CAPE GIRARDEAU (AP) — The Mississippi River is a big part of Cape Girardeau’s identity, but soon the Mighty Mississippi will no longer provide drinking water to the southeast Missouri community that sits along its banks.
Until 1977, the river was the sole provider of treatable drinking water for Cape Girardeau’s 18,000 water customers. That’s when AmerenUE, which operated the system until the city bought it in 1992, drilled its first wells.