By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. — The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has ordered the city of Baxter Springs to stop polluting Spring River.
The city has hired an environmental engineer to study the problem, said Mayor Huey York.
The sewage lagoon east of Spring River on the eastern edge of town has been the source of complaints about odors for several years.
The administrative order from the KDHE tells the city to find solutions to problems with its lagoon that are causing partially untreated sewage to be discharged into Spring River. An odor problem is another byproduct of the situation.
The order notes that the lagoon exceeded biochemical oxygen demand limits on May 17, 2006; July 19, 2006; Oct. 25, 2006; Dec. 20, 2006; Jan. 25, 2007; and April 25, 2007.
“The city of Baxter Springs has violated terms and conditions of the permit by failing to comply with biochemical oxygen demand limitations in the permit, thereby continuing to discharge partially treated wastewater containing concentrations of pollutants into waters of the state as is causing or likely will cause such waters to be harmful, detrimental or injurious to the aquatic life of the state,” reads the KDHE order.
“The problem is the governing body’s No. 1 priority,” York said Thursday in an interview at City Hall. “It’s going to take time to make certain that what we do is a cure and not a Band-Aid like what we’ve done in the past.”
Even so, York downplayed the pollution aspect of the order and referred to the situation only as an odor problem.
York said the city hired an engineer to study the problem in May, before the KDHE issued its order earlier this month. The engineering study is one requirement of the order.
The KDHE had received complaints from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality about the water flowing into Spring River from the sewage lagoon, the order notes. In a letter to the Oklahoma agency, the KDHE said the lagoon had experienced a number of “operational upsets” that apparently were caused by a local food processor.
The order gives the city three options:
n Building a mechanical sewage-treatment plant.
n Adding a pretreatment system at the sewage lagoon.
n Requiring any industry discharging high amounts of waste to treat the waste before it enters the city’s system.
York said a mechanical treatment plant is too costly to build and operate. He also said that adding a pretreatment system at the lagoon is not a good solution.
“It’s not fair for the taxpayers to pay for something that is somebody else’s responsibility,” York said.
York was asked if food processor Orval Kent was responsible for overburdening the system.
“They’re a major industrial user,” he said. “Until we get a final report (from the engineer), we really can’t address any particular user of the wastewater-treatment system.”
He said the report is expected to be complete by the end of the month.
York said the city would work with an industry in pretreating its waste, as long as there is no financial obligation to the taxpayers.
“We hope people have patience with us, and understanding,” York said.
Ineffective spending
Baxter Spring Mayor Huey York said the city in the past has used chemicals in unsuccessful attempts to reduce the odors at the sewage lagoon, spending $65,000 on chemicals last year.
Local News
<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/extra.gif" border=0>State agency orders Baxter Springs to resolve problems at sewage lagoon<font color="#ff0000"> w/ KDHE administrative order and Mayor's letter</font>
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