The Citizens of Olathe Are the Winners as City and GBA Are Recognized by ACEC Kansas with a ‘City Public Improvement Award’ for the South Cedar Creek Sewer Improvements



The ACEC Kansas “City Public Improvement Awards” recognize engineering projects for their benefit to the citizens of a community, so when this year’s award in the “50,000 and above” population category went to the City of Olathe and GBA for the South Cedar Creek Sewer Improvements, the citizens of Olathe were the real winners!

We'll be there, along with representatives from the City, when the awards are handed out at the Kansas Association of City/County Management’s Annual Conference in Topeka on December 1. The improvements provide sewer service to developing areas that will support the BNSF Railroad’s Intermodal Development in southwest Johnson County.

The new gravity sewer, forcemain, and a submersible pumping station are not only functional, but also sustainable and funded by a special sanitary sewer benefit district. The latter means that the citizens of Olathe will receive the long-term benefits of additional property tax income without incurring capital debt. Equally important is the environmentally sound method by which the project was planned, designed, and constructed.

The City and Johnson County have plans for a recreational trail along the stream that lies within the improvement corridor. As a result, special care was given to providing sustainable solutions, from alignment selection to reduce loss of large-diameter hardwood trees to minimizing the visual impact of the project along the stream corridor by alternating construction clearing limits on each side of the project centerline, and restoring the stream bank using bio-engineering techniques. Stream crossing locations were also carefully selected to minimize interceptor disruption by high velocities/scour.