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5.31.03 M.U.D. project gets go-ahead After years of work, the Metropolitan Utilities District board on Friday approved a series of contracts that will allow the utility to move forward with its new well field and water treatment plant. With the project under way, M.U.D. also lifted its moratorium on providing water to new developments on the western side of its service area. The well field will be along the Platte River in Douglas and Saunders Counties. The treatment plant will be built at 216th and Q Streets. In its first action at Friday's special meeting, the board ratified the signature of M.U.D.'s general manager on a permit agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The permit lays out the conditions that M.U.D. must meet to build the well field and water plant. The location of the well field had been challenged by Saunders County officials and some neighboring landowners. On Friday, Tom Wurtz, M.U.D.'s general manager, reiterated that the site provides the best water at the least cost for the growing metropolitan area. "The community over the next 50 years will really benefit," he said. Indeed, the community already is benefiting, Wurtz said. The board at its regular monthly meeting next week will vote on providing water to a new industrial park in Sarpy County. That vote probably wouldn't have been possible under the moratorium, he said. M.U.D. will incur costs in meeting the conditions laid out by the Corps, but no one will know for years what the full cost will be. The Corps of Engineers will monitor M.U.D.'s work to be sure that it doesn't create problems for the cleanup of the nearby Mead Superfund site, Ed Louis, project manager for the Corps' cleanup, told a group of Mead area residents Thursday night. "I can tell you that we're not going to budge on this," Louis said. "We're serious about this, and we don't want any impacts from what M.U.D. is doing." The federal government is spending about $130 million on the cleanup of the former munitions plant and missile site. The goal is to prevent contamination of the aquifer from spreading into wells that supply drinking water to area residents and, further away, the City of Lincoln. The aquifer is contaminated mostly with solvents and explosives. M.U.D. and federal officials agree that M.U.D.'s water supply is not at risk of contamination, as long as safeguards remain in place. On Friday, the M.U.D. board also approved a $2.7 million contract with the Warren family to buy about 157 acres and some additional easements at 216th and Q Streets for the new water plant. The per-acre cost comes to about $17,000. Appraisers for M.U.D. and the family came up with slightly lower and higher figures, respectively, and the two groups settled on that amount. Board member Tom Dowd questioned the price of the land. "Is farmland in Nebraska worth (that)?" he asked. "It's not farmland," board attorney Dan Crouchley said in response. The land's value was based on its highest and best use, which in this case is development. While no subdivisions currently surround it, Crouchley said, the land "is about as valuable as it gets for future development." Board member Jack Frost said he wished the district would have bought the land five years ago when M.U.D. first identified the site for its water plant. At that time, estimates placed the value at about $12,000 an acre. Wurtz said M.U.D. didn't buy the land at that time because it didn't have the federal permit and the Warren family wasn't ready to sell. The utility would have had to use eminent domain for what wasn't a guaranteed project, and that, he said, wouldn't have been neighborly. The board also approved a contract with HDR Inc. for the design of the project. The cost is not to exceed about $11.5 million, and Dowd questioned the $100-an-hour consulting fees in the agreement with HDR. The contract was not competitively bid. Kevin Tobin, who is managing the expansion for M.U.D., said the utility has verified that HDR's fees are comparable to what similar consultants charge. The design contract was not put out for bid because HDR already has intimate knowledge of the project through its existing work with M.U.D.. The wellfield and treatment plant are expected to take at least five years to design and build. The cost is expected to be about $300 million, and so far, M.U.D. has set aside about $120 million to pay for it. |
Conditions M.U.D. must meet to build plant: Pay $1.25 million to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to compensate for lost habitat needed by threatened and endangered species. Most of the money will be spent restoring a Missouri River backwater to improve habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon. Recognize that Lincoln has priority over Omaha for drawing water from the aquifer. Give preference to restoring in Saunders County wetlands lost there. M.U.D. had hoped to use land it already owns in Sarpy County. Compensate area landowners for lost water resources in accordance with Nebraska law. Continuously monitor Platte River levels at the well field. Pay for new monitoring wells at the nearby Mead Superfund site and pay for any costs incurred at the cleanup site as a result of M.U.D.'s activities. Decide ahead of time, in writing, what M.U.D. would do if its computer modeling or monitoring indicates an impact on the Mead cleanup. This could mean that M.U.D. would have to revise its use of the new well field. Or it could mean that M.U.D. would have to install additional wells designed to stop the movement of contaminated water. The utility must repair damage to the environment, compensate adjacent landowners appropriately for lost water and monitor for any impact to a nearby federal environmental cleanup. | |||