City water project is continuing

While McCook's progress on a new water well field hasn't been in the news lately, City Manager John Bingham assures city residents the work is still going ahead.

Bingham told the Gazette on Thursday that the City Council has given him the authorization to represent the board in negotiations with land owners to discuss options for the use of the water on their property. In order to conduct the initial test hole and test well drilling the city must work out an agreement with landowners to locate on their property, he said

"The city is negotiating a fee to allow engineers on the site in order to gather the information they need," Bingham said. The negotiations will take the land off the market and allow for negotiations if the city identifies a satisfactory location.

According to the timeline presented to the council in April, land negotiations were to be completed in June, but even with the delays, Bingham said, once the negotiations are completed, the project should move forward quickly.

According to a mandate by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services the entire project must be completed and in operation by the end of 2006.

McCook City Councilman Phil Lyons said today a petition to rescind the contracts of Miller & Associates and W Design, engineers for the water project, should be completed by the first part of October. Lyons said the petition circulators have collected about half the needed signatures. "We haven't had many people say they didn't want to sign it," he said.

The deadline for gathering the signatures is Dec. 13. The referendum requires 1,100 signatures or 20 percent of registered voters within the city of McCook to be successful.