FORT SMITH : District, 4 communities team up to ask city to sell them water
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/232098/
FORT SMITH — City directors next month will consider a resolution of intent to sell water to a group of communities that say their water supplies are running dry.
“We’re all just one drought away from running out of water,” state Rep. Steve Breedlove, D-Greenwood, said after a Fort Smith city directors study session Tuesday.
Breedlove represents four towns, Greenwood, Charleston, Lavaca and Central City, and a water district, the River South Rural Water District north of Charleston, that are asking Fort Smith to sell them water. Breedlove noted that Lavaca and Central City already buy Fort Smith water.
Its city directors Tuesday agreed to vote on a resolution at their Aug. 19 meeting. The resolution would express the city’s intent to sell water to the group.
Passage of the resolution would allow the users to apply for government grants, which require that a water source having been secured. Breedlove said the group needs the grants for the $ 18 million to $ 19 million estimated cost to lay water lines to connect with Fort Smith.
Board members’ opinions varied on selling water to the group.
Directors Bill Maddox and Kevin Settle oppose the water sale. Settle said the expanded Lake Fort Smith has been full only 18 months. The city has not upgraded its treatment plant at Lake Fort Smith nor installed an additional transmission line that is needed.
Settle said the city should not sell additional water until there is more history on water use from the new reservoir.
Maddox said Fort Smith should be more cautious in selling its additional water, pointing out the city soon will have two new manufacturing plants to supply. He said the city should not burden residents with higher water rates as it sells its water.
“We should urge them to seek other means of securing a water supply,” he said.
Director Steve Tyler said the board should think regionally when considering water use. He said the areas the city would be supplying may someday be annexed by Fort Smith.
Directors Rick Parrish and Cole Goodman said selling water to the group would bring in more revenue to help Fort Smith pay off the cost of enlarging its water supply.
Breedlove said that many people who live in the communities asking for water also work and shop in Fort Smith. They have paid the sales taxes that are paying for the Lake Fort Smith expansion.
He told the directors to stand on Arkansas 22 east of Fort Smith and U. S. 71 south of the city one morning and watch all the cars pouring into the city.
“We are a region,” he said. “None of us is an island. We need Fort Smith, but Fort Smith needs us, too.”
A memorandum to the directors from acting city Administrator Ray Gosack said the city has enough water to sell the group 1. 2 million gallons a day for 20 years. Since Lavaca and Central City already buy water from Fort Smith, the net amount of new water sold would total 720, 000 gallons a day.
Breedlove said the group’s water needs were based on a 1. 5-percent annual growth rate.
Utilities Director Steve Parke said if the city took on the new customers, they would be required to buy a certain amount of water. Charleston and Greenwood, which have their own treatment facilities, would continue to treat and use their own water to supplement daily water needs.
Selling water to the group would not deplete the city’s water supply, Gosack’s memo said. Because of reduced use by current customers, the expanded city water supply will provide the city’s needs until 2060, an extra 10 years from the original projected reservoir life.
Gosack pointed out in his memo that water sales in 2007 averaged 23 million gallons a day, the same rate as 10 years earlier. The city’s water source can supply up to 55 million gallons a day.