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Arkansas approves $79 million for state-wide water system upgrades

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Little Rock, Arkansas – On May 15, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders approved $79 million in funding for 25 water and wastewater infrastructure projects throughout the state.

“Arkansans are counting on their local water utilities to deliver consistent and safe drinking water. In my administration, we’re proud to help communities provide that critical service,” said Governor Sanders. “The $79 million in assistance we’re announcing will help us improve water infrastructure for more than half a million Arkansans, keeping faucets, showers, and plumbing running all across our state.”

The financial assistance is being made available concurrently with the Natural Resources Commission’s revision of Arkansas’ water plan.

“A lot of these communities have significant water loss and have significant issues with their systems and everyone’s trying to get it fixed,” said Chris Colclasure, director of the Arkansas Natural Resources Division.

About $5 million of the $79 million in financial aid comes from federal grants, with the majority coming from low-interest state loans. The funding is a component of a larger initiative by companies and the state to update outdated water infrastructure.

The water system in the city of Helena-West Helena is one of the oldest and most flawed in Arkansas. A few months ago, the state granted a $11 million loan for the system, along with a $100,000 emergency loan, after the system failed during this year’s winter storms. The extensive list of repairs that must be made urgently calls for the loan.

“Our system is aged—and a lot of deferred maintenance. And so, we’re going to build new wells, we’re going to repair some of the aged lines and replace some of the pumps and things of that nature on both water and sewer,” said James Valley, chief of staff to the mayor of Helena-West Helena.

Without the state loan, Valley claims Helena-West Helena would not have been able to save its water infrastructure.

“It’s been a real lifeline to our community,” he said. “There’s no way we could raise the kind of money that we need quickly just through rate increases on our own.”

However, some people would prefer that the money arrive sooner. The $11 million loan is anticipated to come to Helena-West Helena in a month or two.

Since last August, the Cross County Rural Water System has been waiting on their loan of almost $900,000. The state’s unprecedented support of so many water projects has been blamed for the delay.

“There’s probably more active water and wastewater projects right now than, really I know, for the history of our agency,” Colclasure said. “I think right now we have 320-some odd active projects, where you go back a couple years, it probably would have been 50.”

Inflation and, in some areas, population shifts are further factors pressuring the state to support municipal and county water utilities in Arkansas in addition to the state’s deteriorating infrastructure. For instance, when population declines, there are fewer consumers to cover a water utility’s essentially constant operating costs.

“One of the big things that we see is population shift. With some counties really growing substantially in population…if you look at Benton County, I think they’ve had about a 28 percent increase from 2010 to 2020—but take Phillips County, they’ve seen a 23 percent decline over that same period. And so, that brings up issues when you look at how do you fund infrastructure at the local level if you’ve lost population,”Colclasure said.

Colclasure stated that the state’s new water plan, which serves as its main framework for water management, will prioritize addressing the impact of population movements.

“The stage that we’ve been in up to this point is really scoping, kind of setting the goals and objectives of the plan and really looking at what we predicted in 2014 and the analysis that was done leading up to that and what do we need to do different,” he said.

The Natural Resource Commission said it will provide a project work plan to the governor in late July that will include an estimate of the cost to update the state’s water plan.

The following are the projects whose money was approved on May 15:

• Arkansas City, Desha County, received a $400,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 205.
• Benton County received a $137,873 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 284,336.
• Calico Rock, Izard County, received a $50,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 507.
• Gentry, Benton County, received a $50,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 1,750.
• Highland, Sharp County, received a $69,500 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 615.
• Benton County, on behalf of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, received a $400,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program.
• Malvern Water Works, Hot Spring County, received a $400,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 10,867.
• Mount Ida, Montgomery County, received a $40,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program. The current customer base for this project is 1,600.
• Watershed Conservation Resource Center, Washington County, received a $400,000 grant from the Sewer Overflow and Storm Water Reuse Municipal Grant Program contingent on finding an eligible sponsor entity. The current customer base for this project is 120,000.
• Calhoun County Water Association received a $2,301,647 loan from the Water Development Fund. The current customer base for this project is 733.
• Community Water System Public Water Authority, Cleburne County, received a $1,325,000 loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for this project is 76,000.
• DeValls Bluff, Prairie County, received a $142,140 loan from the Water, Sewer, and Solid Waste Fund. The current customer base for this project is 305.
• Emerson, Columbia County, received a $1,175,388 loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for this project is 451.
• Hardy Water Works, Sharp and Fulton counties, received an emergency $100,000 loan from the Water Development Fund. The current customer base for this project is 450.
• Haynes Water Works, Lee County, received an emergency $40,000 loan from the Water Development Fund. The current customer base for this project is 122.
• Hot Springs, Garland County, received a $1,912,500 loan and a $1,837,500 loan with principal forgiveness from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for these projects is 38,114.
• Magnolia, Columbia County, received a $613,240 loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for this project is 11,000.
• Phillips County Sewer Facilities Board received an emergency $100,000 loan from the Water Development Fund. The current customer base for this project is 735.
• Poyen, Grant County, received two loans in the amounts of $1,140,000 and $787,415 from the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund and a $684,442 loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for these projects is 361.
• Springdale, Benton and Washington counties, received a $50,000,000 loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. The current customer base for this project is 38,250.
• Tull, Grant County, received a $316,422 loan from the Water, Sewer, and Solid Waste Fund. The current customer base for this project is 950.
• White River Regional Irrigation Water Distribution District, Prairie County, received a $15,000,000 loan from the Arkansas Water, Waste Disposal, and Abatement Facilities General Obligation Bond Fund.

 

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