ORANGE CONE ALERT: Contractors sealing main street starting early (5:30 am) tomorrow morning. Plan to find alternate routes
The construction of the Nano-Filtration Water Treatment Plant north of town is near completion. Construction started in late April of 2012 and the plant was scheduled to be online in April 2013.
While the plant construction has gone smoothly the most time consuming issue
Panoramic View of the Nano-Filtration Units in the Water Treatment Plant.
for the City has been the Underground Injection Control (UIC) Well that will dispose of the rejected water and material from the Nano-Filtration Water Treatment Plant. The UIC Well has commonly been referred to as the “Deep Well” or “Injection Well” and is for disposal only. The well bottom is over 6,000 ft. deep and this carries all of the uranium, nitrates, hardness, and other minerals concentrated in water several thousand feet below the water bearing layers of the earth for disposal.
While there are many injection wells in Kansas, the well in Lakin is the first Class V Non-Hazardous UIC Well in the state. Drilling of the well was completed in July of 2012. The KDHE process to approve completion steps to bring the well into service took much longer than expected. In April 2013 we received final instructions and approval from KDHE to complete the UIC Well; this included some additional work to satisfy KDHE requirements.
The connection of the plant discharge to the Injection Well will be complete this week. Additional testing with water will be conducted to determine that the well is functioning as required. The contractors and engineers will then submit their test data to KDHE and await a final approval letter allowing us to discharge waste into the well. KDHE may take a month or longer to review and approve use of the well.
The City has been working on this project to address the high levels of Uranium in our water since 2007. We are looking forward to getting this plant online and improving the quality and safety of your drinking water supply. We will keep you updated as to our official startup date and will have more articles explaining how we plan to work with our water customers during the startup process.
The City of Lakin received a $500 donation from the Midwest Energy Community Fund to be used toward the playground improvements currently underway in Thornbrough Park. City crews continue working to complete the installation of the equipment and the improvements will be complete and the mulch base will be installed in approximately 3 weeks.
The Midwest Energy Community Fund accepts applications from local groups two times per year. Applications are due March 1 and September 1 each year. For more information refer to Midwest Energy’s website, www.mwenergy.com.
The Meeting will be April 3, 2013 @ 5:30 p.m. at the Lakin Administrative Center 121 N. Main.
There will be a special council meeting to approve the second ammendment of the Revolving Loan Agreement between the City of Lakin, Kansas and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Proceeds from the loan amendment will be used to complete the UIC Injection Well that will dispose of waste products from the Lakin Water Treatment Plant.
There will be a scheduled power outage March 26, 2013 (Tuesday) starting at 12:01 AM. The outage is expected to last two hours (12:01 A.M. — 2:01 A.M.)
The outage is required to allow us to install new electric metering equipment that is required by Sunflower Electric and Wheatland Electric to comply with Southwest Power Pool (SPP) rules. The SPP is our regional transmission authority.
We also understand that Wheatland Electric will re-energize the Fletcher substation during this outage. This was attempted a few weeks ago and caused a brief city wide outage during that attempt.
We also ask that you spread the word of this outage to your neighbors. We have published information about this outage in the Lakin Independent, online, and on Cable Channel 10, as well.
While any outage is an inconvenience, this time frame was chosen to minimize disruption to businesses, healthcare facilities, schools and homes. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Tag your animal tagged before March 1st! Save yourself money on tags and court fines by register now! See us at the City Office.
It has been over 42 weeks since construction started on the water treatment plant. We are getting a pretty clear picture of what the plant will look like after completion. The major concrete work is in its final phase with the impending completion of the round above ground storage tank on the north side of the construction site. The interior of the building now has all of the filtration units in their locations and crews are finalizing the piping and electrical services.
There are still a lot of small details to be completed such as the control systems, and disinfection systems. Despite the impressive amount of work done since the New Year, those little “punch list” items will require a lot of attention.
The biggest item still waiting is the completion of the Underground Injection Control Well (aka Deep Injection Well) this is where all the material removed from the drinking water will go after it is processed. We must await final regulatory approval before we can complete that portion of the project. It has been interesting to us that the injection well was the first item started on the project and it will likely be one of the last completed.
We have used all of our loan funding ($4.3 million) and are now just starting to use grant funds ($2.2 million). When we closed on the loan in December our interest rate was set at 2.75% which is lower than the 3.5% interest rate we anticipated. This will effect the amount of revenue required to service the debt and we are passing this information on to our consultant who has been assisting us with our water rates.
When we get closer to completion we will post photos and more information about the project.
