By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The city of Hays will purchase two pieces of property in the Smoky Hill River wellfield south of town, where many of the city’s water wells are situated. Currently, the city leases the properties.
When the wellfield was developed, the city leased sites for water wells, monitoring wells, and access easements. The leases had automatic inflator provisions. Beginning with the wellfield reconfiguration in 2006, the city started buying out these leases in order to save money in the future.
Production well S-18, along with a monitoring well, sits in the center of the wellfield on a 36.9 acre tract owned by the Dinges Family Trust.
The city has been working since 2003 to acquire property in this wellfield to secure its wells, according to City Attorney John Bird.
The Dinges Family Trust extended the offer to sell the well, pipeline and the land.
“The total price is $225,000,” Bird told city commissioners Thursday night. “The City Finance Director agrees the capitalization of this lease has a very significant value, somewhere between $79,000 and $109,000. The future value is even higher than that, of course. The land itself is probably worth somewhere between $111,000 and $148,000 range.
“We think it’s a wise fiscal decision by the city,” said Bird. “It’s definitely a wise decision hydrologically because this is where we’re going to have our water source forever. The ability to relocate wells and not have to go through a new negotiation process with owners is a valuable one.”
The land will be turned over to the city’s property manager.
“I’m not making any promises, but down the road I suspect this property will become even more valuable. There may be some other uses that are compatible with the wellfield concept. We don’t want to own anymore land than we have to,” he added. “Down the road, it may be marketable.”
The second tract where well S-11 is located on 3.7 acres is owned by Brandon and Brandi Zimmerman, who also approached the city about selling it. The purchase price is $80,000.
“We are also acquiring something else I think is really valuable in this and that is the ability to relocate the well if our engineers tell us we need to or some event occurred that the wellfield needed to be reconfigured. It gives us a lot of flexibility down on the Smoky and I think it’s also a wise financial decision.”
Both properties will be purchased using the water sales tax. The city was paying about $400 a month on each property lease.
There are two leases remaining on private land with city-owned water wells.