The Hot Springs Board of Directors appropriated money earlier this week to shore up areas in the city's wastewater collection system where rain and ground water are infiltrating.
The inflow isn't directly related to the wet weather sanitary sewer overflows that led to the Environmental Protection Agency mandate the city's currently under, but it has an indirect effect.
"These are areas that need to be rehabilitated," said Larry Merriman, major capital projects manager for the city. "It's the rehabilitation and replacement of degraded lines. It's all related to the (mandate) but not directly related to the overflows.
"They still have an influence on overflows because that inflow takes up capacity that affects the overall (consent administrative order) effort," he said.
The $661,980 contract the board awarded Coakley Co., Inc. is a continuation of the improvements the city has made to comply with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality-administered CAO. According to the CAO, the city agreed in June 2011 to pay a $105,000 voluntary civil penalty for 359 overflows from January 2004 to May 2008.
Revenue bonds secured by wastewater fees paid by the system's more than 26,000 accounts have financed the improvements. City Engineer Gary Carnahan told the board Coakley's contract will be paid from the $40 million bond issue the city floated in 2014.
Coakley was the low bidder, besting Diamond Construction Co.'s $696,453 offer. Carnahan told the board Coakley will do rehab and replacement work on 13 areas where rain and ground water are infiltrating the system.
The city is working on completing the final phase of the 10-mile Fairwood force main that will connect the Fairwood pump station near Bull Bayou off Highway 270 west to the treatment plant on Davidson Drive. Merriman said the first three phases have been in service more than two years, taking strain of the existing 30-and-24-inch main that parallels it.
Merriman said when the new main is complete, the old one will be used for emergency overflow during heavy rain events and a bypass for routing throughput around areas along the new main that need repairs or maintenance. The final phase of the Fairwood main will connect the Hot Springs Creek pump station to the treatment plant.
The new 4-mile Stokes Creek force main that's under construction will tie into the Fairwood main at the Hot Springs Creek pump station. The Stokes Creek main runs in front of CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, across Central Avenue and down TV Hill Road.
Merriman said improvements the city has made to the collection system are bringing additional wastewater flows to the treatment plant and straining its capacity. In January, the board awarded RJN Group the contract to design and engineer almost $9 million in plant improvements.
They include new headworks for the screening of wastewater-borne solids that can damage equipment farther along in the treatment process and an ultraviolet disinfection system that will replace the existing chlorine system. Both processes help keep the plant's effluent in compliance with the Clean Water Act, as wastewater treated at the plant flows into a Lake Catherine outfall.
Carnahan told the board all but about $3 million of the $40 million bond has been committed to improvement projects. Line work on the Whittington Avenue area of the collection system is the next project on tap.
ADEQ has to agree that the city's improvements have brought the system into compliance with the Clean Water Act before the EPA will release the city from the CAO.
"The CAO shall terminate when all actions required to be taken by this CAO have been completed, and the City of Hot Springs has been notified by ADEQ in writing that this CAO has been satisfied and terminated," the August 2008 order said.
Carnahan told the board the city can be proactive by budgeting for future line repairs.
"Even if we are released from the CAO, we need to discipline ourselves and not be disciplined by EPA to stay on track in finding issues in the city that need to be taken care of and then systematically budget to have those repaired," he said.
Local on 03/24/2017