Government bodies discuss need for more water

The Sentinel-Record/Mara Kuhn JOINT MEETING: Members of the Hot Springs Board of Directors and Garland County Quorum Court, and members of the public listen as Stewart Noland, with Crist Engineers, makes a presentation Thursday night about the proposed DeGray Lake water intake, treatment plant and distribution system.
The Sentinel-Record/Mara Kuhn JOINT MEETING: Members of the Hot Springs Board of Directors and Garland County Quorum Court, and members of the public listen as Stewart Noland, with Crist Engineers, makes a presentation Thursday night about the proposed DeGray Lake water intake, treatment plant and distribution system.

Matt McKee, District 9 justice of the peace, said Thursday night during a joint meeting of members of the Hot Springs Board of Directors and the Garland County Quorum Court that it was unrealistic to say there is a water emergency in Garland County based on one or two years of near-capacity usage.

"It's unacceptable to deny water to county residents, and that can't continue," he said.

Members of the two governing bodies held an unprecedented joint meeting in the Hot Springs Convention Center to hear a presentation regarding the immediate need for an additional water source and why the city has opted to take water from DeGray Lake to help meet future needs.

About 125 people attended the public meeting, but only government officials were permitted to ask questions of Stewart Noland, president and project civil engineer with Crist Engineers Inc., who gave the presentation.

City officials have worked for a number of years to secure an additional source of raw water and have asked for a 15.75 million gallon a day allocation from Lake Ouachita. That request has been delayed for several years due to various studies underway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including one concerning the safety of the dam.

The city has an agreement with Entergy Arkansas Inc. for 20 mgd of water through an intake on upper Lake Hamilton near Blakely Mountain Dam, but has told the city that an additional water source needs to be brought online before additional water can be taken from Lake Hamilton.

Entergy's concern is that a tainter gate failure at Carpenter Dam could drop the level of the lake below the intake pipe of the city's production plant at the Ouachita Water Treatment Plant, which supplies about 20 mgd of potable water for the water system.

In addition, three small city-owned lakes north of town supply about 5 mgd through the Lakeside Water Treatment Plant.

Late last year, Hot Springs officials reached an agreement with Central Arkansas Water to purchase 20 mgd of its 120 mgd water allocation in DeGray Lake, and a $1.078 million contract for that water was signed in November.

Noland told the group that the first cost estimates for a new intake, raw water line, and a 15 mgd water treatment plant, would be about $60,498,000 for the DeGray Lake location and $68,719,000 for Lake Ouachita. Distribution system improvements would be the same for both locations, he said but added that exact figures for the system are not yet known.

He pointed out that DeGray Lake was authorized by Congress to provide raw water and 152 mgd was set aside for that purpose. On the other hand, Lake Ouachita was not authorized for that purpose but the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can make allocations at his discretion.

The new treatment plant for the DeGray Lake water would be located on a ridge south of Hot Springs to help minimize pumping costs, minimize water age, which is one component of a trihalomethane reduction strategy, and to enhance utilization of the existing water distribution system by pumping water from south to north.

Noland said the annual raw water pumping energy costs for 10 mgd from DeGray Lake would be about $516,707 and about $300,487 from Lake Ouachita.

He said the present worth of the project's first cost and raw water pumping energy costs assume that energy costs are 10 cents per kilowatt hour, that energy costs escalate at 3 percent per year, the estimated financing cost for the project is 4.5 percent with a 25-year anticipated financing term.

These assumptions would produce a present worth of $66,765,609 for the DeGray Lake project and $72,363,880 for the Lake Ouachita project, Noland said.

Following the presentation, McKee asked if Crist Engineers had considered the difference that conservation measures and reducing the amount of lost water would have on the water that is available.

Noland said it had, and figures from the Arkansas Department of Health show that the city's lost water has been reduced by about 50 percent over the last two or three years.

"Would it be realistic to say we have a water emergency based on one or two years use?" McKee asked, noting that the issues really weren't with the city getting water from DeGray Lake, but with the denial of water service.

"The reason people are here is because they have been denied service and jobs are being lost," he said.

"Is this a crisis? Are we in a water crisis?" Mayor Ruth Carney asked.

"All it would take is a couple of hot summers," Noland said. "If we started full bore tomorrow, it would take about three years to get water. It is prudent to move forward."

Mary Bournival, District 4 justice of the peace, said that City Manager David Watkins had previously stated in a meeting that the city's lost water was about 40 percent, and she had noticed that no conservation measures had been implemented.

"If the conservation measures that the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has recommended, and the lost water is fixed, couldn't we delay this five or 10 years?" she asked.

In tandem with Bournival's questions, District 13 Justice of the Peace Mickey Gates said a countywide water district seems to be needed.

"The city is not growing; growth is in the county and that's where the demand is. Can we not hold off? Would it not be wise to look at how we can serve the whole county rather than just the city?" he asked.

Bournival stated that county residents pay 1.5 times more for water than customers inside the city limits and that money helps the city, and the city uses water as leverage.

"I'm not going to give approval for a proposal that doesn't take the whole county into consideration," she said, referring to a statement by Noland urging the quorum court members to consider endorsing the city's DeGray lake plan.

Carney asked Noland if he had any estimate on how much of a rate increase would be necessary to pay for the DeGray Lake operation, and Noland said it would depend on the final costs, but early figures show it to be $7 to $9 for usage of about 5,000 gallons a month.

"We're dealing with more than just one issue and its time for us to work together. We've got to stop this division; it's like we have a civil war going on. We're stopping economic development and we're using water as an excuse," Carney said.

Local on 08/01/2014

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