Member Spotlight – Board of Public Utilities
Chamber Connection attendees took shelter from the cold wind in the Board of Public Utilities’ water treatment facility at 1129 W. Avenue A October 31st to learn about the South Well Field Project.
Faced with future declining water supplies, McPherson stakeholders acted proactively, and leadership at BPU vetted out several water sources to determine which would provide the best long-term solution. Approximately 10 years ago, property was purchased 18 miles south of McPherson. That area is now referred to as the South Well Field (SWF) and is in a sustainable portion of the Equus Beds region of the High Plains Aquifer.
The water rights were then secured, engineers were hired to design the project, and construction began around 2020. Three new wells were dug on the property, and 20 miles of 20-inch pipe were laid to deliver the water to the new treatment facility.
The SWF water is higher in iron and manganese than the other water McPherson uses. Because of that, the water requires a different treatment process through what’s called a green sand filtration vessel that brings the iron and manganese down to acceptable levels before it mixes with the other water. The Avenue A treatment facility can process about four million gallons of water per day.
The SWF Project is a project with the future of McPherson in mind.
“It really is a project for future generations,” said BPU’s general manager Josh Bedel. “We didn’t have an immediate need, but we definitely had a future need like every other community in Kansas. So while other communities are saying they’re going to run out of water in 25, 50 years, we don’t have that problem.”
