The long-term plan calls for a new water treatment plant and new wells along the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers. The $80 million first phase of the project, approved by the city council in October, will underwrite a system to pump floodwater from the Little Arkansas River during heavy rains. "Eventually we hope to be able to capture 100 million gallons of water a day from the Little Arkansas when it floods," says Jerry Blain, Wichita's superintendent of production and pumping.
The extra water will be stored in the underground Equus Beds aquifer, which will save the city the expense of having to build a new reservoir. The depletion of the aquifer's water due to heavy demand had created voids where salt settled and polluted the supply, but raising the water level should head off future salt contamination, according to Blain. Ultimately, the city hopes to store 65 billion gallons of water in the aquifer, an amount that should give Wichitans enough to drink through the year 2050.
The total cost of the plan, predicted to be about $130 million, will be spread out over several decades, and will be financed by a monthly $2 increase in residential water bills over the next 10 years.
