Atchison city officials to tour water treatment plant Tuesday

Atchison’s water plant has room to spare on paper, and city officials spent Tuesday morning looking directly at the system that makes that possible. The Atchison Water Treatment Plant at 1125 S. 4th Street can produce more than eight million gallons of water a day, while typical city consumption is less than four million gallons.

The City of Atchison said the special assembly was scheduled from 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, for one purpose only: to complete a tour of the facility. City commissioners and city staff attended, and no city business was conducted. Even without a vote on the agenda, the visit offered a close look at one of the city’s most important pieces of infrastructure, where day-to-day reliability depends on a system most residents never see.

The plant has used a state-of-the-art ozone treatment process since 2016, after the city moved away from its earlier chloramines-based approach. City materials say the change followed water quality concerns and taste-and-odor complaints, and that staff completed training on the new equipment before the ozone process went into service. The plant is staffed 24 hours a day by Kansas Department of Health and Environment-certified operators.

That capacity matters because Atchison provides water service to about 4,300 customers, including surrounding rural water districts. The city also says its utilities department provides wastewater service and combined sewer overflow service on one monthly bill, tying the plant’s performance to the wider network of services that keep homes, businesses and public facilities operating.

The city’s water system has also been tested by regional needs. In October 2025, Atchison temporarily changed its disinfection process for about two weeks at KDHE’s request to help rural water districts recover from boil-water advisories. City materials say Atchison normally uses chloramines for drinking-water disinfection, and that the city’s water was recognized as safe in KDHE’s 2021 Consumer Confidence Report based on state and federal standards.

Tuesday’s tour came as the city clerk’s office continued coordinating official records and meeting materials, while the Atchison County Board of Commissioners had its own regular meeting posted for the same day. For Atchison, the plant tour was a reminder that water reliability depends on constant attention, even when no formal action is taken.