TOPEKA ? The city of Topeka has agreed to pay a $10,000 civil penalty as part of a consent agreement with state environmental regulators for spilling 3 million gallons of raw sewage into the Kansas River earlier in April.

It has also agreed to make sure downstream water users, including the city of Lawrence, are notified within 24 hours if similar incidents happen in the future.

But Bob Sample, Topeka’s Water Pollution Control Director, would not comment on why it took Topeka officials nearly three days to notify the city of Lawrence, which uses the Kansas River as one of its public water supply sources.

“It’s one of those things that we’ve taken lots of corrections since that happened,” Sample said during a news conference Wednesday. “I actually went down and met with Lawrence and their staff, and that’s one of those corrections that we’ve put into place.”

The spill began around 1 p.m. on a Friday, April 24, and lasted through Sunday, the 26th. During that time, approximately 3 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the river.

Topeka officials said it was caused by a power failure, coupled with a failure in an “Uninterruptable Power Supply,” a kind of battery backup system. That, in turn, caused the failure of a computer system that communicates with the pump stations and allows for remote monitoring.

As a result, the spillage went undetected through the weekend. Neither the Kansas Department of Health and Environment nor the city of Lawrence were notified of it until Monday, April 27.

Lawrence officials said at the time that the city’s normal water treatment process would have prevented contamination from getting into the city’s tap water. As a precaution, though, the city suspended taking water from the river and switched to its other intake system at Clinton Lake.

“We will pay the fine and move on from this incident,” said Doug Gerber, Topeka’s deputy city manager.

Gerber noted that while Topeka has agreed to make prompt notification whenever it spills sewage into the river, the same is not true for other cities upstream from Topeka, which also discharge wastewater into the river. Traditionally, he said, notifications were made as a matter of courtesy, not a regulatory requirement.

In addition to the fine and notification requirement, the consent agreement also calls on Topeka to:

• Repair and upgrade its monitoring system and backup power controls at the pump stations.

• Test those systems at all wastewater treatment works authorized by the city’s permit.

• Conduct monthly testing of all secondary and backup systems for 12 months.

— Statehouse Peter Hancock can be reached at (785) 354-4222. Email him at phancock@ljworld.com.