Water matters are at the forefront for Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and the Kansas Legislature recently, and the Kansas Water Office has approved significant grant funding for a quartet of area communities.
Harveyville is receiving almost $1.3 million from the Water Projects Grant Fund to handle a long-sought set of improvements. Mayor Dustin Kuntz says this actually dates back to a water distribution system rebuild in the 1990s, where the system relied on 8-inch lines for fire protection but then needed lots of flushing due to water quality issues. Eventually, the system — while it never delivered unsafe water, according to Kuntz — went noncompliant with federal regulations. The most economical solution at the time was to pump water from Melvern Lake to Osage City and Burlingame before getting to Harveyville, but Kuntz says the water tower has been the last component to load once the water gets to town instead of the first. The Water Project funding changes that approach, taking out a lot of “dead water” in the process.
Kuntz also says this follows a $75,000 state Technical Assistance Grant approved last year, which allowed for the design work. Harveyville applied unsuccessfully for a Water Projects grant last year but resubmitted successfully for this year’s cycle.
Separately:
*Hamilton gets a nearly $470,000 Water Projects grant.
*Hartford gets a $68,000 Technical Assistance grant for design work to reroute the main sewer line out from underneath the levee near town, which is US Army Corps of Engineers property. This connects to a $400,000 state loan previously approved.
*LeRoy gets a $102,000 Technical Assistance grant.
Details for the Hamilton and LeRoy projects have not been announced.
These projects are part of around $26 million in state funds for water projects, following $18 million in grant funding from the state as part of the first year of funds through the Senate Substitute for House Bill 2302 announced last year.
