Final decision, or just another turning point?

And, so, once again, a decision has been reached about how McCook will attempt to solve the city's long-simmering water quality problem.

Faced with an eruption of objections from Frontier County landowners, Mayor Jerda Garey changed her vote Monday night. In s0 doing, she sided with Councilmen Phil Lyons and Jim Kenny in their belief that McCook should first explore the availability of safe additional water supplies to the south.

On the five-member council, that tipped the scales, reversing an earlier decision by the City Council to have engineers study the cost and availability of developing a water supply 14 miles north of McCook.

Despite the change in direction, two members of the council, Dick Trail and Jerry Reitz, remain strong in their conviction that the city needs to study the north field option. They fear that by going south -- which is where the city's current well field is located -- McCook is on the path to treatment, which they regard as a higher-priced option.

But, as the Concerned Citizens Committee has been asking all along, why not try the south option first? As shown by their signatures on a petition to stop the engineering study for the north wells, a large number of McCookites favor going south first. Why? Because, in the short term, it will cost less, and, in the longer term, it will buy the city time as it strives to comply with state and federal nitrate, arsenic and uranium limitations.

Why's that important? Because promising new technologies are being developed for the treatment of water. During the "Arsenic and The Old West" water quality conference in McCook last August, a professor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Dr. David Gosselin, talked about two of those techniques. One is to modify well pumping techniques, as has been done in Stratton. Another is to inject oxygenated water, as has been done in some Scandinavian countries.

Too far out for consideration? Not in the opinion of no less an authority than James B. Gulliford, Region 7 Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Gulliford, who is based in Kansas City and serves a wide area of the midwest, advised area mayors to adopt a go-slow approach, as he expects new technologies to emerge in the next few years.

Understandably, because of the intensity of their opinions, Trail and Reitz are upset by the city's change of direction. But, in this most tense of times in the city's life, we urge them to approach the south field option with open minds.

Let's see if the south approach will work. Let's look for safe, nearby well water which can be blended with the city's current wells to drop nitrate levels below the allowable limit. And, meantime, let's be looking at new technologies, seeing if any of them can help us comply with the much more stringent standards adopted by the EPA.

The final chapter in McCook's water story has not been written, but the decision to go south first could be a turning point. Yes, some of us are doubtful. But we'll never know for sure until we give the south approach a fair and full opportunity to prove itself.