HOISINGTON — The Hoisington City Council learned at its regular meeting that the wastewater lagoon project will be temporarily placed on hold. Hoisington’s lagoons were found to be short circuiting and improperly functioning last year.
The city has been seeking surveys regarding such information as income levels in order to qualify for a Department of Commerce block grant that will help defray the expected $1.5 million repair cost. If the grant is awarded to Hoisington, it would cover about one-third or $500,000 of the expected cost.
The Sept. 30 deadline for return of the surveys was not met. The city is short 120 surveys to qualify for a grant in this cycle.
The bulk of the cost will go towards cleaning out the pools and reworking the concrete aprons and plumbing.
In addition, The Nature Conservancy has approached the city about building a wetlands pool from treated water. The pool would then move the city to non-discharging. The treated water would have to meet state waste water regulations.
Mitchell said that the city is continuing to work on the surveys and expects them to be done in the next month or two. The information is still good until the next census in 2020.
He said the Environmental Protection Agency seemed receptive to an extension on completion the project. The deadline for the engineering study is May 1, 2015, which the city is required to pay for.
In his update, Mitchell said address letters have been sent out to many properties. City ordinances  state that all buildings and unattached garages with a business must have address numbers on the house.
Many home owners have voluntarily complied, Mitchell said. The follow-up letters will be sent Oct. 1. Violators can be fined.
In other business, EMS Services report that since July 1, there have been 17 transfers, which is up from last year.
The city has received a KLINK grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation to repave 6th-9th Street on Main. That section of pavement has cracked, and the city hopes to repave it next year.
The city has received the $200,000 grant this year, last year, and the year prior for a total of $600,000. The city will contribute $250,000-$300,000 for the repair.