News that there’s a problem with the Kansas City water line attached to the Sharp’s Station Bridge may be bad news for Kansas City, but not for the City of Dearborn.
The line allows—or will eventually allow—Kansas City to furnish water to areas in northern Platte County, including Dearborn. But Dearborn hasn’t completed its preparations to connect to Kansas City, so the delay will not negatively impact Dearborn.
“If anything, it means we won’t have to make a $4,000 a month payment for awhile,” Mayor Marvin Landes said.
Once Kansas City has its water line to the Dearborn city limits, Dearborn must start making monthly payments on the cost of the line. Additional payments to Kansas City will be necessary when Dearborn starts using Kansas City water.
Landes said his city’s engineer has told him the Kansas City water line won’t pass the stress test due to improper lengths of pipe that were used.
Meanwhile, Dearborn is waiting on Kansas City to ship materials to finish the inside the city limits portion of the connection.
“We’re buying materials through them in order to save money,” Landes said.
In other business at an aldermen meeting Monday night, the Dearborn board indicated it wants to make a change in its water ordinance that would allow the city to shut off delinquent customers sooner than presently allowed.
Landes said the board wants to update the ordinance to allow the city to shut off customers who are one month delinquent. Presently, customers can get almost 90 days behind before the city can disconnect service, he explained.