City Officials Ask for Lower Water Quality Standards

Officials in Kansas City, Mo., fear that even if the city invests $3 billion in stopping sewer overflows, stretches of local streams will continue to vilate state standards. City council members, then, have proposed a plan asking that state water quality standards for portions of the Blue River and its tributaries be lowered.

"Environmental stewardship is one of our main goals, but you want to be smart about it," said Councilwoman Jan Marcason, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "Do we care if people swim in Brush Creek, or could it just be an amenity? At some point, it just doesn't become cost-effective to do that."

Ken Midkiff, a clean water adovcate and author who has been involved with Missouri water quality issues for decades, said bringing the system up to swimmable standards, while costly, is necessary. "No doubt it would be very expensive," he said. "That is always the case." But, he added, the Blue River has been categorized as swimmable for years, and people who use it need to be protected.

The federal government has ordered that Kansas City officials fix the city's aging sewer and storm water systems to curb stream pollution. The city's water services department must submit a conceptual plan to federal and state governments by month's end for what could be the largest project in city history. A more complete plan would need to be completed by summer 2008.

A draft of the conceptual plan has been passed on to city council, which could approve the draft as early as Thursday. This conceptual plan shows just how difficult the project would be; proposed improvements include separating storm water and sewer systems in a 56-sq mile area in south Kansas City bounded by the state line on the west, 85th Street on the south, the Blue River on the east and the Missouri River on the north.

The project focuses on pollution in the Blue River and its tributaries as well as the Missouri and Kansas rivers; E. coli and coliform are of the utmost concern, as studies have shown these fecal pollution indicators to be present in levels 1,000 to 30,000 times greater that state rules permit, particularly after rainstorms.

Combined sewer overflows to the Blue River and its tributaries occur approximately 50 times a year, and overflows to the Missouri and Kansas rivers happen about 70 times a year, said Terry Leeds, a water department manager. Leeds noted that 92 locations in the combined sewer area are prone to these overflows.

The draft plan aims to reduce the overflows to about 12 a year at a cost of $3 billion. "Higher levels of control would cost substantially more and would provide little or no improvement in water quality," Leeds said.

While the state now requires that streams generally be clean enough to swim in, Kansas City officials are now fighting for those standards to drop to protecting boaters and fisherman. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources would have the final say in approving such an alteration. State officials said approval is possible but that the city will need to provide convincing scientific evidence.

"A lot of problems we are having are because of upstream water," said Councilman Ed Ford, chairman of the infrastructure committee. "I don't know what we can legally do to our Johnson County friends if we don't get some help in addressing this issue."

Source: The Kansas City Star