NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Board of County Commissioners discussed the Yoder and HABIT sewer combination project at length on Tuesday.
The board spent nearly an hour batting ideas back and forth, because they ended up being faced with two problems. The first is that the estimate for the work to combine the sewer districts doubled from $3 million to $6 million.
This caused chairman Daniel Friesen to ask if there is any appetite for the City of Hutchinson to add Yoder and HABIT's 250 customers to their system and whether that would even be viable.
Back when the project was originally considered, that idea was shut down by the then city manager, but Public Works Director Don Brittain said that was two city managers ago, so he doesn't know what they would think now.
The other piece is that the landowner who is selling the county ground on which to build the newer, larger lagoons wants their money sooner than originally thought and the commission needs to decide how to pay for that. That cost is $350,000. The commission has two options.
"One is ARPA, the other is temporary notes," said Friesen. "We can put them both on the agenda. You can put your recommendation on it in the agenda packet. We can debate it in two weeks."
The larger discussion between the city and the county is likely going to be combined with an already existing conversation the two groups were going to have next month anyway related to the water line needed to mitigate the nitrate problem in Yoder Water District 101.
"Commissioner Friesen and I are probably meeting with the Chamber and the city, hopefully on July 25," said County Administrator Randy Partington. "Hopefully, we can get the Mayor and the chair and the Chamber staff to discuss the water rates and water issue. That's what he was referring to in July."
The only reason the chamber is in that discussion is because the chamber would like to see the line built with enough capacity to allow for connection to a future industrial park south of South Hutchinson. The deal between the city and the county is already done, except for deciding how much they would charge for the water. That, again, is separate from the sewer question.
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