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Can the public trust Kansas City leaders to implement green solutions such as green roofs and rain gardens into the overhaul of the city’s massive sewer system?
Or should green solutions be part of a federally mandated plan to fix the sewers?
That was a major concern raised in a discussion by the Kansas City Council this week as the city’s Water Services Department unveiled the long-awaited draft sewer plan.
Since 2003, the city has been working on a sewer-control plan to stop the overflow of raw sewage into streams. The federal government has ordered the city to submit a plan by July.
Council member Ed Ford wanted to know why only a fraction of spending for the plan includes green solutions to eliminate storm water before it gets into the system, while more than $2 billion is for “gray solutions,” or infrastructure such as pipes, tunnels and concrete.
“We want to incorporate green,” said John Franklin, acting water services director. “This plan is only one slice of the larger spectrum.”
The sewer control plan covers a $2.3 billion overhaul of the sewer system that would include building three tunnels that are almost 20 miles long to store wastewater, especially during rainstorms.
Separately, the city is putting together a $1.8 billion storm-water project that would use rain barrels, permeable pavements and other green solutions to try to eliminate or at least slow down rainwater and keep it out of the sewer system.
But only the sewer-control plan, not the storm-water plan, is mandated by the federal government. The Environmental Protection Agency probably will force the city to enter into a consent decree sometime after the sewer-control plan is submitted to allow a federal judge to oversee it and ensure that it is completed, city officials said.
Since the storm-water protection plan is not mandated, there is no reason to include it in the sewer-control plan, Councilwoman Jan Marcason and others said at Thursday’s meeting.
“Most communities try to limit the scope of the plan that is submitted to the federal government,” said Paul Calamita of AquaLaw in Washington, D.C., who was hired by the city to represent it in the consent decree negotiations with the EPA and the Justice Department.
But some council members think the two plans should be combined, noting the city’s bad track record when it comes to implementing green solutions in projects. For example, when the Sprint Center was proposed, the City Council at the time said it would be built to national green standards. But to save money, those standards were not used.
“People don’t believe this will happen,” Franklin responded. “I can’t blame them. Until this council came along, you didn’t hear much about green.”
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver also weighed in Thursday in a letter to the mayor and City Council. Cleaver said that it was “critically important” that the city adopt a sewer-control plan that uses green infrastructure as aggressively as possible.
He noted that this is the largest capital project ever taken on by the city and gives it a “rare opportunity to catapult this city forward in what has become a race among cities to become green.”
“A plan that is too timid now will be considered disgraceful in twenty-five years when it has been fully implemented,” Cleaver wrote. “This is our opportunity to be bold, forward-thinking and cost saving.”
Council members also raised concerns about how the city would pay for the sewer project. A task force has been working for months to determine how to raise the money.
Council members said the city should lobby the federal government for additional funding.
“This is not going to be fun,” Mayor Mark Funkhouser said. “This is not going to be easy. We have to pursue as aggressively as we can federal funding.”
■ 7 p.m. Thursday at Golden Oaks Education Center, 3100 N.E. 46th St.
■ 7 p.m. May 22 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church Legacy Center, 815 E. Meyer Blvd.
■ 7 p.m. May 28 at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St.
The draft overflow control plan summary can be found at www.kcmo.org/ wetweather.
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