JM BARCUS: THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Area utilities are spending millions to cope with low water levels on the Missouri River, and the problem has affected the river's tributaries. Johnson County Water District No. 1 is building a $15 million weir - a low dam - on the Kansas River.

Costs mount as river erodes

Experts say expensive measures

are needed to offset the effects of

channel cutting on the Missouri.

By BILL GRAHAM

The Kansas City Star

Area utilities are spending millions of dollars, and pondering more, to ensure plentiful water supplies because of troubling changes in Missouri River levels.

Experts say those costs - passed to ratepayers and taxpayers - will rise far higher if engineers cannot fix the river-channel erosion, which is unique to the Kansas City area

"I dare say it's become severe and needs to be addressed," said John Grotehaus, the planning chief for the Army Corps of Engineers in Kansas City. "There are places where it's getting close to the foundation of levees."

What's more, this erosion could threaten costly infrastructure such as bridge piers and drain pipes, he said.

For several years utilities that provide drinking water have kept emergency pumps on standby. They did so because low winter flows, combined with the channel cutting, almost dipped the water below acceptable levels at intakes.

But more expensive projects are on tap because neither the seven-year drought in the Missouri River basin nor the downward channel cutting shows any signs of ending.

Kansas City is considering spending up to $60 million on wells and a remodeled water intake in the river, where the Big Muddy begins its journey to your sink. A Johnson County water district is erecting a low dam - known as a weir - to protect its intakes along the Kansas River.

A levee and a wharf area in Kansas City, Kan., are among the places where the river is making channel cuts that make engineers nervous, Grotehaus said.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in October asked the corps to "evaluate the cause of channel degradation and present a reasonable solution."

But the forces that shape the river's nature are so variable, powerful and complex; engineers say they are unsure how to fix the problem.

"If we rush to judgment on what the problem is, make long-term commitments, and it's a huge blunder, we would have lost a lot of time and money," Grotehaus said.

The corps for several years has been unable to get lawmakers in Washington to approve a budget request for a hydrology study costing $2.5 million or more.

Engineers say that without the study, they won't know exactly how channel structure, water flows and sediment disturbance work together to cause the riverbed erosion.

The river's bottom levels are stable elsewhere from Omaha, Neb., to St. Louis.

But from Parkville through Kansas City - where the region's two most important intakes for drinking water are located – the river has dropped 10 feet or more since World War II. That fact, combined with low flows, has kept water levels barely above the intakes.

Even tributaries are affected by the erosion and low water. The corps is helping Parkville with a $2 million stream-bed and bridge stabilization project in English Landing Park.

Channel cutting is creeping up the Kansas River from the Missouri, too.

Johnson County Water District No. 1 is building a $15 million weir on the on the Kansas River for two purposes, Production Director Tom Schrempp said.

The weir will ensure water depth at an intake during low flows, but it also will provide a barrier to stream-bed erosion that is moving upstream toward the intake. The Kansas River is cutting down to the level of the dropping Missouri.

Yet, the water district’s most critical intake for adequate summer volume is on the Missouri River where the worst channel scouring is occurring.

Mother Nature someday will help solve current problems by ending the drought, officials hope. So utilities want the corps to halt channel erosion so investments are not wasted.

The Kansas City Water Services Department can’t wait any longer for nature or the corps, Director Frank Pogge said.

Water officials have sought engineering bids for modifying the city’s intake in the river and adding more backup wells to deal with low water.

“We’ve got to have the ability to provide water”, Pogge said.

Said Schrempp: “We hope the can identify measures that will slow, eliminate or reverse it…Because if the degradation continues, even our low water pumps won’t be enough to get the water out.”

To reach Bill Graham, call

(816) 234-5906 or send e-mail

to bgraham@kcstar.com