Southwest Missouri getting $22.5M in water-treatment funds

Gov. Jay Nixon will be in Springfield today to announce a plan to infuse state money and federal stimulus funding into waste-water and drinking-water projects across the state.

The Work Now initiative will commit $266 million in state and federal money - $146 million in federal funds and $120 million from the state - to water projects statewide. More than $22 million of that money will go to communities in southwest Missouri.

Adding state money to the total pushes more projects to begin faster, Nixon's office said in a news release, as recipient communities have to commit the federal funds by Feb. 17.

Among the communities receiving money:

• Springfield will receive $16.2 million for waste-water system improvements;

• Aurora, Nixa and Reeds Spring will receive $281,000, $379,000 and $434,000, respectively, for similar waste-water projects; and

• Ava and Rockaway Beach will receive $3.5 million and $1.7 million, respectively, for drinking-water system improvement grants.

"Waste-water and drinking-water projects are critical to maintaining our public infrastructure, but are also vital to getting construction workers and skilled tradesmen back to work right away," Nixon said in the release. "Too many Missourians are currently out of work. We want them back on the job as quickly as possible, and that's why we are pulsing these funds into communities with instructions to put them promptly to use."

Nixon is scheduled to be in Springfield at 1:15 p.m., at a construction site near the intersection of Republic Road and Golden Avenue, to talk more about the initiative.