photo by: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District/Contributed Photo

Since May, the Kansas National Guard has delivered 1.3 million gallons of water to Lakeside Village, where the community’s water well pumps remain submerged from flooding at Perry Lake.

Updated at 8:49 a.m. Thursday, July 25

Since May, the Kansas National Guard has delivered 1.3 million gallons of water to Lakeside Village, where the community’s water well pumps remain submerged from flooding at Perry Lake.

The water hauling mission could last until the middle of September, said Jerry White, president of the Lakeside Village Improvement District in Jefferson County. Perry Lake, which is about 1 mile from the Lakeside Village community building, has been flooded since May.

On Wednesday morning, the lake was 911.39 feet above sea level, which was still 19.89 feet above its norm, according to Jason Hurley, park manager for Perry Lake. The lake level must recede enough to uncover the water well pumps so that they can be repaired.

Six guardsmen, using three trucks, continue hauling 40,000 gallons of water a day to the residents in the 150 homes that make up the community, according to Jane Welch, acting director of public affairs with the Adjutant General’s Department in Topeka.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been releasing 5,000 cubic feet of water per second, which had been dropping the lake’s level about 4 inches a day, Hurley said. However, heavy rain north of Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday caused the Missouri River to rise and forced them to stop.

“We shut down the releases because our outflows are dictated by what is happening on the Missouri River,” Hurley said. Releases should start again in a few days.

Throughout June, the National Guard was hauling the water from Lecompton. However, that caused water pressure issues, said Shad Howbert, general manager of Douglas County Rural Water District No. 3. Currently, the water is coming from the Kanwaka Township Fire Department, 548 North 1700 Road, which is 20 miles south of Lakeside Village.

Howbert said a larger water main was allowing the trucks to fill faster and without causing pressure issues. He said they planned to supply the water until the lake level dropped enough to fix the pumps.

This is not the first time the two water well pumps, situated at a low elevation, have been flooded.

“When the lake level rises up, that inundates the pumps and makes them unusable,” Hurley said, but usually the water level rises and recedes quickly.

“This year has been unique with the continued rain and high flows on the Missouri River,” Hurley said.

This time the two pumps began experiencing problems during heavy rains at the end of April. By May they quit working.

“We think they lost electrical power. But it’s hard to know when they are 20 feet underwater,” White, with Lakeside Village, said.

Because Jefferson County was included in the emergency federal disaster declaration from President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been taking care of the expense of hauling the water, White said.

“The National Guard has been doing a great job. The trucks pull in at 8 a.m. and run until 5 p.m. every day but Sunday,” White said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the lake level on Wednesday morning.