HOT SPRINGS - Central Arkansas Water’s staff members met Monday in Little Rock to address concerns expressed by members of the Little Rock Board of Directors over the sale of water to Hot Springs, the utility’s leader said.
Central Arkansas Water’s board approved an agreement nearly two weeks ago to sell part of its water rights in DeGray Lake to Hot Springs. The Hot Springs Board of Directors approved the agreement as well. But some members of the Little Rock Board of Directors felt that Central Arkansas Water should have consulted the board before making the decision.
“There was an internal meeting with the staff this morning,” Chief Executive Officer Graham Rich said Monday.
“What we’re trying to do is address the concerns that were raised by the [Little Rock] city board. We hope to have this matter resolved fairly quickly.
“We understand the concern that the city of Hot Springs has, and we’re working to try to address the concerns the Little Rock city board had, also,” he said.
At an Oct. 15 meeting, some members of the Little Rock board said they thought the utility should have gone back to the Little Rock board and the North Little Rock City Council to discuss other options instead of selling the water rights.
Central Arkansas Water was formed in 2001, when the North Little Rock and Little Rock water utilities were merged to create a regional utility. The cities appoint members to the board of commissioners and jointly approve rate increases, but the commission is mostly autonomous.
“One part of the agreement we’ve been working on is the role of the Ouachita River Water District and whether they should be on the agreement or not,” Hot Springs City Manager David Watkins said Monday.
Watkins said making the initial request to the utility for the 20 million gallons a day actually “put the cart before the horse,” since the river district has the initial right of first refusal.
“We got the cart before the horse because that’s what the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers wanted,” he said.
Watkins said he has formally sent a letter to the Corps of Engineers asking that it allocate 20 million gallons per day.
“Now they will officially notify [the Ouachita River Water District], which should eliminate the need for their name to be on the agreement. They didn’t want to be on the agreement unless we followed the usual procedure, even though the Corps wanted it to be done a certain way.”
He said the request process is a procedural issue “dealing with some technicalities that are easily resolved.”
“[The Ouachita River Water District] has no problem with this, and, in fact, they want it to happen, but one member of the board wants it to happen in the way similar requests have occurred in the past.
“The process that [Central Arkansas Water] worked out with the Corps was that CAW would go ahead and waive the right without us going to the Corps first, but since we went to CAW first, [the Ouachita River Water District] is saying we should have gone to the Corps first, not CAW,” Watkins said.
Watkins said it could be one to two weeks now before the agreements for the water are signed.
“CAW has already agreed to do this. I think they have some issues with Little Rock and they want to talk things out,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 10/23/2013