A request for immediate action to fund a $48,000-plus county airport sewer study was tabled Monday after commissioners were told annexed land in Excelsior Springs is the best bet for commercial development.
The information came from Kearney City Administrator Jim Eldridge and M. Clark Thompson, the city’s consulting engineer.
The sewer study was originally proposed to determine the most feasible way for the airport to handle its own sewage while positioning Midwest Regional Air Center for future development.
Since originally being proposed, discussion concerning the proposed study has branched out to include an update of the airport master plan and to determine Kearney’s position on possibly moving airport sewage to its own treatment facility.
Kearney annexed the airport in 2008 with the blessings of the county and by a vote by Kearney residents. One aspect of the annexation deal was that Kearney would take a role in handling sewage from the newly acquired acreage, potentially by building a new treatment plant in the area.
Eldridge and Thompson further expanded the discussion Monday by telling commissioners the most developable land in and around the airport lies to the east in Excelsior Springs.
Much of that property is owned by Cecil Troutwine, a Smithville businessman, that would be accessible to Excelsior’s Williams Creek Sewer Interceptor, a gravity sewer line already in place.
Thompson, Kearney’s engineer, said a strip of undeveloped land on airport land south of Rhodus Road, is too narrow for significant industrial or commercial development.
“The property you own is just not enough to justify the huge expense of building a sewer plant there,” he said. “The land to the east presents the greatest potential for development.”
That land, inside Excelsior Springs’ city limits, would be outside the Fishing River flood plain and be accessible by highway (Missouri 69), air and railroad, Thompson said.
“I would suggest that both municipalities work with the county on this sewer project,” Eldridge, the city manager, said, referring to Excelsior Springs and Kearney. “If you’re going to study the entire area then you are going to study within the municipalities of Kearney and Excelsior Springs. Very little of this study would involve unincorporated area.”
To read the rest of this story, see the Friday, July 1 issue of The Standard!