Plans for a sand-dredging operation in the floodplain beside the Kansas River north of Eudora will be up for approval Wednesday night by the Douglas County Commission.

Kaw Valley Companies Inc., based in Kansas City, Kan., wants to establish a Kaw Valley Eudora Sand Facility on 197 acres at 2102 North 1500 Road.

The company has applied for a conditional use permit to establish and operate the plant, a project opposed by residents living along roads that would lead up to the plant and by the city of Eudora.

The city contends that the operation would go against Eudora’s comprehensive land-use plan and threaten the quality of the city’s drinking water because of the proposed sand pit’s proximity to the city’s municipal water wells.

County commissioners will have three options to consider when they take up the issue during their meeting, which begins at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday at the Douglas County Courthouse, 11th and Massachusetts streets:

• Approve the permit, which would clear the way for the operation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently approved its permit to allow for removal of sand at the site, but the entire operation could not move forward without the county’s conditional-use permit.

• Reject the county’s permit, following the recommendation of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission. Planning commissioners recommended denial of the permit back in April, on a 7-1-1 vote.

• Send the issue back to the planning commission in the form of a new, revised plan, as suggested by Kaw Valley itself. The company wants the planning commission to “start over” by reviewing a revised plan. What, exactly, the new plan would include remains undetermined at this point, said Sandy Day, a city-county planner on the project.

Owners of adjacent properties have filed a petition opposing the project, seeking to force Kaw Valley to receive a unanimous vote — not a simply a 2-1 majority — to get a permit. But such petitions are invalid in such quarry cases, Day said, leaving the majority rule intact.

No matter what happens, she said, representatives on both sides of the issue remain opposed.

“What it really points out is there’s a need for this resource, yet any location is probably going to be challenged,” Day said Monday. “As a community, we’re going to have to look at where we are going to allow these things. That’s a policy question.”