NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson City Council on Tuesday approved the City of Hutchinson's application for $350,000 from the Kansas Public Water Supply Loan Fund.
This project will develop a water service line inventory and water service replacement plan as required by the new lead and copper rule revisions mandated by the federal government.
"Really, the changes are due to the issues that they had in Flint, Michigan, with some lead in their water," said Public Works Director Brian Clennan. "The primary goal of these revisions is to protect public health, and especially, child development."
Tasks include, but are not limited to:
Data review of historical records to assist in identifying service line material, strategic field verification of service lines, GIS/Webpage development, a public notification campaign, the completion of KDHE service line inventory spreadsheet and the development of a water service replacement plan. The city already treats the water through its reverse osmosis system to be sure the Ph is correct so that if lead exists in the system, it does not leach into the water. Flint, Michigan did not use such a system.
"That inventory is kind of the base foundation," Clennan said. "We've got to know how big the issue is."
The loan has a 20 year repayment and would identify which, if any, of the city's in service lines contain lead or copper. Also, because of the poverty level in the community, 49% of the loan is forgivable.
The city is also going to need help from homeowners to know what the line going into the house is made of, because the federal government is asking cities to make a plan for replacement of all the lead they find, whether it is on their side of the meter or the homeowner's.
KDHE is asking for several items in a report that is due to them next year.
"Of course, the water main material, the service line material on both the public and private side, the size of the service line," Clennan said. "They want to know if the public service line has ever been lead. We may have replaced our public side service line 30 years ago. It's either copper, maybe it's plastic. What was it before we replaced it? It's records research. Hopefully, we've got some information. We might not and that becomes an issue. We also are going to try to collect what the plumbing material is inside each home and the year that plumbing was installed. All of this information is due to KDHE on October 16, 2024. The city has approximately 16,500 services to collect this information on."
The city will be hiring a consultant to do all of this work, which is what the loan funding is for. The motion passed unanimously.
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