Water plant would enable growth

Proposal provides for additional 50,000 Lawrence residents

Within a decade, Lawrence would be able to absorb another 30,000 residents at the edges of town and another 20,000 people south of the Wakarusa River, under a plan floated Wednesday morning.

The proposal — an expansive project to build a new sewage treatment plant and install related equipment and pipes by 2011 — also would cost about $91 million.

“I think it’ll work,” said Sue Hack, a Lawrence city commissioner. “I think it’s a lot of money, but I’m not sure what our choice is — other than to stop growth altogether, and I don’t believe that’s the road we want to take.”

Hack joined her fellow city commissioners, Douglas County commissioners and Lawrence school board members for a meeting that included presentations about the city’s water and sewer needs.

The new plant would cost about $52 million and be built along the Wakarusa River, which runs south of Lawrence. To be open by 2011, commissioners need to hire engineers to start planning by early next year, officials said.

The plant site itself would be 80 acres to 140 acres, but its effect would be much more widespread. With a new plant, the city’s boundaries could reach across the river toward Baldwin, opening the door to thousands of new homes, businesses, schools and other development by 2025.

It also would allow Lawrence to grow and remain in the Lawrence school district, as some areas of northwest Lawrence already have extended out of the district’s boarders and into the Perry-Lecompton school district.

Austin Turney, president of the school board, said the new plant would go a long way toward stemming community division through “unregulated, undirected growth.” He welcomed the prospects of a new plant and the new residents it would draw into the district.

“This decision is vitally important to the school board,” Turney said.

Planners expect the area south of the river to be able to accommodate 20,000 new residents. The plant would soak up effluent from all of them, plus 30,000 residents in western Lawrence, including a few thousand who already live there.

“We want to set the right framework for future growth, and to be cost-effective for what we have now,” said Steve Phillips, of Black & Veatch, the Kansas City, Mo.-based engineering firm that is studying the issue for the city.

Matt Schultze, project manager for Black & Veatch, said building a plant along the Wakarusa River would cost anywhere from $4 million to $8 million less than it would cost to expand the city’s existing plant along the Kansas River.

Expanding the Kansas River plant would require installation of a complex and expensive set of new pipes, including some that could disturb residential neighborhoods and sensitive areas connected with Haskell Indian Nations University and the Baker Wetlands.

“That is a very big benefit,” Schultze said.

But pumping the additional sewage capacity into the area south of the river also will push elected officials to ponder prospects for tightening development restrictions in the area.

City and county commissioners next week are scheduled to review a recommendation to extend the southern boundary for Lawrence’s urban growth area from the Wakarusa River to North 900 Road.

The shift could require property owners in the area to secure building permits for projects, set aside some of their land for utilities and roads, and adhere to other regulations that could add to the cost of development.

Bob Johnson, chairman of the County Commission, said he considered the extension to be too broad. He favors making the southern boundary North 1000 Road.

City and county commissioners agreed Wednesday that they wouldn’t make any decisions about the growth area’s boundary until both commissions had a chance to meet again for another study session. No date has been set.