guidance of an Advisory Board, is continuing to build Poplar Bluff's infrastructure for future growth.

With over 1,000 new customers, City Cable is the newest division of Municipal Utilities providing digital services over a fiber optic system. We expect to have completed over 6,000 installations by second quarter of 2002 as the sole cable service provider for Poplar Bluff and project future growth from that level of market penetration.

Our newest major technological asset for the community will be the roll out of our state-of-the-art high-speed cable modem Internet access for residential and commercial use. Services begin as low as 29.95 and are expected to start up the beginning of January 2002.

Another new addition and large project under construction now is a 19 megawatt peaking power plant. With this addition, on-line production will total 33 megawatts of peaking at our generating station. The Electric Distribution Department now purchases wholesale power from Grand River Dam Authority and Southwestern Power Administration. This project follows a total voltage conversion that increased the reliability and efficiency of the electric service that will produce an annual estimated savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Water Department’s source of water supply is Black River. With five elevated storage tanks totaling a storage capacity of 2,850,000 gallons, we have an average pumping capacity of 4,000 gallons per minute.

The Sanitary Sewer Department’s system has a four cell aerated lagoon treatment plant with a 2,900,000 gallon per day capacity. We are planning adding aeration in 2003 that will upgrade our capacity.