Posted on July 26, 2018
An assembly of Kansas Water Office, Westar Energy and Wolf Creek employees welcomed Gov. Jeff Colyer to John Redmond Reservoir Wednesday evening for an update presentation and tour of ongoing dredging projects.
The initial project began in 2007 when a study found water supply needs in the Neosho River Basin region could not be sustained during 1950s-like drought conditions. The construction of new reservoirs was considered, but dredging was ultimately decided — and continues to be viewed — as the most cost-effective and reasonable solution. Kansas Water Office Director Tracy Streeter said stabilization efforts to repair eroding stream banks were also ongoing.
“The prevention part of it is as important as the restoration of the lake,” Streeter said. “We’ve identified several hundred erosive sights on the Cottonwood and Neosho rivers starting immediately upstream of the dam and working way up past Emporia near Marion and Council Grove. We’ve completed about 35 of [these projects], but there are hundreds more to do. We’re seeing some really good benefits; in fact, we think we’re reducing the sedimentation to the tune of about 90-acre-feet a year.”
Sediment from the bottom of the reservoir and a growing number of surrounding rivers, creeks and streams has been dredged and pumped through more than 30,000 feet of pipe in an effort to increase the storage capacity of the lake and ensure an adequate water supply — much of which is used for cooling processes at the nearby Wolf Creek Nuclear Facility in Burlington. Once removed from the lake, the waste is stored in disposal facilities on U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers land and private property. As of Oct. 2016, more than 3,000,000 cubic yards of sediment has been removed from the reservoir.
Streeter said a possibility remained that the Corp. of Engineers would help support additional projects — such as a second round of dredging at the reservoir — in order to make agricultural use of the sediment in the near future.
“Really though, the name of the game here is to get through a multi-year drought and keep Wolf Creek’s cooling lake full through at least 2045,” Streeter said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
After a briefing at the reservoir offices, Colyer was invited for a firsthand look at a nearby dredging project. In the middle of a ruckus created by heavy machinery, he took a moment to speak on the importance of the reservoir to the state as a whole.
“[John Redmond Reservoir] serves as an example of how we can reclaim our lakes and reservoirs and get more water storage,” Colyer said. “This is the first project of its kind here in the United States. The head of the Army Corps. of Engineers, [Thomas] Bostick, who is a friend of mine — we had been White House Fellows about a year or so apart — he helped in what was really a unique federal-state partnership to get this done.”
If re-elected, Colyer said he would plan to use the John Redmond Reservoir as an example of forward-thinking solutions to the state’s water crisis.
“We’ve got to keep up and we need to keep working on our water situation across the state,” Colyer said. “This was [a project] where we worked collaboratively with the community, the utilities and everyone involved. Each of these are a little bit different sorts of projects, but they’re something that will be important for our infrastructure for the next 50 years or so.
“I’ve taken this project and visited with the White House about it specifically as an example for the projects which may be in the White House’s [proposed] $1 trillion infrastructure plan. This is one of those things that we need to do, and this would be a great way of being a partner with the federal government if and when that project comes down.
Source: The Emporia Gazette
