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4.25.02 Water plant is a necessity Omaha needs the Platte West water treatment plant that M.U.D. has been planning for decades. It needs the water to keep on growing. It needs the water to keep taps flowing all summer. It needs the water to make sure the city isn't vulnerable to terrorists who might try to attack the Florence water plant. The Platte West plant has been planned for decades. It's important -- not only to this community, which is the hub of economic development and prosperity in the immediate area, but also to all Nebraska. Metropolitan Utilities District officials have said they're confident they'll be able to get construction going soon. They need approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, which has agreed that the site offers the best-quality water at the lowest cost for the Omaha metro area. The corps, which will issue a final decision this fall, has environmental concerns that shouldn't be minimized. The project, about 25 miles from the point where the Platte meets the Missouri, might harm the endangered pallid sturgeon. But it wouldn't eliminate the fish. There are also wetlands that would be lost or affected by the wellfield proposed by Omaha. Some property owners could find the levels of their wells or ponds lowered. Still, Omaha needs this. And Thomas Wurtz, general manager of the utility, says he's committed to working out any and all problems. M.U.D. will compensate property owners. It will spend $1 million to improve habitat for the pallid sturgeon. It will spend even more to create or improve wetlands to replace any damaged by the new plant. Wurtz is candid about what will happen should M.U.D. have to start again from scratch: potentially painful limitations on growth. If the corps for some reason denies permission to build Platte West, despite all that M.U.D. is willing to do, a new plant would be at least another 10 years in the future, with no certainty that it wouldn't face similar problems. The capacity of the two existing plants is barely adequate to keep up with existing usage. M.U.D. is already preparing to ask customers to voluntarily conserve water this summer. The longer the delay in building the new plant, the more likely shortages become. The corps has some legitimate concerns about environmental conditions that might be affected by the water plant. M.U.D. is willing to address them. That sounds like a good foundation on which to build a consensus. |
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