By Barbara Shoun
Contributing Writer
JEFFERSON CITY—Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia, was so disappointed with the failure of his bill to lighten the burden on rural church water wells that he is determined to present the legislation again in 2011. He’s getting help from the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC).
Cox’s proposed legislation, House Bill 1402 (HB 1402), would have reclassified the status of rural church wells for those churches that use less than 15,000 gallons of water per month and serve fewer than 100 people.
These churches currently come under “non-community, non-transient” public water systems. The new classification would have grouped them with “multifamily” users and would not have forced them to build expensive wells to comply with public water system requirements.
One church that is in the process of doing just that is Camp Branch Baptist Church at Sedalia. Their well is costing between $30,000 and $35,000. The church has raised only $25,000 so far.
“The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is a complaint-driven agency and they do investigate,” said Rob Ayers, pastor of the church. In the case of Camp Branch, a DNR employee was just passing by in 2007 and decided to see if the church was in compliance with regulations. It turned out that the well had a leaking casing which allowed ground water to seep in.
DNR determined that the church had to come under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safe Drinking Water Act.
As such, relining the casing would not be enough; the church needed a new well. Alternately, it could furnish bottled water for drinking and hand washing or it could have its water tested every month for about $100 a year.
“Currently, they (DNR) try to work with the water system in order to help churches become compliant. They have been gracious and allowed us an extension,” Ayers said.
His main concern is the administration in Washington, which is sensitive about the environment. He fears that the EPA will start pushing the state, and the DNR will be on every church doorstep.
Ayers took the issue to Cox, who wrote a bill in 2008, hoping to unburden small rural churches from complying with the stricter codes. It did not become law that year or the next.
The 2010 attempt was his third try at getting passage.
“The reason it didn’t pass had nothing to do with the bill itself,” Cox said, but with another bill to which it had been amended.
Cox had praise for MBC Lobbyist Kerry Messer, who championed the bill.
“Kerry was a very big help in the Senate, talking to some senators for me,” Cox said. “One thing he got done was a really great amendment.”
The amendment would have provided a grandfather clause for other churches and non-profits in similar circumstances.
Messer said no one has been able to give him a definitive answer as to why the bill didn’t pass. It had no opposition, but it wasn’t moving.
“We had great language,” he said. “During the third year, the department had come forward with language they agreed to have it pass. It would not have done enough for existing churches and would have helped new construction, but we wanted to strengthen the language to give a grandfather clause to existing structures as long as there is no contamination.
“We managed to get the language of that base bill added to three other pieces of legislation which were moving forward. However, two of those three bills did not pass for other unrelated reasons. The third bill came under such fire—not related to the church issue–that all amendments had to be stripped in order to salvage the base bill, which was important for Missouri.”
Messer said he is talking to House and Senate leadership about the dire need to make this issue a very high priority for 2011.
“In the meantime, Missouri churches and congregations have every right to question every candidate for political office as to whether they will actively support the religious liberties to rural churches,” he contended.
He would like to see DNR work out something on its own to give relief to the churches.
“This issue has never lost a single vote in committee or on the House or Senate floor, but when you put 197 lawmakers in one building and hundreds of lobbyists plus bureaucrats, all pushing for their personal priorities, oftentimes commonly-agreed issues can fall through the cracks,” he said.
“Under the rural church water wells issue, the base bill was simply squeezed out of contention because of emphasis put on higher priority items of the Legislature as a whole.
“The success of these amendments, in committee and otherwise, is thanks to the influence of Missouri Baptists communicating to legislators the need for this relief for our rural churches.”
David Tolliver, MBC executive director, is supportive of the effort to reclassify the churches.
“I think it would be more fair for them to be classified in a different category than restaurants,” Tolliver said.