The bill filed in response to the city's policy of limiting water service beyond its corporate limits cleared a state House committee Wednesday and is slated to go before the full chamber Monday.
The House City, County and Local Affairs Committee advanced Senate Bill 35 on a 10-1 rollcall vote with 12 committee members present. Filed by Sen. Alan Clark, R-District 13, of Lonsdale, the bill was passed by the Senate earlier this month on a 27-2 vote. The same bill stalled in the House committee two years ago, failing to advance on an 8-5 roll call vote, but Clark said it's garnered greater support during the current legislative session.
He said the Association of Arkansas Counties, the Arkansas Farm Bureau and the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce are among its backers. Chamber President/CEO Jim Fram said Friday that the chamber's board of directors has endorsed Clark's bill.
"It was a very strong vote," he said, explaining that the chamber hadn't taken a position on the city's water connection policy until the board's recent vote. "It was not unanimous, but it was very strong."
The bill requires water providers to allow connections to existing mains anywhere in their Arkansas Natural Resources Commission-designated service areas. Most of the more than 35,000 water meters Hot Springs serves are beyond the corporate limits. Its ANRC-designated service area sprawls beyond the corporate boundaries and includes the Royal Water District, which has a footprint more than three times the size of the city's land area.
The city sells water wholesale to Mountain Pine, Riviera Utilities, which serves the Diamondhead area, and has an emergency connection to the North Garland County Water District.
Clark and Garland County officials have contended the city is obligated to service areas where property tax assessments have financed infrastructure that extended the water system outside the city, explaining that the infrastructure was deeded to the city with the understanding that service wouldn't be restricted.
The bill also requires water providers to extend mains and other infrastructure inside their service area if the "consumer" is willing to pay for the improvements. Clark said Thursday that a provider's service area is protected from competition by law, but consumers have no such safeguards.
"When a water provider agrees to provide water in that area, they're protected, they're a monopoly," he said. "If that's the case, they should treat everyone fairly and on an equal basis."
Freshman Rep. Les Warren, R-District 25, of Hot Springs, said the city's connection and extension policy restricts land use, making it difficult to develop property in the unincorporated area. Warren presented the bill to the City, County and Local Affairs Committee Wednesday and said he'll present it to the full House Monday.
"It's just a fairness issue," he said Thursday. "You should give water equally to everybody in your water service district. It shouldn't matter if you're in this spot or a totally different spot."
The city said earlier this week that 96 of 97 requests for service have been granted since its more permissive connection and extension policy was adopted in October. Sixty five of 66 requests for service outside the city were granted, including seven of eight requests for commercial service.
"That's a 99-percent approval rate," City Manager David Frasher said during his state of the city address earlier this week. "That's the highest percentage of approval I've witnessed in my career as a city manager, higher I would say than most cities who serve only areas inside the city limits."
The policy allows commercial connections of a five-eighths inch meter to existing mains in the planning area, territory that extends up to 1-mile beyond the corporate limits that's subject to the city's subdivision code. Single family homes built on a lot of record can connect to an existing main anywhere in the city's service area under the new policy. The previous policy limited single family home connections in the unincorporated area to owner-occupied homes.
The policy continues to prohibit extensions of water and wastewater infrastructure.
County officials have argued the approval rate doesn't reflect the number of potential applicants whom the policy discourages from applying for service. Deputy City Manager Bill Burrough said earlier this week that there's no metric for gauging the policy's effect on requests for service that don't get submitted.
"There's a lot of talk about informal denials of service," he said. "If somebody asks about getting water for their property, we let them know what the policy is. But we don't have a way to track rumors. We can only track the applications submitted."
Burrough said the policy is driven by supply concerns, which will be helped by the water storage agreement the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could finalize as early as next month. It will provide 22.75 million gallons a day from Lake Ouachita. The city was initially slated for 15.75 mgd of the 30-mgd allocation granted to the Mid-Arkansas Water Alliance, but Burrough said several MAWA members have turned back their suballocations and made more water available to the city.
According to the Arkansas Department of Health's most recent sanitary survey of the water system, the average daily use is between 14 and 15 mgd. The city's withdrawal agreement with Arkansas Entergy Inc. provides it a Lake Hamilton allocation not to exceed a 20 mgd average that's calculated on a three-month rolling average. The Hot Springs Reservoir at Lake Ricks also accounts for part of the city's water supply.
The sanitary survey said the city's two treatment plants can process about 28 mgd.
"The entire policy is the result of not having supply or capacity to meet all of the new connections or obligations we have," Burrough said, noting that the city is obligated to serve about 1,100 lots that have yet to be developed. "We've reached our maximum under a peak load.
"We've been fortunate the last few years to have mild, wet summers, but it's difficult to rely on weather to determine if you can service your customers. Our engineers, who know our system better than anyone, have said we're 30 days of 95-degree weather with no rain from somebody not having water."
Clark called the supply rationale a "red herring," saying it's cover for the city's desire to control growth and keep economic development inside its taxing authority. He said if supply were a legitimate concern, the city would deny requests made inside and outside the corporate limits on an equal basis.
"If you tell people in the county you don't have any water, then tell people in the city you don't have any either," he said, noting that the city's current policy treats people in the unincorporated area as "second-class citizens."
Warren said Garland County's legislative delegation has had to intervene because the city and county have been unable to resolve their long-standing disagreement on water service.
"We brought it up because the city and county are not working together," he said. "It's time for the city and county to come together on this issue. The Garland County delegation agreed it was time."
Local on 03/25/2017