Planned flood control project may be in danger

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The future of a $92 million dollar flood-control project is in doubt after some Kansas City, Kan., officials said that city might pull out of the venture.

A year ago, Kansas City, Kan., agreed to spend $12 million over several years as its share of a project designed to protect businesses that suffer chronic flooding from Turkey Creek.

Kansas City, Mo., agreed to spend $23 million on the project and the Army Corps of Engineers would pay $57 million.

But during a June 12 budget meeting, some members of the Unified Board of Commissioners of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., questioned why the city should support the project when it appeared that recent improvements to Turkey Creek's channel along Interstate 35 caused the flooding.

Those questions prompted Mayor Joe Reardon to call for a vote on the issue.

So far, the Unified Government has recommended spending $1 million to $1.5 million annually on the project between now and 2011.

One of the critics, Nathan Barnes, questioned why Kansas City, Kan., is funding a project that helps downstream when Kansas City, Mo., has not addressed odor from a wastewater treatment plant on the state line.

However, Kansas City, Mo., has recently finished a project designed to reduce odor at its treatment plant, which is on the Missouri River adjacent to a Kansas City, Kan., treatment facility, said Colleen Newman, public information officer for Kansas City Water Services.

"I wouldn't say there's no odor," Newman said. "But we have worked on it. It is a sewage treatment plant. I don't think, typically, any of them are odorless."

Unified Government commissioner Pat Huggins Pettey was among those on the board supporting the project.

"If we don't follow their recommendation and anything happens, it won't be the corps that's held responsible," Pettey said. "We will be the ones who will bear the burden."

The corps has said that when the project is completed, it will provide protection from a 100-year flood event.