On January 5, 2005, a Department of Public Works truck pulls up at Manhole 13 and a young man comes to my door to advise that they will be working on the manhole because there is a problem. I go outside to look into the chamber. Blackwater is at street level. I am out of film, so cannot get this photo as sewage overflowed and reached my crawl space, which I check. I discover there is water at least 12 inches deep in the crawl space. Since the automatic sump pump cannot function when water is so deep the electrical controls are submerged, I must get the manual sump pump, hook it to the hose and start pumping the water into the street, where it will run into the stormwater drain.

The Department of Public Works crew leaves. I go to Walgreens and buy a disposable camera, call Al Baker of SASS NW and Bill Sater of Sater Sewer Service. Both men arrive about three hours after DPW did. Sater uses a crowbar to lift the manhole cover while Al and I take photos of the interior. The water has sunk but is still near the rim and some semi-solid matter floats in a circle on top. (See Photos on Pages 82 and 103.)

Sewage/groundwater is so deep in the crawl space that the automatic sump pump does not go on, so water continues collecting in my crawl space. Is it overflow from Manhole 13, or cracked, broken pipe? I screw the manual sump pump to the hose and lower it into the crawl space. The sump pump comes loose and splashes swill into my face. I hold my breath, wipe my face and run indoors to wash the drops ftom my skin. Too late. I come down with dysentery-like cramps and diarrhea, fever, chills, pneumonia-like fluid in my chest and infection (diagnosed as conjunctivitis) in both eyes. Prescription medications help, but healing is slow when one is constantly exposed to contaminants like those which plague this secret side of Springfield. I am sick through the end of February.

In November, I receive a letter that finally sheds light on the answer I determined to find years earlier. What, if anything, does the City of Springfield know about the SASS area that it is not disclosing, what has it done to fix things in the past, and what will be done in the future? This letter is a treasure map, and this Report is the treasure for those who know how to read red tape messages written in invisible ink.

"...The City has completed the upgrade of I/I problems associated with the Fassnight Creek Drainage Basin. This basin area is where your address is located. The City submitted a report of the post evaluation monitoring for your drainage basin to Missouri Department of Natural Resources on June 22, 2005. You may contact Mr. Richard Buck of MDNR at 417-891-4300 to receive information and to receive a copy of these findings. The City is continuing their progress which is to address the remaining issues and projects to resolve I/I Reduction of sewer system overflows. The EPA will continue to coordinate with MDNR to ensure that the City remains compliant with their NPDES permit and that they complete the requirements of the Consent Decree...

"If you have any additional questions, please contact Berla Johnson, of my staff, at 913-551-7720. "

A. INTRODUCTION: "Post-rehabilitation flow data was collected and analyzed in order to determine the success of the public-sector rehabilitation flow program. Results of the flow-monitoring program and the success of the rehabililtation program are in this section..."

B. BASE FLOW EVALUATION:"...Peak diurnal flow rates for the twenty-two (22) monitoring sites during the post-rehabilitation monitoring program decreased in all sub-basins except... FC11... Peak daily base flow contributions from sub-basins... FC11... increased approximately 27%.., since the pre-rehabilitation period. Peak daily base flow increases in FC11... may be due to residential and commercial growth or possible development.

C. INFILTRATION VALUATION:...Infiltration reduction varied from 2.3% in sub-basin FC06B to 84.1% in sub-basin FC10.

(COMMENT: Could the fact Manhole 18, used in the FC10 flow monitoring, had just been sliplined a few months earlier have influenced the outcome of this rosy finding? Why not monitor, instead, the two manholes around the corner on Cherokee Street at Jefferson, which were buried in the rehabilitation phase of this program and which had long histories of sewage overflows into streets and yards. Before and after photos appear in the Appendix section of this Report.)    (See Photos on Pages 86--87.)

D. INFLOW EVALUATION: "For the basins... FC10, FC11, Q vs i projections proved to be difficult due to surcharge conditions. Consequently, only a few valid storm events, typically less than 0.224 inches/hour, were available for analysis. As a result, predicting inflow for higher intensity storms, such as the 5-year, 60 minute design storm event of 2.2 inches/hour was difficult. However, an inflow response was determined for the 5-year, 60-minute storm event for a sub-basin using the measured infiow from various smaller storm events.

E. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: "In the 2003 Final Report for Sanitary Sewer Evaluation Survey, Phase IV, City of Springfield, Wade & Associates, Inc. recommended public-sector defects be repaired in the Fassnight Creek Drainage Basin. It was established that I/I could be reduced approximately by 9.76 mgd (26.7%) through effictive methods of rehabilitation of public sector defects...

(COMMENTS: Because of certain unanswered questions relative to this work which was reported to the State Attorney General's office by the City of Springfield's Department of Public Works, in June 2005, as being completed, but which appeared to me to be continuing in July, August and September 2005, I wonder who performed actual diagnoses, and how much legal latitude is allowed stretching the truth about a job being completed more than three months before it really is done. I raise this question because people have different impressions and interpretations, and I would not wish to be denigrating or judgmental with anyone or any organization I am really trying to cooperate with, especially since my professional credibility was built on meeting, not missing, deadlines, and full and honest disclosure is the credo that best serves truth. However, in boondoggles, the players often send mixed metaphors as signals that lend themselves to misinterpretation. For instance: In November 2003, while Howard C. Wright was still City Attorney, I submitted to Dan Dudley, legal investigator with City of Springfield's law department, documents in response to his request for my "Water Claim" file, which Mr. Dudley said would be reviewed and then the city would get back to me. To simplify and, hopefully, speed up the process, since I then had about 18 3-ring binders filled with documentation and flood-related SASS-area photos, I compiled the highlights of the files into one spiral-bound Homeowner's Response report and made copies for all interested, or at least somehow involved, parties and a few members of the press. Cost for this project was about equal to one of my monthly Social Security checks. The presentation was a book of literary content that reflects who I am--a writer with investigative reporter's credentials--and creative imagination. In a Brief that accompanied the book, I outlined my 4-step plan to be followed step by step if necessary, the fourth step being to settle the matter through the courts, if the city should make litigation necessary, by bringing a lawsuit. Mr. Dudley politely acknowledged receipt of the voluminous book in a brief letter that stated he was in receipt of my "brochure." I wrote back, thanking him for sharing his sense of humor. This gave me grist for my longterm writer's-mill plan to create a small handbook under the pen name Edgar Allan Philpott. "The Boondogglers' Bible" is now in its final stage of revision. It is solely a creation of my own mind, not some theoretical computation or calculus computed by an electronic brain, which leads back to my reference to Pipedream.

Is the Pipedream computer, which creates theoretical hypotheticals, more fallible than its output based on logic indicates? Was it Pipedream's theorem of coefficients that caused flesh-and-blood workmen to bury several manholes in our SASS area? Did burying tbe manhole at Jefferson Avenue and Cherokee Street solve anything? Along with the manhole due west of it, overflow was so free that I dubbed them, for photographic identification, "Old Faithful" and "Little Geyser" (see photos in Appendix section)? Or did humans make the decisions that leads to the question: By effectively plugging escape vents, will future toxic sewer gases, as well as sewage water and sludge, build up presure that forces manholes all along the sewer line to pop their covers? Or explode underground? Or force sewage backups into basements and homes that, heretofore, have escaped the ravaging effects such contamination has caused to my property and my health? Last, if a computer is to blame, whom do you sue? The computer, its proprietors, or the people who are paid to follow its advice?

(COMMENTS Continued: Now, with as little author's intrusion as possible, I will conclude this section of this Report, inserting comments only where unanswered questions remain. They are valid questions, and my hope is the answers shed light on solutions to Springfield's widespread drainage problems and correlated sewer problems for all parties, both private and public. WSP)