HOT SPRINGS -- A joint committee of the Garland County Quorum Court is recommending that Hot Springs hold off on plans to pump water from DeGray Lake.
Resolution sponsor Mary Bournival, District 4 justice of the peace, said the proposal calls for more consideration from the city before it moves ahead with further planning to draw 20 million gallons of water a day from the lake.
She said the city shouldn't act before the completion of a study to determine the feasibility of holding more water behind Blakely Mountain Dam. The potential for seepage caused by additional water straining against the dam has prevented the city from securing more water from Lake Ouachita.
Bournival also said the building out of the infrastructure to draw water from DeGray Lake would add an unnecessary expense to water customers' service.
"There's no reason for the city to have to go into this before we hear something about Ouachita," she said. "On behalf of county residents, we want them to take a little bit more time before they run off and start serious planning and implementing for bringing water in."
The nonbinding resolution, adopted Monday, also calls for the formation of a county regional water system that would operate under the authority of a water commission. It would include the county's seven water systems and work to provide residents with less expensive and more expansive service.
The county "doesn't have a way to purify or move water. It's time for the commission to put together a plan to operate and manage a water company for the county," Bournival said.
She said a county water utility would take years but is needed to give the county more autonomy over its future and to check city expansion.
"The county and regional residents are at the mercy of the city of Hot Springs and who they're going to approve and not going to approve," she said. "The city has used water as a carrot for annexation. It's using water as a hammer, and that's not right. You shouldn't have to give up your rights as a county resident to obtain water."
City Manager David Watkins said officials will not hold off.
"I've gotten zero instruction from the [city] board to do that. I don't know how holding off would help anyone. We've already got contracts on this," Watkins said.
Watkins said the city has paid a little more than $1 million to Central Arkansas Water and signed a contract for the right of first refusal on 20 million gallons of water a day from Central Arkansas Water's allocation at DeGray Lake.
"This [city] board has taken many steps to try to deal with an acute water supply scenario that far exceeds the minimum the Arkansas Department of Health requires water systems to abide by. We surpassed the 80 percent of capacity measurement 53 times in 2012," Watkins said.
Watkins said the city has been working for many years to try to get additional sources of water. He thought county officials were at one time talking about forming a county water district, to which Hot Springs would sell wholesale water, to deal with the part of Garland County that isn't in the Hot Springs service area.
------ Panel
Metro on 06/27/2014