Little Rock Wastewater announced Wednesday that it will move forward with negotiations to acquire 9 acres near a west Little Rock residential area to build an 8 million-gallon sewer-overflow storage basin.
The Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Committee -- which governs certain finances and operations of the utility -- gave its approval in a unanimous vote. That allows the staff to have the land known as the Brookside site appraised and then sign a contract with the owners, Presbyterian Village Inc. The agreement to purchase would be contingent upon the utility obtaining all the needed permits to locate a sewer storage facility at the site.
The 9 wooded acres are bordered by Brookside Health and Rehab and the Presbyterian Village to the south, Grassy Flat Creek and the Leawood neighborhood to the east, the Brook Valley Apartments to the north, and a steep hillside to the west. Reservoir Road is to the west of the property and North Rodney Parham Road is to the south.
A 2010 amended consent administrative order that was the result of a 2001 Sierra Club lawsuit settlement required the additional storage basin to mitigate sewer overflow across the city. The basin would remediate overflows in the western part of the city where Interstates 430 and 630 meet at Shackleford Road.
The 8 million-gallon concrete, above-ground storage tank would have a dome roof and stand 50 feet tall, with another 15 feet underground. Plans also include adding an electrical utility building and odor control equipment to the site, which officials said would be dormant nearly 340 days per year.
Little Rock Wastewater plans to meet with area neighborhood associations to go over the site plan and gather input before seeking permit approval from the city's Planning Commission and Board of Directors.
Ward 5 City Director Lance Hines, who serves as liaison between the sewer committee and Board of Directors, said Wednesday that he's toured the site and so has Ward 4 City Director Brad Cazort. The acreage is in Ward 4.
"So if in our meetings with the public we are unable to convince them that we can meet all of their concerns, if we are unable to get it through the Planning Commission or the Little Rock board, then we won't purchase the property," said Howell Anderson, the utility's interim CEO of operations.
The basin would be bordered by trees. During spring and summer months when leaves are present, many of the surrounding neighborhoods would have a hard time seeing the storage facility, according to sketches shown to the sewer committee Wednesday.
Harold Underwood, the project's area manager with CDM Smith, said his team weighed three issues when recommending a site: acceptability, affordability and effectiveness. He said the Brookside site hits "the sweet spot" of those and is a "rare find." He added that the basin is a necessity, not an option.
"These sanitary sewer overflows occurring in the Rock Creek basin are in your communities, in your neighborhoods and are having a negative impact on the citizens in this community," he said.
The original plan in the 2010 amended consent order was to locate a 7 million-gallon underground basin near Henderson Middle School. Underwood said that site is too public and wasn't ideal. The budgeted cost for that site was $26 million, although the projected costs exceeded that amount.
The estimated cost for the above-ground storage basin at Brookside is $19.7 million.
The basin would be 180 feet in diameter, and CDM Smith officials noted that the nearest structures would be more than a football field away.
"It's not really feasible to say a structure of this required volume isn't going to be visible at all, but our goal is to make it as invisible to the neighborhood as practical," said Mark Gorthey, the senior technical lead with CDM Smith.
Offer raised to $6,000
Also at Wednesday's monthly meeting, the sewer committee agreed to offer $6,000 to a woman who had been paying sewer bills for 14 years without receiving service.
Pamela Bradley had paid for sewer service to her home at 8509 Community Road since 2000 and found out this year after an overflow issue that the home was actually serviced by a septic tank. Through her attorney Sylvester Smith, she had initially requested a nearly $14,000 refund, which she said amounted to $9,000 in back payments, interest and attorney fees.
The sewer committee offered her $1,500 in July -- what they said amounted to three years of service -- but reconsidered after a city director asked the utility to negotiate in good faith. Bradley recently indicated that she wouldn't accept less than $7,000. The committee unanimously agreed Wednesday to offer $6,000 in exchange for Bradley releasing her right to sue the utility or its representatives.
The utility estimated that her 14 years of payments totaled about $5,900.
Metro on 09/25/2014