By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
When the heavy rains hit many parts of Kansas, including Great Bend, in late May, the City of Great Bend saw a lot of pressure fall upon their wastewater treatment plant.
The system is designed to handle 3.64 million gallons of water per day, but was flooded with 8 million gallons each day during a few-week stretch. Great Bend used a couple of basins to store the excess water so the system could catch up with depolluting the water and discharging it to the Arkansas River.
City Administrator Kendal Francis was asked at this week’s Great Bend City Council meeting if there were any repercussions from the large amount of water coming through the plant.
"The Kansas Department of Health and Environment was notified immediately once we exceeded our maximum," said Francis. "We do have some bypass capabilities. KDHE knew once we had to start bypassing things and pump straight over the levy."
There are 21 lift stations and Francis added several were stressed during the spring flooding but held up for the most part.
After completing a large water line replacement project, there will need to be a focus on repairing sanitary and storm sewer lines in the future.
"Both of those are aging systems," said Francis. "We will start to see some of those repairs happening in the next year to two."
There are 76 miles of sanitary sewer lines and 38 miles of storm sewer lines throughout Great Bend.