In a special 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 21, session, the El Dorado Springs City Council interviewed three engineering firms on their proposed approach to the downtown flooding issue.

Members present were Mayor Brad True, Mayor Pro Tem Jerry Baldwin and Council Members Randy Bland and Gene Floyd.
Council Member Jerry Friar was absent. Personnel present were Bruce Rogers, City Manager and Lisa Janes, City Clerk/Collector/Assessor.

Amec Earth & Environmental, Inc. was the first firm to interview. They had a power point presentation along with a matching handout. Two members from the firm presented their qualifications for the project.

When asked why all of a sudden the City has had two major flooding events in two years they responded it mostly has to do with more asphalt and less places for the water to go. They would be looking at one or more detention ponds, relief inlets downtown and channel improvements. Timetable would be 8-12 weeks.

Floyd received a phone call and left the meeting at this time.

Olsson Associates were the second firm to interview. Three members of the firm were present. Eric Dove stated the 6 to 6 and 1/2 inch rainfall received would fall under a one in 500 year event. This information can be gathered from the National Weather Service website.

Option one for Olsson would be detention and to use City crews. Detention is usually the best option for the money. Grant options and permits were covered.

Other areas of the project to be looked at would be to use the alley as a water escape and more inlets. The gun shop is acting as a dam right now; the ground would need to be reworked so that the water would move away from the building.

The detention pond area, if able to work out with the school, could be a multi-functional area so that the school would get good use of the property.

Olsson would probably look at a 100 year design. Timetable would be August-December (Notice to Proceed through Beginning of Construction).

Great River Associates were the final interview. Two members of the firm presented their qualifications and stated they would concentrate on the short-term and long-term design. An area they felt needed improvement is the inlet conditions, more water can go in with a larger opening at the inlet. When asked, they covered permits and grants. Timetable would be five months to complete through the design phase.

All three firms discussed the possibility of a detention pond on school property. Also, all three firms confirmed they did not feel the water was backed up in the tunnel to St. James St. during the most recent flood event of May 2010.

Once the interviews concluded, all remaining Council members agreed to the following order. The best presentation was Olsson, second would be Great River and 3rd Amec. After a brief discussion, it was decided to hold off a decision until the next meeting when other members would be present. Bland stated he would not be present at the next meeting in two weeks, but Rogers, Baldwin and True could let the others know his thoughts and feelings.

by Jim Low

When it rains, it pours, according to the old saying, and July has produced a cloudburst of fishing records in Missouri. The Missouri Department of Conservation has certified three new fishing records so far this month. Two could be world records.

The first record catch came in early July, when John West, of Republic, caught a 58 pound, 10.4 ounce striped bass at Bull Shoals Lake in Taney County. The monster striper measured just a shade over 48 inches from nose to tail and had a girth of 34.25 inches. The fish inhaled a six-inch swim bait that West, 37, was casting from the bank with a spinning rod and reel. A swim bait is a soft-bodied lure rigged with a weighted hook.










Friends introduced West to striper fishing three years ago. They were fishing together on the rainy evening of July 8. West was tired from casting the big, heavy lure and decided to make two or three more casts before starting the long trek back to his vehicle when the big striper struck. The fish felt bigger than any he had caught before. He assumed it was in the 30 to 40-pound range. His friends had caught several fish that size in recent weeks.

“He basically was fighting from the moment he hit my swim bait,” said West. “He pulled half the line off my spool before I started gaining on him.” He said his reel held 190 yards of 30 pound-test line.

“It was so foggy I couldn’t even tell where I was casting,” said West, “so I couldn’t see how big the fish was until I tried to land it and it wouldn’t fit in the net. We had to roll it up the bank to get it in, and then we all knew it was big.”
He and a friend took turns carrying the hefty fish, and when they put it in a 45 gallon cooler, it touched all four sides. That is when they knew it was “time to wake somebody up.”

They contacted Conservation Agent Quenten Fronterhouse. He and Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery Manager Clint Hale certified the record.

“It took awhile for it all to soak in,” said West. “I was kind of in awe. I told my dad, if I caught a big one, I was going to grill it. But a state record, that’s a mounting trophy.”

The striped bass (Morone saxatilis) is an anadramous species, spending its adulthood in saltwater but returning to fresh water to spawn. They are not native to Missouri, but have adapted well to fresh-water reservoirs and streams. Ocean-run striped bass can grow to 6 feet long and 125 pounds.

The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) all-tackle record striped bass came from the Atlantic Ocean and weighed 78 pounds, eight ounces. The current IGFA 30 pound line-class record for inland waters is 47 pounds, 11 ounces. That makes
West’s fish a shoo-in for a world record if his catch meets the IGFA’s stringent requirements.

The second record catch – a blue catfish – came in the early hours of July 20 on the Missouri River near Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, just north of St. Louis. Greg Bernal, of Florissant, and his friend, Janet Momphard, of St. Charles, started fishing just after sunset. They fished one place until 12:30 a.m. Nothing much was happening, so they moved to another spot and anchored about 100 feet from shore. Bernal, 47, noticed that the weather was turning ugly.





“There was a serious storm blowing in, with lightning all over the place. I was ready to call it a night, but I figured I would troll around behind this dike, and see what shows up on the sonar. I spotted a couple of really big fish on the bottom in like 27 feet of water. So I decided to give it a shot until the storm got closer. I mean, who knows what could happen, and there it was! I set the hook on him at 12:45 a.m., and that reel just absolutely started screaming. He swam right under the boat, so I just kept reeling down and pulling him up. When he broke water I couldn’t believe it.”

It took Bernal only about 15 minutes to maneuver the huge fish up to the side of his 22 foot johnboat, but it took both him and Momphard another 30 minutes to hoist the fish over the gunwale.

“The first net was not deep enough,” said Bernal, “because the fish was almost five feet long. I finally told Janet I was not going to get it in this net. She was going to have to get the other deep net out of the front of the boat.”

Momphard lost precious moments untangling the second net from the boat’s trolling motor and other gear.

“All the time, I’ve got this big fish on the end of my line without even being in a net. So I got him in the first net and he tore a big hole in it and so I had to get the second one and come at him from his head before we could actually get him wrapped up and try and get him in the boat.”

Bernal’s 40-pound monofilament line held, and with the nets in place, Bernal and Momphard tried repeatedly to lift the fish. They succeeded on the fourth try.

It was 10:30 a.m. before Bernal got his fish to a certified scale to verify his catch. Fisheries Management Biologist Sarah Peper certified the record.

“We get a lot of calls from people who think they have a record,” said Peper, “but it always seems to turn out to be a different species than they thought, or it doesn’t weigh as much as they thought. As soon as we saw this fish, we were thinking it would be a state record probably and who knows, it might even be the world record. When we got it down to the feed store, Mr. (Jim) Blair was the weighmaster for our official weighing. When he kept sliding those weights over and he just kept going and going and going and going, and it finally balanced out at 130 pounds, we were all in shock. I weigh 109 pounds, so that fish was 21 pounds heavier than me.”

Peper took measurements and checked the fish for signs of how it had been taken, ensuring that it was a legitimate pole-and-line catch. The fish measured 57 inches long and had a girth of 45 inches. Then she compared its length, girth and weight against those of blue catfish of similar size to establish that the weight was credible.

Peper noted that the fish had been out of the water for nine hours and had been dead for much of that time.

“Fish lose weight after they die,” she said. “This fish may have weighed more than 130 pounds when it was alive.”

Bernal’s fish topped Missouri’s previous blue catfish record by 27 pounds. The state-record blue catfish caught by means other than pole and line is a 117-pound fish taken from the Osage River in 1964. The current IGFA all-tackle record blue catfish is a 124-pounder taken from the Mississippi River near Alton, IL.


July’s third record fish was a 99 pound flathead catfish caught three days after Bernal’s monster blue. Robert Neal Davidson, of Mokane, was with his father, James L. Davidson, and his nine year old son, Drake Neal Davidson, when he landed the fish. It was touch and go for a while, however.










Robert, 44, is a construction inspector for the Missouri Department of Transportation. He has been too busy to do much fishing lately, but he took Friday off to fish with his dad and son. They took a 47.5 pound blue catfish off a pole first thing in the morning, which got all three of the anglers excited. When they got to their last line, it was under a log, with the pole bent over.

“Dad was running the boat,” said Robert, “and when he eased up alongside it, I got ahold of the line and started running my hands down it. I had no idea there was a fish on it. I thought about cutting the line, but instead I pulled the pole out of the bank, and dad backed the boat out into the river. The fish swam out from underneath that log and the fight was on.

“I’m holding onto the pole, fighting him like you would with a rod and reel but all I’ve got is this big fiberglass pole. We went
half a mile downriver before I finally wore him out.

“When he surfaced, I knew I was looking at the biggest flathead I had ever seen. I gaffed him and could not get him in the boat, so I went down on my knees and stuck my arm through his mouth and gills and grabbed the rest of his body and got him over the side and into the boat. It was quite an ordeal. Without dad, we wouldn’t have gotten the fish. It was kind of a team effort.”

Young Drake watched in wonder while the two older Davidsons worked to land the behemoth. Later he told his father he was so excited he was shaking.

Davidson caught the record flathead using a green sunfish for bait. It had a girth of 35 inches.

Missouri’s previous record for a flathead catfish caught by methods other than a hand-held line was a 94 pound fish caught from the St. Francis River in 1971. The pole-and-line record is 77.5 pounds. The IGFA all-tackle flathead catfish record (also for pole-and-line catches) is a 123 pound fish caught at Elk City Reservoir in Kansas.

The Conservation Department stopped commercial harvest of catfish on the Missouri River in 1992. Since then, several catfish in the 80 to 100 pound range have been taken by sport anglers in Missouri’s stretch of the river. Today the lower Missouri River is among the nation’s top trophy catfish waters.

“Having two state record catfish caught three days apart proves the wisdom of past management decisions,” said Conservation Department Fisheries Division Chief Chris Vitello. “The Missouri River is one of several fisheries in Missouri with the potential to produce huge catfish. Given a chance to grow, blue and flathead cats can reach sizes that make even the most experienced angler’s heart race.”

Striped bass can live 30 years. Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) live even longer. Conservation Department fisheries biologists say Bernal’s fish probably was between 20 and 30 years old. Fish continue to grow throughout their lives, and some historic accounts record Missouri River catfish as large as 300 pounds.

The Conservation Department keeps records in two categories. The “pole-and-line” category is for fish taken on hand-held lines. “Alternative methods” include trotlines, throw lines, limb lines, bank lines, tree lines, jug lines, spearfishing, snagging, gigging, grabbing (with the use of a hook) and archery.

Entry forms and rules are available at mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/72.pdf. A list of Missouri fishing records is available at http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/69.pdf. The Conservation Department also has a Master Angler Program to recognize notable catches that fall short of records. For qualifying lengths and weights, visit http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/71.pdf.

Julie K. Hurshman, 38, El Dorado Springs, died about 10:40 p.m. Friday, July 23, in a one vehicle crash on Hwy. 32 four and one half miles south of the El Dorado Springs city limits, according to a report by Trooper E. Adams.

His report said the 2000 Ford Expedition which Ms. Hurshman was driving northbound travelled off the right side of the road and the front end of the vehicle stuck a private drive. The vehicle returned to the roadway, went off the right side of the road and overturned. The driver, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected and the vehicle came to rest in the road. There were no other occupants of the vehicle.

Ms. Hurshman was pronounced deceased at the scene by Cedar County Coroner Charles W. Neale at 11:15 p.m.

Dixie Flynn, RN, was welcomed as the Cedar County Hospital’s new Chief Nursing Officer at the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, July 19.

Ms. Flynn is a native of Lexington, MO, currently living in Blue Springs. She began her nursing career as a teenager, working as a nurse’s aide at the Lexington Memorial Hospital when she was 16. She became an RN in 1975. Flynn has a son who is an engineer in Ohio and a son in Memphis who is a CPA. She plans become a permanent resident of El Dorado Springs when her house sells in Blue Springs.

Board Members Judy Renn, Frank Haynes, Brenda Parsley, Cheri Allison and Jan Neale were present as were CEO Jana Witt, Chief Nursing Officer Dixie Flynn, Assistant Director of Nursing Julia Phillips, Controller Carla Gilbert, Recording Secretary Terri Heitz and Hospital Attorney Bryan Breckenridge.

The board viewed the first two sections in a series of educational videos designed for rural hospitals board entitled “Healthcare Boards in the 21st Century.”

Following review of the financial statement, the board approved the accounts payable in the amount of $391,171.23 as well as the payrolls for July 20 and Aug. 2.

The board approved medical staff privileges for Dr. Michael Shoemaker, Dr, Katherine Beben, Linda Davidson, Wayne Berkbigler-CRNA, Davis Sparks-CRNA and Pete Mosca-CRNA.

Phillips brought the board up to date on several upcoming in-services and seminars, including EKG Interpretation, Preceptor classes, Rural Trauma Course and Fetal Heart monitoring classes.

Witt mentioned that Community Health Services will be effected by a 18.86% budget cut effective Sept. 1, 2010, due to state reductions in local Public Health funding. Maternal and Child Health Service will see a 2% decrease in reimbursement or approximately $5,000 for contract year 2010. Home Health visits were in up in June and the bi-annual Home Health professional meeting was held on June 30, 2010.

Witt said that recruitment continues for a full time Family Nurse Practitioner for the Stockton Clinic. She also mentioned that the hospital has received a dividend check in the amount of $102,000 from Missouri Hospital Plan and that MO Healthnet has announced cuts to the in-patient per diem of $300 and to the out-patient percentage of 5% and is imposing new requirements for CT scans, cardiac testing, ultrasound and MRI’s. The hospital is appealing and has contacted the Missouri Hospital
Association for advocacy assistance.

The hospital will apply to the 340B Drug Program which will help to lower costs on out-patient medications.

The board voted to lease a Seiman’s Somaton Definition AS20 CT system at the cost of $13,915 per month for 60 months. The cost includes the monthly lease fee and the service agreement. The board also voted to purchase an Immunoassay Analyzer for the laboratory department at a cost of $75,000.

The board received an update on the electronic health record installation.

By a roll call vote, the board went in to executive session.

Returning from the executive session the board reviewed an employee question regarding contract terms and announced approval of an education loan for an employee.

Anyone interested in adopting a pound animal or making a donation for their care should contact the Animal Control Officer at 876-2313 before 3 p.m. weekdays.

Due to imposition of City Ordinances, all animals may be kept a maximum of 10 days before euthanization

Call the Animal Control Officer at 417-876-2313 for information on animals currently available for adoption.