After turning off groundwater collection pumps and releasing millions of gallons of nitrogen-contaminated water into the Kansas River, the city has solved the immediate storage problems at the former Farmland plant.
The site’s collection pumps remain off, and since KDHE authorized the discharge in November, the city has released 32 million gallons of nitrogen water into the river, KDHE spokesman Jerry Kratochvil said in an email.
The city took on responsibility for handling the site’s cleanup, and Brandon McGuire, assistant to the city manager, said the city has been negotiating a contract with a consultant to work on a new remediation plan, which must be approved by KDHE.
He said the city has increased well monitoring to ensure nitrogen contaminated water doesn’t migrate off the property as a result of the pump shutdown.
Larsen said anytime there is a contaminant in the environment, there are always concerns about whether it will migrate and what the impact will be on interceptors such as private wells.
McGuire said the city will continue nitrogen water releases until April 1.
Increased monitoring notwithstanding, Larsen said the public’s strong reaction to the release of nitrogen water into the river is also valid.
However, city staff have said storage capacity at the site became a problem after improvements to the pumping system yielded increased water and nitrogen collection at the same time that farmers were using less water from the pipe.
“There’s new ideas out there,” Larsen said.
“…The goal obviously is to try to get the remediation done with as little additional funding as possible down the road.” The city took ownership of the former fertilizer plant in 2010 with the plan of using part of the 467-acre site for a new business park, VenturePark.