Well, the EPA still has plenty of concerns about the Arkansas. And the river still has its most severe water-quality problems after a rainstorm. As a direct result, the city is testing the river several times a day at River Festival time. Health officials are developing a computer model to predict problems. But plain old rain could be nasty, too, given the river's tendency to spike a hot fecal coliform reading after showers.
Agricultural runoff is under better control.
Wichita's sewage-treatment system is pretty much state of the art. Tests by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment show the river this May is usually cleaner than it was even a few years ago. The hard part is that it will take up to 10 years to precisely locate all these sources of trouble and fix them. That's not surprising. For the better part of Wichita history, we have abused the Arkansas River system.