Editorial

Are we finally out of the water tunnel

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

By the time we found out the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't an approaching train, a lot of the passengers had been switched onto another set of rails.

McCook has gone through a handful of city managers and a few dozen City Council members since we first found out that nitrates resulting from over-fertilization of cropland had left the city water supply unsafe to drink.

But it was up to the latest incarnation of those officials to finally put McCook's water quality problem to rest. We hope.

The final hurdle was cleared Monday night, when the council approved plans and specifications for a well to inject some of the wastewater from McCook's $14 million drinking water treatment plant into the ground, far below the source of the water that is pumped into the upstream end of the plant. That water contains arsenic, uranium and nitrates removed from our drinking water.

The rest of the wastewater, which is high in salt content, becomes part of the stream going to the city's sewage treatment plant.

McCook knew it had trouble with nitrates in its drinking water for years, but finally, in May 1988, levels were high enough to trigger a state order for the city to provide bottled water to infants.

The city received a $300,000 Community development Block Grant in 1988, and the search for alternate well sites began.

In December 1989, a plume of the industrial solvent, trichloroethylene, from the former TRW capacitor factory was discovered, contaminating a large area and moving toward one of the prime areas to be considered for a new wellfield.

In 1990, the council received an engineering report with four possible solutions, put out bids for a computerized system to blend low- and high-nitrate water to achieve acceptable levels. Horizontal collector wells were considered, then rejected as too costly.

The city applied for an extension on its CDBG grant, its first of six such requests.

The city brought two new wells south of the Republican River online in 1995, after water transfer and easement struggles with landowners for the pipeline bringing the water to McCook.

But by July 1997, the city was forced to issue water coupons again, as nitrates climbed above the acceptable 10 parts per million level.

In 1998, the city was found to have too much copper in its water supply, and the idea of a new well field eight miles north of McCook was advanced.

In 1999, the city bought the property -- the old McCook Army Air Base, for $2.7 million, but after an uproar over cost and possible contamination, tried to back out. Litigation followed, and the city was forced to follow through with the sale, leaving it with unwanted property it wound up selling for $2 million, nearly a $1 million loss after expenses, in 2003.

After an abortive attempt to bring in water from Frontier County -- adjoining landowners threatened to build feedlots near McCook's wells -- the city settled on the plan for more new wells south of the river and the treatment plant now in operation.

So, congratulations to the current city officials who seem to have put McCook's water woes to rest, for the time being, at least.

And to our fellow McCook taxpayers and water customers; our deepest sympathy.


A more complete timeline is available at http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1090353.html

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