The City of Wichita broke ground today on the Mid-Continent Water Quality Reclamation Facility after more than four years of planning. It’s the first sewage treatment plant in Kansas to use membrane technology that is more eco-friendly. The $21 million facility, located just south of Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, will also allow continued residential and commercial development in southwest Wichita.

“We wanted to go one step further and not only expand our system, but also use a cutting-edge membrane process that would help us be even more environmentally responsible and produce some of the cleanest wastewater in the state," said Director of Water Utilities David Warren. “The water that eventually flows out of the plant into the Arkansas River will actually exceed current water-quality standards set by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.”

The new membrane facility will be fully enclosed and odorless from the outside. It will be about half the size of the City’s three existing treatment plants because it uses a more compact process to clean wastewater. The facility will treat up to three million gallons of wastewater per day with the ability to later expand to up to 6 million gallons per day.

The project also includes $4.5 million worth of improvements to increase the size of the Cowskin Lift Station, located west of the airport. Lift stations are needed to keep wastewater moving through the collection system. The upgrades will give the Cowskin station the capability to handle a greater volume of wastewater and direct it to either the membrane plant or the sewage treatment plant in far south Wichita.

The Mid-Continent Water Quality Reclamation Facility is expected to be completed by spring 2010. The Wichita office of Camp Dresser & McKee Inc. (CDM) is the design engineer for the project and Grimm Construction is the general contractor.

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