Lawrence Business Magazine 2021 Q4

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Publisher:

2021 Q4 Q3

& DOUGLAS COUNTY

Lawrence Business Magazine, LLC Ann Frame Hertzog & Steven Hertzog Editor-in-Chief:

Ann Frame Hertzog

LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHERS Every year we do an Impact issue; this year, it is on The Impact of Water. An essential to life and something that continually needs our respect and stewardship.

There are many areas in the United States where the water is harmful. We all know about Flint, Michigan, where lead from aging pipes seeped into their water system, effectively poisoning an entire community. And there is Lubbock, Texas, where drinking water contains 16 contaminants above acceptable health limits and 30 others of potential concern. But Lawrence and Douglas County are not one of those places. We have a dedicated team at our Municipal Services & Operations of Douglas County (MS&O) who take a lot of pride in their work.

How water is transported from a river or a lake, pumped to a facility, and “treated” for our consumption is not something we often ponder.

We probably spend even less time thinking about what happens to the wastewater from our toilets, sinks, and garbage disposals. Most of us take for granted that when we turn on a faucet, we get clean water to shower or clean, healthy, good-tasting water to drink. Due to the dedicated work by city employees at the MS&O, Lawrence’s water has been rated the best tasting water in the state of Kansas giving much satisfaction to our city engineers, biologists, chemists, and plant managers.

Speaking and touring the facilities with city employees like Mike Lawless, Trevor Flynn, Matt Bond, Jay Lovett, and many others, we learned how proud they are that the impact of their work makes Lawrence a healthier community.

Others making an impact include KU professors Justin Hutchison, Ted Peltier, and Belinda Sturm; Kansas Riverkeeper & Executive Director for Friends of The Kaw, Dawn Buehler; Megan Rush & Rebecca Steadman of Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams & WRAPS. A dedicated group of professionals from the City to the Universities to the private sector working together to protect our environment and keep our water safe.

The Lawrence Business Magazine wants to thank everyone making a positive impact on our community, and our devoted readers for their support this past year. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.

PROTECT AND PRESERVE OUR LOCAL BUSINESSES. Shop Local. Shop Baldwin, Eudora, Lecompton, and Lawrence.

Shop Douglas County!

Sincerely,

Ann Frame Hertzog Editor-in-Chief/Publisher

Steven Hertzog Chief Photographer/Publisher

www.LawrenceBusinessMagazine.com

Chief Photographer:

Steven Hertzog Featured Writers:

Anne Brockhoff Bob Luder Patricia A. Michaelis, Ph.D. Sophia Misle Emily Mulligan Mathew Petillo Tara Trenary

Lto toR: R: Mike Lawless, Trevor Flynn, Samantha Jones, Jack Bell, Rebecca Steadman and Dawn Buehler

Copy Editor:

Tara Trenary Contributing Writers:

Jessica Brewer

Contributing Photographers:

Lisa Grossman Justin Hutchinson LC Lambrecht/GCSAA Sophia Misle Montana Pritchard Dayna Steadman Dan Videtich

INQUIRIES & ADVERTISING INFORMATION CONTACT: info@LawrenceBusinessMagazine.com

LawrenceBusinessMagazine.com Lawrence Business Magazine, LLC 3514 Clinton Parkway, Suite A-113 Lawrence, KS 66047 Lawrence Business Magazine, is published quarterly by Lawrence Business Magazine, LLC and is distributed by direct mail to businesses in the Lawrence & Douglas County Community. It is also distributed at key retail locations throughout the area and mailed to individual subscribers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reprinted or reproduced without the publisher’s permission. Lawrence Business Magazine, LLC assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Statements and opinions printed in the Lawrence Business Magazine are the those of the author or advertiser and are not necessarily the opinion of Lawrence Business Magazine.

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2021 Q4 Q3

& DOUGLAS COUNTY

CONTENTS Features: 8 Lawrence in Perspective: Making Lakes

by Patricia Michaelis, Ph.D.

16 Shop Local, Shop Lawrence

by Sophia Misle

20 Balancing Water Infrastructure

by Emily Mulligan 26 The Journey of Drinking Water

by Bob Luder

34 Wastewater:

What Goes Down the Drain

by Mathew Petillo

42 The Connectivity of Water

by Anne Brockhoff 54 Directing Stormwater:

Where the Water Goes

by Bob Luder

62 Concrete Solution

by Mathew Petillo 66 The Value of Water

by Tara Trenary

Departments: 5 Letter From the Publishers 12 Health Care - Quit Smoking 74 Local Scene 79 Newsmakers 82 Whose Desk?

Our Mission: We are dedicated to telling the

stories of people and businesses making a positive impact on Lawrence & Douglas County. /lawrencebusinessmagazine

@LawrenceBizMag

TO UPDATE YOUR ADDRESS OR FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION:

LawrenceBusinessMagazine.com/subscriptions/

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LAWRENCE & DOUGLAS CO [ IN PERSPECTIVE ]

Making Lakes

by Patricia A. Michaelis, Ph.D., Historical Research & Archival Consulting photos by Steven Hertzog

THE HISTORY OF THIS NEARBY LAKE IS UNIQUE AND PRESERVED BECAUSE OF NEWSPAPERS CREATED

BY A CIVILIAN CORPS OF BLACK WORKERS. Located approximately 10 miles southwest of the City of Lawrence, Lone Star Lake and its surrounding park provides campsites, restrooms with showers, a playground with a volleyball net, a swimming beach, fishing, boating and water skiing, and shelters for picnics and group gatherings.

A community building can be rented for family and group events.

Interestingly, Lone Star Lake was built by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Co. 767, and the members of Co. 767 were African American. Co. 767 was one of only five “colored” companies in Kansas. The CCC was an important part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, which provided voluntary public work relief during the Great Depression and operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18 through 25, eventually expanding to ages 17 through 28.

Kansas was requested to recruit 1,106 enrollees by working with the state board of social welfare and county welfare offices. Potential enrollees had to be vetted on financial need and character. The CCC evolved from an emergency public-relief program to “a permanent governmental provision to teach capable young men trades which they can use later in private employment, and at

Lone Star Lake

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the same time to build up the physical and raise the standards of health in that age-group.” The monthly pay for enrollees was $30, and they were required to share $22 to $25 with their dependents. The remainder was spending money because living necessities and clothing were provided by the Corps. If an enrollee had no dependents, he was required to deposit the bulk of his salary with the Chief of Finance, War Department. The enrollee could withdraw the money saved at the end of his enrollment period. In 1937, it was estimated that $1,354,789.25 was sent to dependents of CCC enrollees.

A number of the CCC companies published newspapers of their activities, with the Lone Star Gazer, providing information about Co. 767. The first issue appeared May 1, 1936, and was printed on a mimeograph machine. The newspapers were compiled by enrollees who participated in a journalism class and prepared the Gazer on their own time, as they had to meet their required “labor” hours, as well.

The first issue of the Gazer reported that the camp had received 21 new enrollees. Thirteen were from Kansas City, five from Topeka, two from Olathe and one each from Lawrence and Iowa. The young men lived in barracks and took meals at a mess hall. According to one issue, the young men were to plant flowers at their barracks.

Enrollees were encouraged to write home “regularly and often,” and to send their copies of the Gazer to their families. One issue contained a reminder about Mother’s Day.

times it formed a veritable screed. A new barrow pit was opened which produced more moist dirt. Water was conserved to a degree, yardage was added, more compaction was gained, and all in all, the new pit is developing well.

The Gazer had several gossip columns containing information about the personal activities of the men in camp.

One of the columns was titled “Speedy Says.”

Various glimpses of camp life were provided. Barracks members were encouraged to keep their living facilities clean. Weekly cleanliness contests were held, and one winner received a new Philco radio. There was a weekly movie night, Wednesday, and the title of the movies to be shown were listed, as were titles of the movies being shown at the Lawrence movie theaters.

The educational efforts of the CCC at Co. 767 were also reported. Thirty tractor drivers and machinists attend a two-day school that showed films about how to operate the equipment being used on the project. Enrollees were encouraged to sign up for classes in reading, writing, spelling, penmanship, constitution, negro history, mathematics, typing First Aid and English. Attendance at the negro history call class was encouraged as follows: “Just a suggestion to some of you, the class in Negro History should prove interesting. It is really surprising how little some of you know about the history of your own race.”

Articles reported on improvements to camp facilities, such as adding a flush toilet and shower in the hospital. A 60by 60-inch water filter tank was constructed west of the stone water tower. It was reported that the water was being filtered at a rate of 200 gallons per minute. One article reported the earth fill work was progressing. It stated:

The newspaper contained a sports page that reported on the exploits of the camp baseball and softball teams.

The baseball team played teams from other camps. Softball teams from each barracks were organized, and they formed a league to play each other. The cover of the September 1936 Gazer featured Jesse Owens after his triumphs at the 1936 Olympics.

Approximately thirty-one thousand yards of dirt have been added to the fill during the month. That is highly commendable considering the adverse conditions under which the enrollees had to labor; temperatures ranging from one hundred degrees upward, hot winds, the accumulated dust until at

The newspaper also featured reports on various social activities. These included dance parties with girls brought from Lawrence to partner with young men. One party featured a band called the Rhythm Ramblers, from Topeka, and it was noted that ice cream, cookies and beer were served. A group of enrollees attend one of the Kansas Re-

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lays. The Gazer reported: “Upon the return of the men from the relays, they recounted a fine time enjoying all of the thrilling events, especially in the 100 yrd. Dash which was captured by a Pittsburgh Teachers College Negroe youth.”

Testimonials from enrollees about the value of the CCC were featured in several issues.

Walter Edward Lee was born in 1910 and enrolled in June 1933. He had been working in tree surgery and landscape gardening before joining the CCC. The camp has taught me discipline and has given me a general knowledge of labor and dam construction. … I think the C.C.C. is one of the greatest mobilization acts completed by any peace time movement by any Government without forcing the measure. It has benefited me more than I could say, off-hand. I have derived a type of Knowledge that will aid me in getting employment after I leave as a Mechanic, Truck driver Kat skinner, Grader-man and have through experience with others learned much which will benefit me otherwise.

Another enrollee was Peter George Andrews who was born in 1914 in Wichita. He was working at a garage when he joined. He held a number of jobs while in camp, including working on the camp survey crew, as a tool checker and as a truck master. In his testimonial, he writes: “I have learned to control my temper since I’ve been here improved my typing and learned to administer First Aid. … Having been here so long it is needless for me to say that this has been a benefit to me physically, morally and socially.” He also stated the being in the CCC aided him financially.

Signs at an entry point to Lone Star Lake and a WPA concrete bridge

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When Lone Star Lake was completed, it was 1400 feet long and had a 45-foot-high earthen dam. The lake eventually consisted of nearly 200 acres. The last step was stocking it with fish. On March 18, 1938, 25,000 fish were placed in the lake by the Kansas Fish and Game Commission. There were 12,500 croppie and the same number of speckled bass. Catfish were already present in the lake.

Because a number of CCC camps published newspapers that gave day-to-day details of life in the camps and were preserved, they are an invaluable historical resource. Because the Lone Star Gazer was from a camp of African American enrollees, the content is even more valuable. It also documents the goals of the CCC to provide educational opportunities and technical training, as well as work relief on important community projects. p

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Are You Ready to Quit?

by Jessica Thomas, LMH Health, photos from LMH Health

The American Cancer Society states that smoking causes an estimated 480,000 deaths every year, or about one in five. On top of this, more than 16 million Americans live with a smoking-related disease. Some experts at LMH Health discuss how to quit smoking and the importance of smoking cessation.

Dr. Krishna Rangarajan, a pulmonologist with Lawrence Pulmonary Specialists (LPS), says even if you feel fine now, the effects of smoking can last for up to 20 years, and symptoms of something more serious may not be present right now. If you want to help the future you avoid lung cancer, shortness of breath, needing oxygen or other cancers, the sooner you quit, the better, he says.

“It is never too late to stop,” Rangarajan explains. “It is also important to note that smoking does not just mean cigarettes. Smoking electronic cigarettes and vaping are maybe just as bad for you. The nicotine levels are high, and e-cigarettes are highly addictive and hard to stop.

Even if you are young and healthy, many diseases related to smoking like COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] and lung cancer do not show up until years later.”

If you are not experiencing shortness of breath, lung cancer can remain a big concern. Other diseases such as colon cancer, head and neck cancer, osteoporosis, increased pregnancy complications, heart disease and, of course, increased complications if you contract COVID-19 can happen as a result of smoking. Rangarajan says the best way to avoid this is to quit.

“Deciding to take the step toward smoking cessation is often the first and most important step for someone to 12

make,” he adds. “Getting to that step is hard, and when you decide that, it is huge. Now, how you quit is different from person to person and up to you. Some are more successful saying ‘I am going to quit on that date,’ and they set a quit date. That is often a big first step. For some people, slowly reducing can work; but often, the last couple cigarettes are hard to eliminate. Quitting cold turkey is good for some, but overall, setting that quit date is the most important first step.”

Rangarajan explains that quitting can take months or even years. It can be hard to throw away those last few cigarettes. If you have a hard day, that often is what someone turns to, but then it turns into two, three, then back to where they were before, and going back to old habits is more tempting than ever.

“Some helpers like nicotine gum, patches, inhalers with nicotine and some medications can be beneficial for smoking cessation,” he says. “Not only that, but seeking counseling can also be beneficial. The combination of counseling and medication has been shown to lead to healthier results. There are free counseling programs through most states, as well. In Kansas, we have the Kansas Quit Line at 1-800-QUIT-NOW, or you can visit ksquit. org. We also have an incredible smoking-cessation class offered at LMH Health.”

Some of the leading factors to quitting were, for some, to simply take the urge away and remove the cigarettes, Rangarajan says. For others, they may hold on to smoking for the social aspect.

“Smoking can become extremely social for folks,” he says.

“People will take smoke breaks together or have it with a meal or in their car. It becomes a part of their routine and their lifestyle. This is why having a class or a way to help

This is a good time to stop smoking.

you quit is great. There are people in these spaces to help you not smoke, and there is accountability there to help take away some of the excuses we tell ourselves to keep smoking.

Accountability helps avoid making excuses and can serve as a great tool through the beginning of your quitting process, which can be the hardest part.”

Smoking cessation is tough, but you can get help.

Rangarajan says it is tough to quit smoking. It may take a few tries, and it may be frustrating, but you are not alone. There are incredible resources to help you achieve your goals.

Some of these resources include medications. LMH Health has outpatient pharmacists who work hand in hand with providers from LPS and all primary-care clinics at LMH Health to help their patients quit smoking.

Taylor Smith, a pharmacist with LMH Health, says pharmacists and physicians work collaboratively. They work with patients who are interested in learning more about medicines that can help them quit smoking and serve as an additional resource to patients.

“When we see a patient who wants to work to quit smoking, there are a few options we can offer,” Smith explains. “The nicotine component in tobacco is, of course, what is the most addictive. So, from a medicine standpoint, we may recommend nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), a nicotine patch, gum, lozenges, inhalers or nasal sprays. We can also offer a medication called Chantix but like to meet with our patients first to see if they would be good candidates.”

There are certain characteristics to medicine, Smith says, so some patients may be better candidates for one type of medicine over another. The pharmacists at LMH Health can assist by sitting down and talking about different medication options and helping to create customized treatment plans for patients.

Top: Dr. Krishna Rangarajan Bottom: Dr. James Huston

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Smoking Causes an Estimated 480,000 Deaths Every Year

EVERY YEAR

“When we meet with patients, we work to select medications that are affordable. We assess insurance coverage and cash price, and work with patients to select an option that is realistic in terms of cost,” she explains. “We also talk about the importance of combining medications with behavioral counseling to help stop smoking. Studies show that the two together are more effective than either one alone. We talk about what barriers there have been in the past, previous attempts at stopping, and take all the information we can into account to equip our patients with the best possible plan for success.”

At the end of the day, medications to help quit smoking are temporary. The goal, Smith says, is that these medicines work to help with the transition period to reduce cravings and help increase your chances of successfully becoming tobacco-free. They aren’t generally lifelong but can be used for several months to a year to help achieve success.

“We receive referrals from many different clinics,” she adds. “Of course, we work hand in hand with LPS pro14

viders but also with our OrthoKansas team, as well, if smoking becomes a barrier for a patient to move forward with surgery. Sometimes patients may not think about this aspect, but that is why our team at the pharmacy is ready to help.”

Barriers to Surgery The surgeons at LMH Health strive to protect their patients in every possible way. Dr. James Huston, an orthopedic surgeon with OrthoKansas, says after surgery, the nicotine in tobacco or vaping can constrict blood vessels. As a result, smoking during recovery can negatively impact the body’s ability to heal a wound or a fracture.

“Our nicotine-cessation policy is important, because wound healing and bone healing can be adversely affected by tobacco and nicotine,” Huston explains. “To perform a total joint procedure, we ask all our patients [to] cease smoking for at least three weeks before your surgery and at least six weeks after your surgery to ensure proper healing and a good recovery.”

He adds that it takes a minimum of three weeks for nicotine to fully clear the bloodstream. The six weeks after surgery is the time when the majority of the soft tissue and bone healing happens. Smoking after the six-week mark can still harm your overall health and healing process in the long run.

“We treat patients with nonsurgical methods first before discussing surgery,” he says. “These treatments may include anti-inflammatory medications, lubricating injections, physical therapy, weight loss and more. If surgery ends up being the best option, we will work with and discuss smoking cessation with our patients.”

Huston says the guidance for patients to cease smoking before a procedure is not a choice made arbitrarily. If it was not something that would impact the health, safety and recovery of our patients, they wouldn’t ask.

“It’s in the best interest of patients to give them the highest chance of success in a surgery or procedure,” he continues. “Many of my patients have quit smoking primarily to have a joint replacement but then have subsequently been successful in sustaining healthier habits. It is always exciting to see patients not only recover well from a needed procedure but then feel so much happier and pleased with how they feel because they stopped smoking.” p

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by Sophia Misle, photos by Steven Hertzog

This holiday season, local Lawrence businesses are hoping for a comeback after a difficult year during the COVID19 pandemic. #ShopLocalLawrence

We all love a good comeback story, right? There is a part of us that wants to root for the underdog, whether it was for the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series for the first time in 108 years in 2016 (still, go Royals!) or the Karate Kid to defeat his bullies. Now, it’s time for a new comeback story, that of local Lawrence businesses this holiday season.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, local businesses in Lawrence suffered or closed because of the impact 16

of shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, loss of revenue, supply-chain issues, availability of government aid and more.

However, the pandemic also opened some doors of opportunity. Sally Zogry, executive director, Downtown Lawrence Inc., says at least 21 new businesses have opened downtown since January 2020.

“It’s been really, really trying obviously over the last year and a half, and things are not back to normal yet,” Zogry says. “They are better, which is very encouraging, but we still have a lot of challenges.”

Although stay-at-home orders and mandated shutdowns are not as prevalent now as they were this time last year, there are still supply-chain and logistics issues that are not going anywhere anytime soon, Zogry explains.

Imported items may not be able to make their way through customs, and in some cases, there simply may be a shortage of supply. The United States Postal Service is also under a great deal of stress, especially during this holiday season. Shipments may take longer because of the high volume of packages being shipped.

“All of that trickles down to the individual customer,” Zogry adds.

Shopping locally ensures there will not be any shipping challenges. Many stores offer shipping via their websites or by phone, but many of these businesses offer free curbside pickup or even local delivery.

Zogry says supply-chain issues have caused merchandise to be limited at big-box stores. This year, there are fewer options of holiday accessories, décor and more than in previous years. However, local businesses often have different supply chains and will be able to provide unique gifts for everyone on your holiday shopping list.

Weaver’s has been no stranger to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The independently owned department store is the only retailer in Lawrence to carry Pendleton Originals. Pendleton is a family-owned company established in 1863 that is proud to have been weaving worldclass woolens in its two Pacific Northwest mills for more than 150 years; but during the pandemic, its mills had to close for 88 days. Luckily, Weaver’s received its shipment of Pendleton products at least two months ahead of the anticipated ship date, just in time for the holidays.

“These supply-chain issues are among the most significant that we’ve ever seen,” says Brady Flannery, president of Weaver’s.

Flannery says even with all the challenges the pandemic presented, Weaver’s is going above and beyond to give customers the ultimate shopping experience this holiday season. Weaver’s is offering free in-town delivery and curbside pickup, as well as free gift wrap with any purchase.

“We’re going to double down on what we do best, which is catering to individual customer needs and providing the best level of service that they can find anywhere,” Flannery explains.

Christmas lights on Massachusetts Street in Downtown Lawrence

Local businesses are run by people like your neighbor or the person next to you in line at the grocery store. These people have to support their families as well as their employees, janitorial staff, vendors and more.

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Sally Zogry, Executive Director of Down Lawrence, Inc.

“It’s just a ripple effect,” Zogry says. “You can see you’re supporting one business and all of the people that touches as you move further and further out.”

Fally Afani, director of communications for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, described how special Lawrence is because of how community-oriented it is when she was a guest on the Lawrence Business Magazine Radio Show (tune in on Thursdays on FM 101.7 and AM 1320 KLWN).

“Everyone from the Chamber, city government, other businesses, Lawrence Restaurant Association, everybody, they all pitched in [during the pandemic] to make sure that nobody had to close their doors, and that made a world of a difference,” Afani said.

She and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce have put together the #ShopLocalLawrence campaign to encourage people to shop local this holiday season. When deciding where to spend hard-earned dollars on gifts for loved ones this holiday season, be sure to #ShopLocalLawrence. Individuals who use the hashtag will be entered to win a $50 gift card from a member business.

“All we ask from the community is an opportunity to earn their business,” Flannery said on the show. “We’ve never taken our customers’ loyalty for granted.”

Although the pandemic has created many challenges for businesses in downtown Lawrence, Flannery and the Weaver’s team are ready for a comeback season.

“We’re ready for the rebound,” Flannery says. “We’re ready to come back and rebuild better than ever.” p

Customer shopping at Weavers Department Store in Downtown Lawrence

by Emily Mulligan, photos by Steven Hertzog

Projects related to water – drinking, wastewater and stormwater – are abundant and costly in Lawrence, whether responding to a problem, making upgrades to the existing system or planning for the future.

Ask your average citizens to envision the city’s water infrastructure, and their mental image probably goes in one of two directions: either they picture a giant Roman aqueduct, or they recall a local crew on a street repairing a broken water main. The truth of the matter is most of us have no idea what the systems look like that transport our drinking water, wastewater and stormwater. And yet, we rely on those systems and use them every single day, sometimes every single hour.

Water infrastructure isn’t something constructed and interconnected, and then the water flows freely and perfectly for the next 50 or 100 years. If only.

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The City of Lawrence staff in Municipal Services and Operations (MSO) has an almost infinite number of water-related infrastructure plans and projects underway on any given day. As you read this, someone is lowering a video camera into a storm sewer to document its condition for a long-range project; someone else is working on design for the upcoming $52-million upgrade to the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant; and someone else might be about to dig to find the source of a leak using detailed information from the City’s mapping system, which tracks the type of pipe and soil in that spot.

When talking about water infrastructure, it is important to note there are three different types of water systems that serve the City of Lawrence: drinking water, wastewater and stormwater.

The Clinton Reservoir plant was constructed in 1980, which makes the newer of the two plants already 40 years old. Lawless says it serves its purpose well.

“But there are ongoing maintenance issues, no different than your house in a way. We have to maintain the roofs, HVAC, concrete, mechanical pumps and things like coatings on the tanks,” he says.

Besides the treatment plants, water-distribution infrastructure encompasses water towers, fire hydrants, water valves and hundreds of miles of water pipelines that deliver the water from treatment plants to residences and businesses. Those water mains and pipes range from 24 inches in diameter down to service lines that are ¾ inch in diameter. Depending on their age, they are made of concrete, PVC plastic, cast iron, transite, ductile iron, copper or galvanized steel.

Wastewater Treatment Similarly to water distribution, the city has two wastewater-treatment plants, an older one and a newer one.

Water tower near KU campus

Drinking Water Distribution Lawrence is fortunate to have not one but two freshwater sources from which to draw water to drink: the Kansas River and Clinton Lake. The City operates two water-treatment plants: the Kaw River Water Treatment Plant, near Burcham Park, and the Clinton Reservoir Water Treatment Plant, at Clinton Lake.

The Kaw River plant is the older of the two, built in the 1910s and upgraded in 1955. “A new building and basins were constructed that upgraded the treatment process, but we are still working on that 1950s technology. We are rehabbing 65-year-old concrete basins on an ongoing basis as funding and continuous operations allows,” says Mike Lawless, deputy director of MSO.

The Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant, on East Eighth Street, east of the Warehouse Arts District, was built in the 1950s. Major changes were made to the plant in the 1970s, Lawless explains, because of the Clean Water Act. In the early 2000s, the plant was adapted for some new processes. And now, 20 years later, the plant is about to undergo further upgrades that will change the way nitrogen and phosphorus are processed with biological nutrient removal.

The Wakarusa River Wastewater Treatment Plant, southeast of town on 41st Street, was completed in 2018. Wakarusa is a biological nutrient-removal plant, so once the Kansas River plant is upgraded, both plants will be capable of removing nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater.

Directing Stormwater Storm sewers and drains, like water lines and sanitary sewers, are under us and all around us. Most of the time, we are unaware of their existence, but there is nothing like a couple of inches of rainfall in the short span of an hour or two to show us where the drains and sewers are not up to task.

Matt Bond, engineering programming manager of MSO, often hops in his vehicle at the first sign of incoming heavy rain in order to see for himself how well the City’s stormwater infrastructure is or isn’t 21

Lawrence Water Infrastructure

Water distribution of distribution 570 miles system pipes Water 11,460 Valves FIRE 3,670 HYDRANTS Wastewater of gravity & force-main 460 miles sewers that coNNect to two treatment plants

34 manholes to clean and 10,740 aCCeSS sanitary sewers the depth of most 8 to 12 fEEt: of the sanitary lift stations

sewer system

Stormwater 7,283 STRUCTURES including curb inlets, area inlets, junction boxes and manholes

167 miles of <23 miles chaNNel of ~98 miles streams of pipe

22

functioning.

“In 2019, we had five extreme rainfall events. In one of those, we received almost an inch in five minutes. In 2020, we had two or three of those events, and on April 28 of this year, the rain gauge at Pump Station 16, west of the Vermont Street bridge, recorded 2.17 inches of rain in 25 minutes,” he says.

Even without these extreme rains, certain streets and neighborhoods don’t shed water at an adequate rate. The stormwater infrastructure is best described by some of the projects that are underway to assess and repair it. Certain intersections fill with water during rainfall, which makes for dangerous driving; and water ponds in some grassy areas or people’s yards sometimes don’t drain for days after rain. Engineers work to pinpoint the choke points, where either the water can’t get to storm sewer inlets or where it doesn’t flow quickly enough once it does.

Bond began public meetings this fall to discuss the Jayhawk Watershed, which is a former open channel that ran from Mount Oread to the Kansas River, and now is underneath the area of Ninth and Indiana streets, toward Eighth and Ohio streets and northward. After detailing the entire watershed, he and his group found that those spots in particular are taking on water in storms.

“We can’t just add more curb inlets. We have to increase the size of the conduit to allow the water to flow,” Bond says.

He also has developing projects near 17th and Alabama streets south of KU and along Sharon Drive northwest of the former Hy-Vee on Sixth Street.

Water Challenges Many of the MSO’s projects are in response to a problem, whether an emergency or an ongoing known issue, such as the corrugated metal pipes that are only about 20 years old but are beginning to corrode in certain soils. Other projects are general system upgrades or in response to EPA rule changes—and some are even related to climate change.

The emergencies are one thing. With an onset of cold weather in the winter, there is no telling how the various mains and sewers will change

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Deputy Director Mike Lawless gives a tour of the Kaw River Water Treatment Plant to Jack Bell, owner of Turf Masters

and shift underground. Pipes, sanitary sewers and routing around Lawrence ranges in age from the late 1800s to shiny, new 2021. Every season is different and, in some ways, unpredictable; but at the same time, the City’s geographic information system (GIS) maps every water main, sanitary sewer line and storm sewer. The GIS reflects every repair plus the materials of the mains and sewers, and even the soil types throughout the city. Much of this information is available to the public, as well, on the interactive map featured on the City’s website.

“We have water infrastructure that’s really old that we have to take care of, and unfortunately, we have water infrastructure that is not that old that we have to care for,” Lawless explains.

Long-Range Water Infrastructure In the past decade or so, the City has made a concerted effort to carry out more holistic, long-range projects involving water infrastructure. The ongoing EcoFlow project, which installs sump pumps in many homeowners’ basements in order to keep stormwater from affecting the sanitary sewers in certain neighborhoods, began about eight years ago and was one such project.

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Planning, bidding and construction for the extensive upgrades at the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant will likely extend until 2025.

In the meantime, the City is about to be the proud owner of thousands of new water service lines starting this month, thanks to a significant EPA rule change, the 2021 National Primary Drinking Water Regulations: Lead and Copper Rule Revisions. Related to the discovery of lead in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, in the mid-2010s, this new EPA rule requires municipalities to be aware of what kinds of pipes are transporting drinking water right up to its residents’ dwellings.

Lawless says under previous rules, the City owned and maintained the service lines from the water main to a residence’s water meter. The length of the line that went from the water meter to the structure was to be maintained by the residence’s owner, but no longer. Now the city must maintain the water service line all the way from the water main up to the structure.

With more than 34,000 water meters in the city, the project’s scope will be unprecedented. Add to that the City does not know the materials or condition of the vast majority of those service lines—and many of those that have records are only documented on manual paper file

AND THE BEAT GOES ON...

Here for our customers,

Engineering Program Manager Matt Bond on the Mass St. bridge overseeing the Bowersock Dam project

here for our staff,

cards—and this could amount to quite the undertaking.

“We don’t have very good information about the service line material that is between every meter and structure.

The new rule says that we need to know that. In three years, we’ll have to tell the EPA what we know and what we don’t know. If we don’t know, the rule says we have to treat them as if they’re lead,” Lawless says.

Storm water engineers are in the midst of their own threeyear inventory project, Bond explains. The asset identification program began earlier this year and involves taking 360-degree video of every single storm sewer and storm water asset that is more than 10 years old.

here for our community.

“We will assess the condition of all of our structures, and then we will build a capital-improvement program on that,” he says. “We anticipate we’re going to find some issues.”

Water indeed is everywhere in Lawrence, and where there is water, there is just as likely to be a plan to maintain, expand or improve its infrastructure.

“I think we do a pretty good job finding the balance between the funds we have and what needs to be done,” Lawless says. “I hope we’re doing a better job of trying to project what we need to do.” p

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by Bob Luder, photos by Steven Hertzog

It’s something everybody does every day of their lives without giving it a second thought. They get out of bed in the morning, or even sometimes in the middle of the night, and walk straight to the nearest sink and faucet for a drink of water. Or guzzle out of a water fountain at a park during a workout or play day. Or wash their hands, shower, cook—any other numerous mindless daily activities.

Yet does anyone stop and take a moment to think about the journey water takes from the source to the tap?

What types of processes it must endure to make it clean and suitable for drinking, cooking, bathing, etc.?

Something so basic to our daily human existence is easily taken for granted, but the process is long, complex and, yes, even fascinating.

It’s something Mike Lawless, Trevor Flynn and Nic Caruthers think about incessantly each and every day. As members of Lawrence’s Municipal Services and Operations department, it’s their responsibility, along with 120 or so more employees, to ensure citizens of Lawrence and surrounding areas have a constant flow of clean, healthy and tasty drinking

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Fighting an aging infrastructure, the City of Lawrence works to ensure residents, businesses and all other entities have clean, safe drinking water today and into the future.

water.

It’s also something Lawless, Flynn and the team take great pride in.

“We received the honor of having the best-tasting water in the state by the (Kansas Water Environment Association) and the (American Water Works Association),” says Flynn, assistant director of Lawrence’s Municipal Services and Operations. “We won best-tasting tap water in 2019 with a sample from the (Kaw River Water Treatment Plant).”

Lawrence is very fortunate to have not one but two watertreatment facilities, Flynn says. The city’s original Kaw River Water Treatment Plant, which opened in 1917 and is located on East Third Street, has a ca-

Clinton Reservoir Water Treatment Plant

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pacity to treat and move 16.5 million gallons of water per day, though on an average day, the volume runs around 5 million gallons (when it was built, the plant’s capacity was 3 million gallons). It sources its water from the Kansas River, just a stone’s throw to the north, as well as six alluvial wells. The newer Clinton Reservoir Water Treatment Plant, opened in 1980, has a capacity of 25 million gallons but treats an average of 7 million gallons a day. It draws water from Clinton Lake.

Between the two plants, 113,892 people are serviced through 570 miles of underground water main pipes. The City of Lawrence water system serves the population of Lawrence and wholesale customers of Baldwin City (which sells water to Edgerton and Wellsville), and Rural Water District Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.

Lawless, the department’s deputy director, says average demand for a typical year is around 10 million gallons per day. During a peak day, which normally occurs during the hot, summer months when watering is most prevalent, demand doubles, to 20 to 22 million gallons. During peak hours, demand can increase three times, to 30 to 35 million.

A city’s water system has to be able to account for those spikes, and Lawrence’s system appears to cover those bases well. That includes maintaining capacity in six storage towers throughout the area which, along with storage in clearwells and reservoirs at the treatment plants, have a total capacity between 10 and 11 million gallons.

Top to Bottom: Nick Martin, water quality lab technician tests water samples Steven Craig, operations manager at Clinton Reservoir Water Treatment Plant KU students taking samples to look at soil PFAS contamination Photo by Justin Hutchison

“We do very well and are very fortunate to have two water facilities and two water sources,” Flynn says. “This builds tremendous resiliency in our operations and how we can reliably deliver high-quality drinking water to our customers.”

Lawless says, “Neither plant can supply a peak day or hour by itself. But either can supply an average day by itself.”

Lawless and Flynn are also quick to point out that contingencies are firmly in place in the instance of severe drought, the last of which occurred in 2012.

“We are a member of the Kansas River Water Assurance District No. 1 for drought contingencies,” Lawless explains.

“It consists of 14 municipalities and industrial members.

The district purchased storage in three federal reservoirs. If there is water in the storage, it is available for the district to call upon and use. It’s another resiliency piece.”

Whatever water needs, challenges or crises Lawrence residents and businesses might face in the future, it appears the City has all bases covered.

From the Kaw to the Tap 28

90 www.cekinsurance.com

The Kaw River Water Treatment Plant is a vast, complex labyrinth of pipes, pumps, basins and channels.

The journey water takes into the plant begins at the edge of the Kansas River, where five pumps work to move water into two intake pipes and up to the highest level of the facility. That way, gravity can be used to move the water through the long process to making it pure enough to drink.

Water from the Kaw is pumped up to a large presedimentation basin, which has a screen attached to a slowchurning arm. That screen separates large debris and sediment, which exits out the bottom of the basin and is sent back out to the river.

Turbidity is a scientific measurement of the cloudiness, or opaqueness, of a liquid, and tracking the NTU (neph-

elometric turbidity unit) count of the water as it moves through the purification process is a big part of what MSO plant operator Caruthers does daily.

“Water coming out of the Kansas River can range from 10 NTUs to about 2,000 when we have a lot of runoff flowing down the river,” he says.

From the presedimentation basin, water moves to a second basin where powder-activated carbon is added to remove odors.

“We use a lot more carbon at the Clinton facility to remove geosmin (an organic compound formed by bacteria), which causes undesirable taste and odor,” Caruthers says.

After carbon addition, the water goes to primary treat-

Kaw River Water Treatment Plant

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ment. Lime is added to soften and reduce hardness. Alum and polymer are added to help form what is known in the water-treatment industry as floc (flocculation), the process in which colloidal particles come out of suspension and settle out for removal.

After that, it heads to secondary basins for stabilization and disinfection. Carbon dioxide is injected to lower the pH of the water to help stabilize. Sodium hypochlorite, more commonly known as industrial-strength bleach, is added, forming a free chlorine residual that is maintained across the basin. After secondary treatment and prior to filtration, more sodium hypochlorite, ammonia, phosphate and fluoride are added. The water then passes through anthracite coal, sand and gravel to further remove any particulate in the water.

control room with SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), a vast array of computers, screens and monitors that could be mistaken for a miniature version of mission control at NASA. From there, he and his team can keep an eye on the turbidity content, chlorine residual and other parameters as water moves through the system. He and the team make any adjustments necessary to get to the desired process parameters before the water moves into distribution pipes and is shipped off to homes, businesses and schools.

“If I see turbidity up, I can add polymer or carbon,” Caruthers says. “I can control mixing speeds. I can look at trends. I can see commercial use times and when they peak.”

Remember Caruthers claim that water moving into that

Caruthers and other operators control everything from a

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Mike Lawless (L) and Trevor Flynn on a tour of the Kaw River Water Treatment Plant with Dawn Buehler (R) from Friends of The Kaw

first presedimentation basin can measure anywhere from 10 NTUs to 2,000? He proudly points to a monitor inside SCADA that shows the turbidity count of water by the time it reaches district pumps: 0.063 NTUs.

He points out that there haven’t been any new federal water regulations enacted in 20 years.

“Monday through Friday, we have two maintenance guys here throughout the day and on call,” he says. “We also have two guys in SCADA. We have at least one operator here 24/7.”

Other regulatory changes Hutchison sees coming have to do with changes in the Lead and Copper Rule (LCA), which are being discussed in terms of materials used in pipes.

Adjusting to Updated Regulations & Standards Justin Hutchison, an assistant professor in the Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering department at the University of Kansas and a member of the Bioengineering Core Faculty, has conducted research for the last several years looking at emerging biological and chemical threats when it comes to drinking water. More recently, he and his colleagues kicked off a project that will examine zeolite, a mineral used to treat contaminants in water, to treat what are known as PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances), a class of compounds capable of contaminating water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a health advisory pointing to two specific compounds—perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—that are of particular concern.

“As of now, we don’t know how many water systems are contaminated; we don’t know how widespread this is,” Hutchison says. “These contaminants are generally found in flame-retardant foams. They’re mostly found on military instillations. It’s still up in the air as far as how municipalities are affected.”

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“I think the next block of new regulations will be on PFAS,” he says. “It’s definitely on the radar of municipalities.”

Dealing with and adjusting to new regulatory requirements by the EPA is something MSO’s Flynn sees in the future for his department.

“What are we going to have to do to comply?” he asks.

MSO’s Lawless adds that the department has a good relationship with the rest of the Lawrence city government, and it’s maintained a progressive approach in moving forward with the city’s constantly increasing clean water needs. In all but one of his 14 years with the department, he says the city has passed incremental rate increases as opposed to holding steady for several years and then springing large increases on customers.

Much of the monies from those rate increases will go toward updating and improving an aging infrastructure of at least one facility that dates back more than a century and another that recently surpassed its 40th year of operation.

“Our infrastructure’s old,” Flynn says. “We have our share of pipe leaks. But, I think our emergency planning has really helped.”

Hutchison, for one, has faith that the City of Lawrence will do what it has to do to ensure that city residents, businesses and all other entities have clean and safe drinking water today, tomorrow and the days and years that follow.

“I think Lawrence has been very active and engaged in its responsibilities with regard to providing safe water,” he says. p

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Wastewater management is key to maintaining the health and well-being of community members and the environment.

by Matthew Petillo, photos by Steven Hertzog

Wastewater may be the water system you don’t want to talk about, but wastewater is no joke.

With America’s propensity for running water and flushable toilets, wastewater is a key infrastructure priority for cities and municipalities large and small, as well as for the individual homeowner outside the system using a septic tank. Wastewater departments are tasked with safely moving, treating and disposing of whatever goes down the drain or toilet.

Jay Lovett, manager for Wastewater Treatment Services for the City of Lawrence, manages two watertreatment plants, 35 sewer pump stations and four stormwater stations, and is also responsible for the personnel needed to run the facilities.

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“The first thing that I’m responsible for is the crew of people that operate these plants. I have about 14 staff that operate these facilities 24/7, and I manage their efforts,” Lovett says. “I [also] oversee the treatment processes. These plants are designed to treat wastewater in a very specific way, and that process has to be supervised.”

The wastewater treatment process is an involved and somewhat fascinating process with several steps to getting the water to a level it can be returned to the environment and the solids to fertilizer grade or sent to a landfill. These include filtering the wastewater and separating liquids and solids into two separate trains or treatment channels. The water train consists of several settling basins to remove more and more solids that are sent to the solids treatment, removing nutrients that cause harm downstream to wildlife,

Wakarusa Wastewater Treatment Plant

Septic Systems The septic process is slightly different from what goes on at the treatment facilities. Most houses outside of Lawrence use septic tanks, which are tanks that have lines into the ground that slowly seep water and, occasionally, have to be cleaned and emptied of solids by a septic tank cleaning company.

Lovett, for his part, says it’s unlikely that any house outside of city limits will ever be connected to city sewer lines, even if they are close to the city limits, because of the limits on infrastructure.

and then disinfecting and cleaning the water before it is returned to the environment. The solids that are gathered throughout the process are eventually separated into those that can be used for fertilizer and materials that must be sent to a landfill.

“The way I see it is that we allow gravity to take as many of the settled solids out of the sewer water as we can. We remove the trash, and we let gravity take care of as many of the organics that will settle,” Lovett explains. “We select for a biological mass that will get rid of the other bit of nutrients and things that we need. … That biology is different in each of our facilities, and it changes throughout the year. Basically, we grow pets.”

What Lovett fondly calls “pets” is the bacteria that is commonly referred to as “bugs” in the wastewater treatment process. This process uses organic material “bugs” to eat or digest the waste. These bugs are used to get rid of nutrients that can cause harm to the environment. The water and solids channels are constantly monitored and regulated to maintain the system, sustain the level of good bugs and keep the channels flowing, constantly adjusting to a fluctuating input volume that can change with the season and weather.

“Sewer water has some characteristics that are pretty rough on infrastructure. Sewer water has to flow at a certain rate or becomes corrosive, it starts to create gasses, and it will chew up sewer lines,” he says. “So if you had a line that went from a mile out into the country all the way into town from everyone’s house, and it all just joined up that way, the lines would not last very long, and it would crumble to bits. Outside of city limits, you’re gonna have a septic tank. Connecting to city sewer is something that has to be close enough so that not only can you physically put the water there, but that it’s not going to decompose and cause problems with the infrastructure.”

Dealing with Growth With new technologies, it is a constant struggle to keep facilities upgraded, much less the cost of doing so. With population growth, however, Lovett says the technology needs to be installed, but it is not easy to do.

“Expanding treatment plants is a challenge,” he explains.

“Some of the challenges are related to just the scope of a project. The technologies employed [at one plant] are 20 years old, and in that amount of time, things have changed enough that not only do we need new technology, we also need new support equipment for that technology. All of the infrastructure in the facility is old enough that it frequently has to be brought up to code before you can even put in the new technology to upgrade the facility for the water-quality goals that you have.”

Lovett says the number of challenges for an upgrade like that is high, and water that is coming in while the facility is under construction also has to be dealt with.

That expansion includes the Wakarusa River Wastewater Treatment Plant (WRWWTP), which opened in 2018, and a current $55-million plan to update the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant (KRWWTP). Trevor Flynn, assistant director of Municipal Services and Operations, says the main reason these updates are taking place are to remain in compliance with state law.

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“The current KRWWTP [Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant] National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit includes new nitrogen and phosphorus removal requirements. Wastewater treatment process enhancements are required to meet regulatory permit limits to reduce nutrients,” Flynn says. “In order to meet the new permit limits, a significant upgrade is necessary to alter our current treatment processes to improve our effluent water quality to the Kansas River.”

Jay Lovett stands above the wastewater at the 8th St Wastewater Plant (R) The control room inside the Kaw River Water Treatment Plant (below) Assistant Director Trevor Flynn speaks to an informational tour group at the Kaw River Water Treatment Plant

The upgrade project also includes an in-depth assessment of the plant, including improvement on process equipment, process piping, electrical service requirements, buildings, basins and the effluent outfall, he adds.

Testing Just treating water and making sure it’s safe enough to go back out into the river is not all that the wastewater facility does. Josh Toevs, the water quality lab manager, runs the laboratory space inside the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Toevs says the lab space is something that creates a lot of good for further developing treatment processes.

“Each plant has a lab. We actually have dedicated lab space, and it’s oversized on purpose to be able to collaborate with projects at [the University of Kansas] or [from] another researcher so that we have space to optimize our processes,” Toevs says. “Everything that we can do better saves [Lawrence payers] money. Our new plant came online in 2018, so it [has] state-of-the-art technology. It’s not just one of the best performing plants in Kansas, it’s one of the best performing plants in the Midwest.”

Belinda Sturm, associate vice chancellor for research and a professor in the Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering department at the University of Kansas (KU) is well-known for her research with wastewater, starting with an experiment creating biofuel out of algae grown from wastewater. This project, Sturm says, has made significant progress both academically and commercially since its start in 2007.

“Research never really ends, it just takes different phases. That project has morphed into another project. I have a Department of Energy project based off of … Version 5 of that project,” Sturm says. “Since

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we’ve been doing that research, there are full-scale companies selling algal wastewater treatment systems, and so this technology is being implemented at full scale. … We have not figured out, as a society, who figures out who does both [treatment and fuel-making] at once.”

There’s another layer of research to her current Department of Energy grant, she explains. Thermochemical conversion, taking biomass and putting it in a high-pressure cooker, is being adopted at full scale.

COVID-19 “Lawrence is the only city that has been doing COVID wastewater testing weekly since June of 2020, and we will continue to do that with KU,” KRWWTP’s Toevs says.

And these days in the community, Sturm is known for testing wastewater for COVID-19 concentrations to determine the current levels of COVID-19 infection not just in our community but in several communities across Kansas.

“The director of the [Kansas] Bureau of Water called me in March of 2020 and asked me if I could measure the genes in the wastewater, because he had read a news story out of Europe where they were doing it,” Sturm says. “He gave me a few thousand dollars to buy the supplies that are needed to do it, and unfortunately, it was present in all of the wastewater we sampled. So that got us going. My first reaction was, ‘If they can do it, I can do it, so let’s try and see.’”

Her testing specifically involves extracting the waste of randomly chosen places inside communities and testing for the concentration of the virus in the waste.

She says her research shows that it is possible to get a general idea of what is happening in a community through this method, which was incredibly useful early on in the pandemic.

“In general, it is surveillance of the prevalence of COVID in the community. Instead of taking samples from individuals and testing all the individuals, depending on where you take your sample of the wastewater collection system, if you’re testing a manhole, all of those folks attached to those toilets are being sampled for COVID at that moment,” Sturm explains. “We have been doing the wastewater influence for the whole community of Lawrence.”

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Early on, when testing was not available, it was a way to get a snapshot of whether COVID was moving from communities, she says. Some of the first communities her team looked at were small, and everyone was surprised at the prevalence of COVID in the those towns then.

Research is an ongoing process, and Sturm’s is no exemption. It is still unclear what impact that vaccine is having on her research, Sturm adds, but early signs are good.

“It’s hard to tweeze out just the impact of vaccination, but we did have an early indication of that in Johnson County, because we were measuring in conjunction with Johnson County Wastewater two manholes just outside of long-term care facilities,” she explains. “We were measuring them before the vaccine came and after, and all those concentrations went to NORM detect. That was when, for me personally, I was very excited to get the vaccine.”

Concentrations have been going down during the last four months, Sturm adds, so it’s hard to say whether that’s vaccination or because we have seen Delta spikes.

It’s harder to tell whether a COVID strain is the original or Delta variant with the current technology because it has to be sent off for sequencing to be determined.

The research she is doing has implications beyond just COVID: It could possibly be used for several other infectious diseases. She says she has already started testing the technology she is using to detect COVID in other places with other diseases, as well.

“KDHE [Kansas Department of Health and Environment] is funding this work, and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has started just within the pandemic what is called the National Wastewater Surveillance System. In the most general terms, what I would say is that we are able to detect disease and specifically infectious disease … through wastewater,” Sturm explains. “I am working with a military base, and for the military, I think it’s very clear that this might be a way for them to really think about national security and infectious disease spread without having to sample all individuals on a base. This is a less-invasive way to get the health of a community without having to go to a human subject.”

Wastewater can tell us a lot about a community, and the environmental impacts of wastewater are limitless.

Wastewater might be one thing no one wants to look at (or smell), but it is incredibly useful, not just to scientists but to the general population of any community, big or small. p

Wastewater Infrastructure at the Wakarusa Wastewater Treatment Facility (top), and at the 8th Street Wastewater Treatment Facility (middle and bottom)

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by Anne Brockhoff, photos by Steven Hertzog

Understanding and protecting Douglas County's rivers, lakes and wetlands is a multifaceted process including many state and local entities.

Clouds blanketed Douglas County in early November, delivering showers that drenched runners, muddied construction sites and paused the county’s soybean harvest. Part of that moisture soaked into the ground, but much of it rushed over parking lots and fields, through creeks and ditches, and into the area’s rivers, lakes and wetlands.

That the water didn’t stay put isn’t surprising. What might be is how complicated managing its movement through the Kansas River Basin is. Rainfall that enters the Wakarusa River, Clinton Lake, Baker University Wetlands, Lone Star Lake, Douglas State Fishing Lake and countless other waterways eventually drains to a single point: the Kansas River. That flows into the Missouri River, then the Mississippi River and finally the Gulf of Mexico.

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It’s all connected, so decisions made upstream and down by myriad local, city and state governments, federal agencies including the U.S. Corps of Engineers, nonprofits and other entities impact drinking water, flood control, recreation, industry and wildlife habitat in Douglas County. The system seems vast, but at the same time, it’s hyperlocal. Choices made by every local land user impact the quantity and quality of available water throughout the system, as farmers like Daniel Squires, of Lawrence, well know.

“Our kids are growing up playing on Clinton Lake,” says Squires, whose family has farmed in Douglas County since 1860. “We drink the water that comes out of the river and lake, and we want to make that just as safe as anybody else does. That’s a big reason this is important to farmers.”

Clinton Lake

The Lawrence farmer grows more than 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans in Douglas and Shawnee counties, all of which he plants without disturbing the soil, a practice known as no-till farming. He also plants cover crops such as cereal rye, tillage radishes and turnips to reduce erosion and nutrient runoff, suppress weeds, break pest cycles and improve soil permeability.

Cover crops have boosted organic matter in his soil, something Squires suspects has increased yields, particularly in fields with steeper grades or more marginal soils. Using no-till exclusively also means Squires doesn’t have to invest in or maintain conventional equipment, such as a field cultivator and disc

for tilling or chisel (used for deep tillage), or spend the money, fuel and time required to use it. The equipment he does own is high-tech, allowing for precision-farming techniques like soil-sampling and exact applications of fertilizer.

The real benefit though? Crop residue and cover crops allow fields to absorb more water; any excess is slowed and filtered, leaving soil and fertilizer in place.

“What really sells people is when they get out there after a big rain in the spring and sit at the end of a terrace watching water run off,” Squires says. “It’s clean water coming out of the end of a terrace, not something that looks like a milkshake made with soil.”

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Watershed Work Squires didn’t get to this point by himself. He took over a few fields from an older farmer who was already planting cover crops, and he has since worked with the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams (KAWS) to expand the practice.

The nonprofit works with landowners, local conservation districts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP), the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, KState Research and Extension, and other partners to connect people, land and water. Part of that work is sponsoring six watershed projects in the state’s Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) program. WRAPS helps stakeholders protect, restore and manage watersheds, and is financed through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 (which focuses on nonpoint sources of pollution) and the Kansas Water Plan.

Two of WRAPS watershed plans extend into Douglas County: the Upper Wakarusa River and the Lower Kansas River.

The plans identify priority areas within each and offer cost-share assistance for producers working to establish best practices, such as developing grazingmanagement plans and alternative watering systems for livestock, planting filter strips and buffers, stabilizing stream banks, converting to no-till and planting cover crops. KAWS even makes specialized equipment available, such as the Hagie Montag interseeder, which can sow cover-crop seed into a field where corn is already growing.

Farmers such as Luke Ulrich, of Baldwin City, are happy to take advantage of such opportunities.

On the shore of the Kansas River

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“Everything we do in our operation at some point flows into a stream or river that will end up carrying our soil and nutrients away if we’re not careful,” says Ulrich, who is committed to improving soil and water quality on the 2,100 acres of row crops he farms. Most of that is in Douglas County, and a “pretty good chunk” lies in the Upper Wakarusa River watershed.

He began switching to no-till farming about 10 years ago to combat topsoil loss and erosion.

He acknowledges the change felt risky—farmers rely on familiar, proven methods because of the investment it takes to produce a crop.

“We have one shot every year, and it has to count,” Ulrich says. “You don’t want to not raise a crop because of a management decision.”

The shift appears to be paying off. The small rills and ditches cut by running water have disappeared from his fields, and he spends less time doing “dirt work” such as repairing terraces. Ulrich is collaborating with KAWS to plant cover crops that suppress weeds like marestail (also called horseweed) and pigweed, add organic matter and keep topsoil and fertilizer in place.

Ulrich, of course, hopes such practices will prove profitable, but his efforts aren’t just about making money. It’s about preserving a legacy— he is a sixth-generation farmer, and he hopes his 8-year-old son will become the seventh.

“We want to preserve this life, preserve this land, keep things viable and continue to make a living by feeding people,” he adds.

KAWS and its partners aren’t the only ones trying to make that happen. The Douglas County Conservation District (Ulrich serves on its board) offers educational and cost-sharing programs.

Douglas County’s four drainage districts, each with their own elected board members and taxing authority, maintain a system of ditches that link fields and waterways. Producer organizations like the Kansas Soybean Association and Kansas Corn have their own initiatives to lessen the impact of water flowing over farm ground.

The Essential Kansas River It takes more than farmers to protect Kansas’s water resources, though. Approximately 80 percent of the state’s surface water is impaired by something, says Megan Rush, the Middle and Lower Kansas River WRAPS watershed coordinator for KAWS. That includes 100 percent of the Kansas River, which is an essential source of drinking water for 800,000 Kansans.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t drink out of it or recreate in it, but that’s still pretty scary,” Rush says. “That’s quite a few people who’d be without water if that resource goes away.”

The Kansas River originates near Junction City, and its drainage area covers more than 60,000 square miles from the High Plains of eastern Colorado to parts of Nebraska and most of central Kansas.

It extends 173 miles through 10 Kansas counties before meeting up with the Missouri River in Kansas City, Kansas. Communities all along the way pull drinking water from the river; it also feeds alluvial aquifers that provide water for still more people.

That makes water quality a paramount issue, says Kansas Riverkeeper Dawn Buehler, who is also executive director of Friends of the Kaw and chair of the Kansas Water Authority, a 13-person board that advises the Kansas Water Office, governor and legislature on water-policy issues and the Kansas Water Plan.

Bacteria, agricultural chemicals including phosphorus and nitrates, and algal blooms in reservoirs are all issues, as are shoreline development, dredging, trash and one of the things Buehler dislikes seeing the most while canoeing the Kansas River: plastic.

“I’ll pull up on a sandbar and see little, tiny pieces of plastic, and water bottles are everywhere,” she says. “Not Pepsi bottles, not Mountain Dew bottles, but bottles for something you can get from your tap.”

Urban development takes a toll, too. New streets, parking lots and buildings change how water flows, creating more and faster runoff in waterways like Baldwin Creek, in northwest Lawrence, Burroughs Creek, in east Lawrence, and Yankee Tank Creek, which passes through Alvamar Lake above the Clinton Lake Sports Complex. Originally built as a flood-control dam in 1974, Alvamar Lake (then known as Yankee Tank Lake) was emptied in 2007 because of safety concerns. The dam and spillway were later upgraded and the lake refilled; it is still supervised by the Wakarusa Watershed Joint District No. 35, one of two watershed districts with taxing authority in Douglas County.

Heavy rainfall can flood the existing stormwater systems in Lawrence, as happened in August 2019. Excessive runoff from a deluge overwhelmed the Kansas River Wastewater Treatment Plant and allowed sewage to be released into the Kansas River and area creeks.

“Runoff came in so big and fast into the wastewater treatment plant that it broke the equipment,” Buehler recalls.

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Clinton Lake Community That summer proved difficult for Clinton Lake, as well. Widespread rains raised water levels throughout the Kansas River Basin, but Clinton Lake couldn’t release stored water because doing so would have exacerbated flooding and threatened levies on the Missouri River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ water-management team in Kansas City worked with its counterparts in Omaha, Nebraska, Mississippi and elsewhere to monitor flooding while coordinating with the City of Lawrence, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP), Kansas Water Office, Clinton Marina and other entities locally. It wasn’t easy, and it meant curtailing recreation on the lake until levels returned to normal.

“The biggest thing about Clinton is knowing that it is a juggling act with multiple agencies and the public itself to take care of this resource correctly,” says Samantha Jones, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers natural resource manager at Clinton Lake. “It really does take an entire community.”

Flood control has been one of Clinton Lake’s main jobs since the dam was completed in 1977; another is providing drinking water for 100,000 area residents.

Three Corps rangers plus maintenance staff and seasonal employees, oversee the 7,000-acre lake and the surrounding 15,000 acres of Corps-owned land.

They’re also in charge of the lake’s parks, wildlife areas and other systems and amenities, which together attract 2 million visitors a year.

Then there’s the water itself. The Corps monitors the lake for problems such as sedimentation, something all Kansas lakes struggle with. Fast-flowing water in rivers and streams picks up soil. When that water enters a lake, its velocity slows, and those particles settle out. Over time, a buildup of sediment reduces a lake’s holding capacity.

Kansas River near St. George photo by Lisa Grossman

At Clinton Lake, tracts of marshes, wetlands, deciduous forest and native grassland in wildlife areas help protect it from sedimentation. The Corps is working with KAWS and other partners to develop even more areas, such as an 80-acre wetland-restoration project along the Wakarusa River, near the Shawnee-Douglas County border. Construction is just starting; when finished in March, it will filter runoff, make it easier for Lawrence to treat drinking water and enhance recreation, says Rebecca Steadman, the Upper Wakarusa River WRAPS watershed coordinator for KAWS. The nonprofit is already collecting water samples to eval47

uate the wetland’s impact and will continue to do so for the next three years, she says.

“Hopefully, it will give us some documentation and validation while quantifying the benefits you get from restoration,” Steadman says. top to bottom Brian Squires plowing his field and examining his crop Ruts caused by runoff that have not been looked after and repaired become obstacles to the farmland.

Luke Ulrich shows off the richness of the soil when he uses the non-till method

Invasive species such as zebra mussels also bear watching. The mollusks can harm native species and habitat, clog pipes at water-treatment facilities and spur algal blooms. Some forms of blue-green algae are harmful to people and dogs. Others produce a compound called geosmin, which has a strong, musty odor that is difficult to remove from drinking water.

Other nuisances are silver carp, which have been found in Douglas County but not yet in Clinton Lake, and the rusty crayfish, which causes ecological damage, attacks people and animals, and was identified in Kansas in July. Aquatic plants including Eurasian watermilfoil, which forms dense mats on water surfaces, are also problematic.

“The biggest thing we fight is invasive fish and aquatic plant species,” says John Reinke, Northeast Region fisheries supervisor for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.

Valuing Recreation Protecting lakes is important for Kansas, where fishing alone generated $6.8 million in user fees and added $293 million to the Kansas economy, the state’s wildlife and parks department reported in 2018. The department is financed entirely through hunting and fishing license fees and the Sport Fish Restoration Program, a federal program that levies excise tax on fishing equipment and boat fuel.

The KDWP owns and operates more than 40 state fishing lakes, including Douglas State Fishing Lake, two miles northeast of Baldwin City. The 180-acre lake has channel and flathead catfish, carp, largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie, while the surrounding 538 acres are open for in-season deer, turkey, squirrel and migratory waterfowl hunting. Primitive campsites, restrooms and picnic tables are also available. That’s all good for the local economy, Reinke says.

“The recreational opportunities, especially in a relatively urban area like Lawrence, are really important,” he continues. “Employers and business owners know that quality of life for their employees is a big thing.”

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agrees. The county’s Lone Star Lake is about 10 miles southwest of Lawrence and offers 63 campsites, a beach, shelters, a playground, a newly remodeled community room and a handicap-accessible boat dock. It’s open to canoeing and kayaking, and the lake in September hosted the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America National Collegiate 5K Open Water Swimming Championship. There are also 400 acres of parkland and plenty of wildlife, including bald eagle nesting sites, Voigt says.

It’s not hyperbole to say the lake was a gift for Douglas County residents. Work on the 185-acre lake began in 1934 as a Civilian Conservation Corps project. Ownership was transferred to Douglas County in 1937, and construction was completed two years later.

“We’re pretty lucky that we received it, because there’s no way we’d be able to build something like that today,” Voigt says.

Washington Creek flows into the lake, which Voigt explains was not designed for flood control, and then continues through a spillway and on to the Wakarusa River.

Douglas County oversees mowing, weed control, tree management and facilities maintenance, and employs a seasonal camp host. The county charges camping and building-use fees; the lake and park are otherwise free and open to the public.

“This is not a money-maker,” Voigt says. “It’s an investment for the public.”

Maintaining such assets can be challenging, however.

Baldwin City Lake is a historical spring 2½ miles southeast of Baldwin City, but a spillway that contained the water failed years ago. The lake is now “basically a swamp,” says Cory Venable, who grew up on an adjacent property and is now on the Baldwin City Council.

The city owns the property and is considering what to do with it as part of its strategic-planning process. Restoring the lake, which still has a disc golf course, could add to the city’s quality of life, but the council must consider repairs within the context of other fiscal priorities.

The entrance to the “tower” at Clinton Lake

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“I grew up on the lake, and I have a deep attachment to it, but it’s public money,” says Venable, who also owns the Baldwin City Beer Co. “I have to be objective about it.”

Building the Baker University Wetlands Balancing competing priorities can be difficult, as evidenced by the long and sometimes contentious debate over how construction of the South Lawrence Trafficway would impact the Baker University Wetlands. Opponents worried it would ruin the wetlands; an eventual compromise actually expanded it. The wetlands complex now encompasses 927 acres, with 11 miles of hiking trails and a Discovery Center.

“On the whole, I would say we’re better off for those 900plus acres being under rehabilitation and being put back into a natural system,” says Irene Unger, director of the Baker University Wetlands.

The wetlands evolved during thousands of years of flooding, which gradually formed a natural levee along the Wakarusa River and left layers of clay that prevent water from percolating quickly through the soil, according to the Baker University Wetlands website. The original wetlands were homesteaded in 1854 and later acquired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to create a farm for Haskell Institute, a precursor of Haskell Indian Nations University. Most of that land was drained for agricultural use, as was typical of the time.

“There’s a long history in the United States of converting wetlands into agricultural land,” Unger says.

Much of the acreage was declared surplus land by the Department of the Interior and given away in the 1950s, and Baker University acquired 573 acres in 1968. Early restoration efforts included reintroducing native plants. In the 1990s and 2000s, drainage structures were removed, the swales and pools of the original landscape were excavated, and boardwalks were built.

A 2012 mitigation agreement between the Kansas Department of Transportation and Baker University meant 56 acres were lost to the trafficway, but 410 more were added. This allowed for the expanded restoration of wetlands, prairie and native riparian forest; creation of buffer zones; relocation of utility lines; construction of trails, parking lots and the Discovery Center; and increased educational and recreational opportunities for Baker University students and the public.

The wetlands can now do what they’re meant to: slow and filter water. Unger likens it to a sponge—when excess water enters the wetlands, the system soaks it up and then gradually releases it. That’s exactly what happened during those wet months of 2019, when the Wakarusa River was running so high that water backed up into the wetlands.

Samantha Jones, Natural Resource Manager U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Rebecca Steadman, WRAPS Watershed Coordinator for the Upper Wakarusa Photo by Dayna Steadman

“It received all that water, held it and slowly released it,” Unger says. “That was nature doing its thing.”

Two full-time and two part-time staff manage the Baker University Wetlands through mowing, controlled burns and elimination of invasive species like sericea lespedeza and purple loosestrife. They also do everything from creating educational programming and collecting water quality data to operating the Discovery Center and picking up trash. But their work is more than a sum of tasks.

Megan Rush, WRAPS Watershed Coordinator Middle and Lower Kansas River Dawn Buehler on the Kaw Photo by Dan Videtich

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Making Preservation Personal Baker University Wetlands’ goal is to create a functional and biodiverse ecosystem that filters water and provides a refuge for plant, animal and insect species, as well as educational and recreational opportunities for people.

“It’s really hard to quantify those benefits,” Unger says.

“People talk to me about their experiences during the pandemic, and there’s not a dollar amount you can put on improving mental health by being in nature.”

Such personal connections are essential to protecting natural water resources, Riverkeeper Buehler says.

That’s why Friends of the Kaw organizes paddle trips and restoration workdays, holds events including beer and film festivals, and this year, celebrated its 30th anniversary with a party on a sandbar at the Kaw River State Park, in Topeka.

Many of the organization’s supporters enjoy canoeing and kayaking, and those two activities generate about $3.7 million in revenue annually in Kansas, according to the river conservation group America’s Rivers.

Even more people hike, bike and camp near waterways. Wildlife is also a big draw—the Kansas River is thick with blue herons, kingfishers, white pelicans, migratory birds like ducks and geese, softshell turtles, river otters, beavers and other species. There is even a record 27 pair of nesting bald eagles along the Kansas River now, Buehler adds.

“When people find a connection to a river, they fall in love with it and want to help protect it,” she says. “It changes their perspective.” p 52

Friends of the Kaw and volunteers work cleaning up the Kaw Photos by Lisa Grossman

by Bob Luder, photos by Steven Hertzog

Stormwater issues are top of mind and a constant concern in Lawrence, especially with the Kaw River running through town and threats of climate change.

Storm drains on Naismith Drive

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Matt Bond read about and studied in depth the 1951 Kansas River flood that fully submerged North Lawrence under 8 to 10 feet of water between the north and south sides of the railroad tracks, decimating the area for residents and businesses. He lived through the back-to-back, 300year rain events in 1993 that caused river levels to come to within 6 feet of the top of the levees built following the ’51 flood and, again, caused major flooding to the area.

He recalls seeing automobiles on 23rd Street near Naismith Drive stall in high water as the floodplain filled during another deluge. He saw photographs in the local newspaper of residents paddling canoes down Alabama Street, south of 19th Street as the street turned into a raging river.

“I would like to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” says Bond of the latter event, but he might as well be referring to them all. As engineering program manager of the City of Lawrence Municipal Services and Operations (MSO), one of Bond’s job requirements (he also inspects 27 bridges in the city) is to control as best as possible the city’s stormwater and where and how fast it flows so as to cause as little damage to infrastructure and land as possible. He oversees a vast assemblage of lines, pipes, gutters and channels, ensuring they remain up-todate and smoothly working to hold back stormwater from Lawrence’s door.

“We maintain all storm sewers,” Bond says. “We perform upkeep on what we have as well as designing new infrastructure all the time.”

He says the increasing effects of climate change have only intensified the challenges of his job.

“Lately, we’ve been having more intense storms over a shorter time on a more frequent basis,” Bond says. “Back on April 28 (of this year), we documented 2.17 inches of rain in 25 minutes at a pump station near Vermont Street.

“We’ve started an asset management project … . We’re identifying everything we have in the ground and inspecting it. We have things built 50, 60, 70 years ago. We know 55

they’re there, but we don’t know the size or condition. Anything older than 10 years, we’re going to stick a camera down there and inspect. We’ll build our next capitalimprovement projects off of that.”

The city’s stormwater utility was started in 1996. At that time, 11 of what they classified as “Phase I” projects were identified, Bond explains. Seven were completed. Currently, he says his department has completed 17 of 41 identified projects.

“We reassess the (capital-improvement) plan every year,” he says. “There are some issues we need to address. I’d say, overall, Lawrence does better than most (comparable cities). But, we have some work to do.”

STORMWATER DEFINED Ted Peltier, professor in the environmental engineering program at the University of Kansas (KU), has spent much of his professional life studying stormwater and its effects on Lawrence and the surrounding communities. When it comes to defining stormwater, he prefers to keep it simple: Stormwater is anything ending up on ground surfaces following rainstorms.

What to do with stormwater, Peltier says, is all about managing the flow and directing it to where it needs to go to cause the least amount of damage and provide the greatest benefit.

“Sometimes, we try to do a little treatment along the way,” he says. “Remove solids, things like that. But most important is controlling flows.”

Peltier believes Lawrence has been more active than most of its peers in being proactive in stormwater flow control.

Storm drains on Naismith Drive

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“It’s structure that’s been built up over time,” he says. “It consists of older and newer parts. The city has updated code several times to upgrade approaches to stormwater removal. There’s a good deal of pollution prevention involved. They’re trying to do whatever they can.”

Though the Kansas River has had flooding issues in the past, Peltier stresses the city is fortunate to be located next to a major waterway like the Kaw. “It’s a place where stormwater can go,” he says. “Impacts are less because there’s more space for water to move.”

Much of Peltier’s study and work the past seven or eight years has been on ways to improve the quality of stormwater. Specifically, he’s been studying stormwater runoff from rural fields in western Johnson County. He’s also been involved in research regarding the Coblentz Marsh, a man-made, 160-acre wetlands area in the Deer Creek Wildlife Area, near Clinton Lake. Stormwater runs through the marsh, into the wetland and into the Wakarusa River before depositing into Clinton Lake.

“We’re looking at how having water run through the wetland can affect solids as well as nitrogen and phosphorus,” Peltier explains. “If we can slow down the flow, it’s easier to separate solids, because they’re heavier.”

Water quality—that is, keeping water volume moving while keeping it cleaner—is one of two big issues facing the handling of stormwater, he says. The other is growth within the city. More industry, businesses and homes leads to more concrete, which absorbs less water and takes the place of areas once used to steer runoff and flow.

A third issue, Bond points out, is the changing climate.

“Most modeling shows that weather will be less predictable,” he says. “There will be more big weather events, more intense rainstorms. That will make stormwater more challenging.”

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE During the great flood of ’51, 410,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water was measured coming through the U.S. Geological Survey gauge in the Kansas River near DeSoto. As a result of the massive flooding that occurred, Bond says, the Kansas River Levee was constructed. The 11.5-mile-long unit consists of a levee along the north bank of the Kansas River as well as the Mud Creek Levee along the south bank of Mud Creek.

It runs from Jefferson County, through Douglas and into Leavenworth County.

Lawrence was the first community in Kansas to have its levee certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and second in FEMA’s Region 7, which includes Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.

Over the years, there also were seven flood-control reservoirs dug out upriver from Lawrence that also captured stormwater and helped ease flood risk: Perry Reservoir, Tuttle Creek Lake, near Manhattan, Milford Reservoir, Glen Elder Reservoir, Kirwin Reservoir, Webster Reservoir and Wilson Reservoir.

“The levee was constructed to handle 283,000 csf,” Bond says. “The greatest I’ve seen it is 190,000 csf.

That was when water reached within 6 feet from the top of the levee in ’93.”

More recently, he has been working on a study of the Jayhawk Watershed, a main stormwater sewer line that runs diagonally from near Memorial Stadium on the KU campus to the Kansas River. The main trunk line conveys most sewer water to the river.

To this day, Bond says major rain events can put the northwest corner of Watson Park, at Seventh and Tennessee streets, completely underwater.

“I’ve seen water almost up to the lower links in the basketball netting on the basketball courts there,” he says.

Repairs to the Bowersock dam and The Kansas River

58

Bond says the current study is looking at removing existing pipe along that line and replacing it with larger pipe to alleviate water flow through the Jayhawk Watershed. It’s a difficult task, he says, because of the way the pipe weaves diagonally through neighborhoods, often between residential homes.

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“We’re always looking at ways to do things while minimally disrupting peoples’ lives,” Bond explains.

“We’re trying to do a better job with public involvement. The biggest thing is telling the public why we’re doing the project.”

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The Jayhawk Watershed line is what in stormwater engineers’ jargon is termed a “closed conduit.” Stormwater is also controlled through open channels, such as the channel recently relined between the north and south lanes of Naismith Drive just north of 23rd Street. And there’s the ongoing work at 17th and Alabama streets to ensure no more canoers get pictures taken.

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“Typically, we start projects downstream and work our way up,” Bond says. “We try to take a more corridor approach. If we’re going to fix the storm system, then what about pedestrian ramps? The goal is to deal with as many issues while we’re there so as not to disrupt life around the site.”

There’s a planned project near Arrowhead Drive where concrete channeling will be removed in favor of replacing it with something that’s more “green,” adding conservation areas designed to contain more runoff, using more retention ponds or wetlands areas.

Lawrence also has several areas throughout the city designated as floodplain, low-lying areas that can be major conveyances of water during intense storms.

Bond thinks a good part of stormwater’s future will be dealt with using green initiatives.

“Lawrence has quite a bit of floodplain because of the Wakarusa River,” Bond says. “Floodplain helps syphon out contaminants from stormwater.”

He adds that floodplain often gets filled in by development, though Lawrence has a no-rise policy—filling in floodplain can’t result in a rise in stormwater during flooding situations. There has to be another means created to drain stormwater from the area.

Though it has more modern stormwater infrastructure, Bond says there is always work going on in West Lawrence, though typically with the bent of a different color.

“I think we’re going to see more green innovations,” he says. “If you’re trying to promote green infrastructure, you can pick up stormwater in rain barrels or storm gardens. One inch of rainfall over 500 square feet can fill a 55-gallon barrel.

“There are also pervious pavements, which absorb rainwater and improve the quality of stormwater, because it absorbs slowly and removes solids. There are other things like grass roofs and native grasses.

These all are things being tried now, and I’m sure more innovations will be coming in the future.” p

Technology used to develop a new kind of concrete as an alternative to help manage runoff problems.

by Matthew Petillo, photos by Steven Hertzog

Concrete has been with humans for as long as people can remember. The first instance of it being used in a building dates back to the Greeks between 1400 and 1200 B.C. Fast-forward to 2021, and concrete is used in everything from roads and buildings to benches and sidewalks. These days, environmental issues are also a concern, and activists have levied their eyes on concrete.

During rainstorms, runoff from the grass, trash and concrete travels into storm drains, which lead, at least in Lawrence, to the Wakarusa and Kansas Rivers.

There’s a new type of concrete being used to try and alleviate this runoff problem: pervious concrete. Instead of allowing water to pool and take dirt and trash into the stormwater, pervious concrete allows the water drain directly into the storm system by absorbing into the concrete (which is a bunch of rocks compressed together and glued with paste) and either evaporating directly from the concrete or pooling into an underground storage place. Trade industry websites note it can be used for a variety of applications and can replace traditional concrete.

The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), one of the biggest users of concrete and asphalt that could be replaced with pervious concrete, does not use this type of concrete. Rick Barezinsky, KDOT assistant bureau chief of materials, says this type is much better suited for urban areas.

“Urban areas benefit the most from pervious concrete. Constructing sidewalks and parking lots with pervious concrete provides a path for the rainwater to percolate into the groundwater, often eliminating the need for retention ponds where real estate is expensive,” Barezinsky explains. “This also helps property owners comply with the EPA stormwater regulations.

“Using pervious concrete as the surface on highways is typically not done across the U.S. because the concrete is so porous, it is not as durable as traditional concrete pavement,” he continues. “Raveling of the surface is a common distress associated with pervious concrete. There is also concern that it does not provide the same structural support as 62

conventional PCCP [Portland Cement Concrete Pavement] and, thus, pervious concrete is not recommended for high-volume traffic areas.”

Even though it is directed toward urban areas such as Lawrence, Porter Arneill, director of communications and creative resources at the City of Lawrence, says that while Lawrence governmental agencies are looking into the technology, it is not yet in use.

“The City hasn’t used pervious concrete in the past, but staff is exploring ways to use it where appropriate in the future to help address environmental issues and support green, sustainable growth,” Arneill explains.

Despite the scarcity of contractors and process of learning, there are notable examples of pervious pavement being used successfully. The University of Kansas’s Lot 54 is an example of green engineering using pervious concrete, the result of which is water being absorbed into the ground and fed to trees instead of running off into storm drains with dirt. Gary Mohr, project manager for planning and development who managed Lot 54 when it was being built, says the idea behind the lot was to filter the water to get rid of extra sediment and trash before it went either into storage or the stormwater drains.

“The idea was to detain and, in theory, filter stormwater runoff from that parking lot. That was to assist with overall stormwater management. Underneath the parking area, there are large, 5-foot-deep beds of gravel,” he explains. “We cut large pockets into the ground and filled them with gravel. The pervious pavement lets the water filter through that and down into that gravel, and then any overflow feeds out into tanks underground, and it feeds out gradually. In theory, it all infiltrates into the ground, so there’s no runoff.”

Pervious concrete, while helping with runoff by keeping it out of the storm drain, still traps some of the dirt. Mohr says that although they must bring a company with an industrial-sized vacuum pump to clean it out, it’s still beneficial.

“The idea of reducing stormwater runoff and the silt and the dirt that goes with it, in theory, that’s all filtering into the rock basins and not into the Wakarusa River, which is where all that water ends up in the city storm system,” he says. “It’s not the runoff, it’s the dirt and the material that’s in the runoff that’s bad for the environment. You have to have runoff [in some form], else you wouldn’t have rivers and streams.”

One of the problems for why this technology is not used more is cost. Trade industry websites say that although

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Pervious concrete being used in LOT 54 on the KU campus

and above what you would normally do for a parking lot.

It’s not just the pavement, it’s the whole process.”

There’s a maintenance aspect to it, too, Mohr notes. It can’t just be left alone. the first cost is more expensive, over time, it gradually gets less so factoring in general costs associated with maintenance and upkeep. However, Mohr says for a governmental entity like his, that doesn’t matter. The base cost of the concrete, Mohr explains, caused the cost of the project to balloon to over twice the original budget.

“No, we haven’t [used pervious concrete since]. It turned out to be extremely expensive. [Lot 54] was considerably over budget. The administration decided that it was important that they fund it, but we’ve not done pervious pavement again since that project just because of experience, I think, primarily.” he says. “Digging out that much subgrade and buying that much rock, that is all well over 64

“It’s a maintenance-intensive process because you have to continuously clean the dirt and silt out of that concrete.

Parking and Transit works with Facilities to do so,” he says.

The lot is not entirely pervious concrete. Instead, the lot’s driving lanes are regular concrete, and the parking spaces are where the pervious concrete was laid. Mohr says that was intentional because the pervious concrete is not quite as durable as regular concrete.

“The driving lanes that get more traffic wouldn’t stand up with the pervious concrete. The only place that we put the pervious concrete was in the parking stalls, but that’s also the low part of each parking bay, and so the water is go-

ing to run to that area and then infiltrate,” he explains.

“You’re going to have some runoff regardless, but the idea was that you were going to catch the majority of the parking surface by channeling it toward those low areas.”

It has been seven years since the lot was installed, and in that time, it has gotten a lot of good use.

“I think the jury’s still out,” Mohr says. “We’ll see how long that pervious concrete will hold up. In theory, it’s a good idea to detain the stormwater because it helps with not only filtering the runoff, but it also helps with the city storm system, which is overloaded in places.

I think the theory is good, but I’m not 100% sold on pervious concrete.”

Despite its challenges, pervious concrete can be a useful piece of technological advancement. Homeowners looking to help reduce their environmental footprint can look into whether they should use it to help with runoff. Business owners wanting to be environmentally responsible when building a new parking lot have an option to help reduce stormwater runoff.

Although the process of forming the concrete still needs to be perfected, it’s a new tool for environmentally friendly infrastructure. p

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by Tara Trenary, photos by Steven Hertzog

In the ever-changing world today, it is essential that we take steps within our communities to preserve our natural resources, especially water.

It’s no secret our world is changing. Earthquakes, extreme storms, flooding, fires and drought have become the new normal. With so much change afoot, it’s inevitable that the use of our natural resources must evolve, as well.

In the United States, water is an important part of our daily lives. Not only that, but ours is some of the safest water in the world. Every day, we wake up, drink some coffee or tea, shower, brush our teeth and start our day. Water use doesn’t cross most of our minds.

But it is an integral part of every community. Without it, where would we be?

Essentials of Life “Water is critically important to the health and welfare of our community, from being able to have clean water to drink, perform household cooking, washing and sanitation purposes,” explains Josh Carson, public information officer with the City of Lawrence Municipal Services and Operations department. Plus, 66

“Most City projects use water in some form, from paving operations, concrete work, earth work, directional drilling, home construction or any type of building construction.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose purpose is to protect human health and the environment, notes on its website that without water, we’d have no local business or industry, no way to fight fires, no municipal parks or public swimming pools, no way to grow food or manufacture goods, no way to keep businesses running smoothly or to meet the nation’s vast energy needs.

Water on Earth might seem quite abundant to the untrained eye, the EPA site adds, but less than 1 percent is actually available for human use. The rest is either saltwater found in oceans, freshwater frozen in the polar ice caps or water that’s inaccessible for practical usage. While population and demand for freshwater resources increases, supply remains constant.

The water cycle continuously returns water to Earth, but it’s not always to the same place, in the same quantity or of the same quality.

Play the Ball as It Lies The average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water per day at home, according to studies by the EPA. About 70 percent is used indoors and 30 percent outdoors. Household water use can be much higher in drier parts of the country and in more water-intensive landscapes.

Some of those water-intensive landscapes include golf courses, which for years have had a reputation for being harmful to the environment and water guzzlers. While this perception is not entirely unfounded, golf courses have made great strides in becoming more environmentally responsible in recent years, according to Audubon International, whose mission is to create environmentally sustainable environments all across the globe where people live, work and play.

“The trends in building golf courses and in renovating golf courses are typically focused on sustainability,” explains Mark Johnson, associate director of environmental programs for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), the professional association for the men and women who manage and maintain the game’s most valuable resource: the golf course.

He has worked for more than 30 years in outdoor recreation, environmental protection, wildlife and natural resource conservation, and provides leadership, direction and project management for the various environmental programs, tools and services at GCSAA. “There has been a reduction in maintained turf in nonplayable areas to conserve resources and reduce inputs. Design elements include innovative ways to capture water, the use of drought-tolerant grasses and native plants, and providing habitats for wildlife.”

Johnson disagrees with the idea that golf courses are harmful to the environment and deplete water resources without giving back. “Golf courses that implement science-based, best-management practices contribute valuable green space within their communities and watersheds,” he says. “A golf course is a managed ecosystem.”

“Golf courses are green spaces that also provide recreational and economic benefits to the communities they serve,” Johnson continues. “The majority of golf courses in the U.S. are not private clubs but public or daily-fee courses.”

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Green Mowing with pond in the background Photo by Montana Pritchard

The Devil’s in the Details The actual amount of water a golf course needs to sustain healthy turf growth depends on many variables, including the species of turf and the prevailing climate in a given area, according to the U.S. Golf Association (USGA), the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico, which produces and interprets the rules of golf. “Scientific studies have determined that various turfgrasses require a specific percentage of the water that naturally evaporates from the soil and through the plants.”

Golf courses in cooler climates and high-rainfall areas can use less than 1 acre-foot (the amount of water covering a 1-acre area, roughly a football field, to a depth of 1 foot, which is equal to 325,851 gallons) of water per acre each year, according to the USGA website. Golf courses in hot, dry climates may require as much as 6 acre-feet of water per acre per year.

Water sources on golf courses include groundwater, surface water, reclaimed (recycled or effluent) and potable water. Only 8% use municipal water, and more than 15% use reclaimed water for irrigation, Johnson explains. “Many golf courses have been designed to collect water runoff from their community, and the runoff can be stored in ponds, wetlands and other environmentally friendly areas. The water is filtered as it crosses the golf course, and then many use it for irrigation. Others pump water from the ground or surface-water sources to fill irrigation ponds.”

Water is primarily used to irrigate the playing surfaces (greens, tees and fairways), he continues. Other landscapes like lawns or grassed courts may receive some irrigation. More than 15% use recycled/ reclaimed water for irrigation.

Some common water-conservation practices include wetting agents, hand-watering, keeping turf 68

drier, mulching landscape beds, irrigation scheduling, moisture meters and decreasing maintained turfgrass areas, Johnson says. Other efforts include using newer irrigation technologies and evapotranspiration rates, installing weather stations, establishing a water budget, using turfgrass varieties that use less water and transitioning to using recycled water.

When it comes to irrigation systems, he says they are highly maintained for efficiency and used in conjunction with weather stations, soil-moisture meters and conservation practices such as hand-watering on many golf courses. Overwatering is “bad for turfgrass and impacts play. Irrigation is limited on days when it rains or other precipitation provides adequate moisture for healthy roots and plants.”

Golf course turfgrass areas are credited for removing pollutants from water runoff (some golf courses are also designed to collect runoff from neighboring properties), erosion control, cooler temperatures and more, Johnson adds. “The out-of-play areas provide wildlife habitat, pollinator habitat, wildlife corridors and more ... An average 18-hole golf course is approximately 150 acres, of which 95 are managed turf, along with 26 acres of natural/native areas.”

Golf course architects incorporate the native landscapes with as little disturbance as possible, using designs and materials to minimize impacts, ensure resource efficiency, minimize maintenance and allow for future innovation, he says. “There’s more to golf course design and construction than meets the eye.

It’s about ensuring a valuable green space that is sustainable and beneficial to the communities they are in.”

The Nature of Things As the U.S. struggles with water shortages because of climate impacts, the face of landscaping has had to follow suit. Changes in equipment, technology, computers and software have helped to modernize the world of landscaping.

Nationwide, landscape irrigation accounts for nearly a third of all residential water use, nearly 9 billion gallons per day, according to the EPA. Outdoor water use varies depending upon geographic location. In drier climates, a household’s outdoor water use can be as high as 60 percent.

Some experts estimate that as much as 50 percent of water used for irrigation is wasted due to evaporation, wind or runoff caused by inefficient irrigation methods and systems, EPA’s website explains.

“They [equipment and technology] are always evolving,” says Jack Bell, co-owner of Turf Masters, a locally owned and operated all-in-one lawn-care service that has served Lawrence and the surrounding areas since 1974. “For example, it was the norm to push-mow almost every single mowing account with a standard 21-inch mower back in the 70s and 80s. The 90s introduced the wide-area walk-behind (the ZTR) and the Stander mower. All have taken efficiencies through the roof.”

Moisture Reader – Measures how much moisture is in the green so water isn’t wasted on areas that don’t need it.

Photo by LC Lambrect/GCSAA

Lawn-treatment practices have also evolved from push spreaders to ride-on spreader/sprayers, which once again help efficiencies, he continues. “As far as irrigation is concerned, I would say the biggest advancement is the WiFi controller. Clients can now make any adjustment possible while sitting on their couch or on vacation in Florida.”

Tricks of the Trade

WiFi controllers can come equipped with soil and flow sensors, allowing the controller itself to sense if the soil is too wet or dry while learning what normal flow is supposed to be. If there is a leak when the system is off, the flow sensor will catch if water is passing by when it’s not supposed to. It will also sense if there is too much flow on any specific zone.

Turf Masters shoots for roughly 1 to 1½ inches of water a week. More than that typically isn’t necessary. “On top of that, it’s important to break it up into increments,” he continues. “There’s only so much water uptake a plant can produce. Once the ground is saturated, most of the rest will run off. So getting that 1 to 1½ inches in a matter of two or three waterings is best.”

Drip irrigation is common for landscape beds. “The idea behind drip is for it to be covered by mulch or rock, and to water under the surface,” Bell explains. “This avoids evaporation. The downside to drip is it is a target for pests like squirrels. They will eat right through it. The other downfall is it’s much more difficult to see if it is working correctly or not.”

The City of Lawrence has initiated a three-tier system that exclusively relates to irrigation. Currently, the prices are: Tier 1, $7.10 per 1,000 gallons; Tier 2, $7.81 per 1,000 gallons; and Tier 3, $8.17 per 1,000 gallons.

“Commercial properties typically have dedicated water meters and are always charged the Tier 3 price since they are strictly for irrigation,” Bell says. “Commercial properties are also usually a lot bigger than your average residential. I’d say it’s safe to assume most commercial properties can easily triple these numbers.

Once again, it’s all relative to size.”

He says a properly designed irrigation system accurately irrigates its intended area and makes a system efficient, which is more effective than running your own hose sprinkler, because it is timed and monitored, precise and targeted.

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On a daily basis, landscapers use quite a bit of water.

“From the coffee maker in the mornings to the ice that goes into each crew’s water cooler in the afternoons.

And, of course, all day long with our irrigation crews,” Bell says.

Turf Masters advises its clients to turn their controllers off when they don’t need the water, usually a simple push of a button or turn of a dial. They also advise cus-

tomers on how many times to water per week given the time of year and what time of the day is best. “The general rule of thumb is don’t water during daylight hours, the evaporation rate is too substantial,” Bell explains. “Think of the coolest part of a 24-hour day, that’s going to be between 3 and 6 a.m. This has the lowest evaporation rate and allows the water to soak in.”

T to B: Jack Bell, owner of Turf Masters finishing installing new sprinkler system and adjusting the sprinkler heads to get them just right as to not waste water Dustin Nye, Owner of Turf Masters seeding an existing lawn Jack Bell standing by one of his trucks Jack and Dustin consulting on an irrigation plan while Cody Stanclift sprays for invasive pests

Other tricks of the trade: Try to have all watering done before the sun comes up. Water longer, not shorter.

Check your irrigation system three or four times a season, making sure you don’t have any leaks or broken heads.

Mow at the proper height during dry months (don’t cut it too short). To prevent stress during hot and/or drought conditions, take the mower up a notch.

Fertilize on a regular basis to help the grass establish a deep healthy root system. Install hardy perennials in landscape beds. “Every plant will need water when planted, but once perennials are established, they typically will not need much water,” Bell says. “They also only need to be trimmed once or twice a season. This is considered a low-maintenance approach.”

Most importantly, “Pay attention. It’s as simple as that,” Bell warns. “The absolute best way to irrigate is to be aware of the environment around you. Know when it rains. Know when it’s supposed to rain. Is it 100 degrees out? Are we in a drought? Do you need more water?

Do you need less?”

In the grand scheme of things, there isn’t a perfect sprinkler head or controller that will be better than the human eye. “Know what your irrigation controller is set for, don’t just set it and forget it,” he adds. “Pay attention to how much rain we receive, and turn on/off your controller accordingly.”

As of right now, Bell says, there’s not a lot to deter landscapers from irrigating less here in the Midwest. However, “It’s a completely different story out west. I

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think it’s inevitable that those regulations will make their way here, the only question is when.”

What’s Next?

The City of Lawrence is taking steps to promote conservation of water within the community, MSO’s Carson says. It has water-conservation requirements that go into effect during prolonged droughts. Also, implementation of Individual Inclining Block rates (rate structures where the system charges a higher price at larger volumes of water) will likely encourage residents to conserve water. And an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (an integrated system of equipment, communications and information-management systems for utilities) will automate reading data and eventually allow customers to check and monitor their usage in near real-time.

As the Centers Disease Control and Prevention reminds us, water is the most important resource for sustaining ecosystems, which provide life-supporting services for people, animals and plants. p

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NEWS [MAKERS] & PEOPLE ON THE MOVE CHANUKAH

Community Menorah Lighting

EnvistaCares Challenge Match of $2500 for Lawrence Habitat for Humanity Lawrence Habitat for Humanity and Envista Credit Union are pleased to announce that thanks to community support totaling $2,800, Lawrence Habitat for Humanity will receive the challenge match of $2,500 from Envista. In total, $5,300 in contributions during the month of September.

“Our goal at Envista is to lead, inspire and make an impact with our giving,” said Tara Dimick, Chief Business Development Officer of Envista. “Lawrence Habitat for Humanity is an incredible example of an organization that leads, inspires and makes an everlasting impact on our community. We are honored to support them, and encourage our community to give.”

“Every donation helps a family build a decent, affordable home. We are beyond grateful for the opportunity to partner with Envista and be the recipient of their EnvistaCares Challenge,” said Erika Zimmerman, executive director of Lawrence Habitat for Humanity.

“The opportunity to not only raise life-changing dollars, but to also spread word about our mission is such a blessing to our organization. We appreciate the work of Envista in our community and for their focus on affordable housing.”

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Thank you to the Honorees & Sponsors of the first seven Foundation Awards.

Local Businesses and their Growth continue to be the Foundation of our Local Economy, with resources limited due to the challenges of the last couple of years, the 2022 Foundation Awards will be postponed to focus on current issues and building for the future.

KEEP GROWING AND ADDING JOBS!!

We are planning a special

POST-PANDEMIC FOUNDATION AWARDS CELEBRATION FOR 2023 Be Safe and have Happy Holiday.

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For more information: www.LawrenceBusinessMagazine.com

2018

Alpha Roofing Build SMART Edmonds Duncan Registered Investment Advisors Good Energy Solutions, Inc. Kennedy Glass, Inc. KW Integrity Paul Werner Architects Pine Landscape Center Pioneer Ridge Retirement Community Prairie Land Insurance

2019 2014

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2015

Advanced Plumbing, Inc. AesthetiCare of Lawrence Alpha Roofing Bigg’s Cromwell Environmental Good Energy Solutions, Inc. Griffith Payments Next Level Baseball Academy Printing Solutions Silverback The Summit Treanor Architects

2016

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2017

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Bates Company Blue Collar Pes Brand New Box Bridge Haven Memory Care Build SMART Drs. Dobbins & Letourneau Eye Care Lawrence Free State Dental Keith Ely and Associates, Inc. dva KEA Advisors Koprince Law M Cubed Technologies Solomon & Associates, Ameriprise Financial

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WH OS E DESK ? ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Be the first to correctly guess which local business figure works behind this desk. Winner receives a $50 gift card to 23rd Street Brewery. facebook.com/lawrencebusinessmagazine

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Find a Primary Care Provider Close to You One of the best things you can do for your health is to select and get to know a primary care physician.

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to TONGANOXIE

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Eudora Family Care 600 E. 20th Street, Suite 200 Eudora, KS 66025 785-505-2345

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Family Medicine of Tonganoxie 410 Woodfield Drive Tonganoxie, Kansas 66086 913-845-8400

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Family Medicine of Baldwin City 406 Ames Street Baldwin City, KS 66006 785-594-2512

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First Med 3211 South Iowa Street, Suite 100 Lawrence, KS 66046 785-505-5475

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Free State Family Medicine (formerly Lawrence Family Medicine and Obstetrics) 1220 Biltmore Drive Lawrence, KS 66049 785-505-2626 The Internal Medicine Group 4525 W. 6th Street, Suite 100 Lawrence, KS 66049 785-505-5160

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LMH Health Main Campus 325 Maine Lawrence, KS 66044

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LMH Health West Campus 6265 Rock Chalk Drive Lawrence, KS 66049

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LMH Health 6th and Maine 1112 W. 6th Street Lawrence, KS 66044

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McLouth Medical Clinic 313 S. Union Street McLouth, KS 66054 913-796-6116

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Mt. Oread Family Practice 6265 Rock Chalk Drive, Suite 1100 Lawrence, KS 66049 785-842-5070

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Reed Internal Medicine Reed Internal Medicine/MDVIP Affiliate 404 Maine Street Lawrence, KS 66044 785-505-5635

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Total Family Care 1130 W. 4th Street, Suite 3200 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-505-5850

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