Westar Energy has plans for a future major substation project adjacent to Hawkinsmith Road in southeast Geary County.

This week a member of the Geary County Commission, Keith Ascher, reported that project is getting ready to occur. “They’ll probably start doing some dirt work the end of this month. They needed to put in some culverts, so Westar requested a petition for five culverts. So we approved that petition for Westar.”

Back in 2015 when the project was first announced the overall cost estimate for the project was calculated at $64.6 million. Thirty thousand yards of rock would have to be hauled to the site, or about 1,700 truck loads.