Springdale seeks public input on construction of water lines on the west side

SPRINGDALE -- Springdale Water Utilities plans two public meetings to get input from residents about where to place a main water line to improve service to the western reaches of the city.

Meetings are set for 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Sept. 23.

The utility will share maps showing three possibilities for the pipeline as well as forms for comment. The information also is available on the utility website.

Each route of the proposed pipeline travels about 5 miles south from the site of the proposed pumping station of the Beaver Water District to a connection with the city's current system near the intersection of Oak Grove and Elm Springs roads.

Beaver Water, which provides water to the region's four big cities and many smaller ones, has plans to build two 60-inch parallel pipelines from its facility in Lowell to its new pumping station just inside Springdale and just north of U.S. 612. District representatives are working to acquire easements and the system would go online in 2026, said Lane Crider, chief executive officer.

The project would cost about $90 million, he said.

Springdale Water Utilities plans to build a 48-inch diameter line to carry water south from the pumping station, a series of graduated, smaller lines to distribute the water to the western portions of the city and a water storage tank.

Rick Pulvirenti, chief operating officer of Springdale Water, said the Springdale project is expected to finish in 2025 to coordinate with the regional plan. It would cost about $31 million, for which the Springdale Water and Sewer Commission has the money, he said.

Crider said studies for his utility's 2015 long-range plan expected the need for the pumping station by 2032. A Springdale study two years ago found the city wouldn't have enough water to meet demand if the pipeline isn't available by 2026.

"We began engineering almost immediately," Crider said.

Fayetteville, Rogers and Bentonville all have included improvement of the western water distribution as part of long-range plans, based on projected population estimates and development of the western edges of all the cities, Crider said.

The district's and the cities' projects are necessary to ensure water service and quality for the future.

"The reason the water district was created in 1959 and its mission today is to provide safe, economical drinking water for its four main customers, which are the four main cities of Northwest Arkansas," Crider said.

"But as growth has occurred, more pressure is needed to push water farther west," he said.

Both utilities also have an eye on the future, too, which includes a lot more growth.

Jeff Hawkins of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission said his group's projections show 974,000 people living in the region by 2045. The 2020 census reported 530,000 in the region.

Thirsty

Water system computer modeling by the Springdale utility showed extremely low pressures in the distribution system in 2025, Pulvirenti said. The system must be able to pump water to meet any maximum day demand.

Another entry point to the Beaver Water system will ensure distribution on those high-demand days, Crider said.

The proposed pipeline would run from the Beaver Water pumping station, south along West Miller Road, east and south around Legendary subdivision and connect with Springdale's water main line at the northern end of North 48th Street. Part of this route runs across undeveloped land at the latitude of East Downum Road.

The public will help determine if the line will run south from that Downum level along either North 56th Street, Oak Grove Road or North 48th.

The new line then would run from Bob Mills Road south along Oak Grove to connect with the city's current system north of Elm Springs Road.

The western water system will also complete a loop of water main line around Springdale. This would provide a redundancy and service to all customers in case of a major line break anywhere in the city, Pulvirenti said. Springdale Water Utilities currently connects with Beaver Water only at the city's tank farm on Old Wire Road, just a few miles south of the Lowell treatment plant near Beaver Lake.

The tank farm on Fitzgerald Mountain holds 25 million gallons, enough to provide water to the city for 24 hours.

Springdale pumps the water from the tanks across the city and to its outlying customers of Lowell, Johnson and Elm Springs.

Pulvirenti said the utility in August averaged daily use of 21 million gallons per day, quoting data recorded by Beaver Water District. The maximum daily use that month was 24 million gallons. The utility hit a second all-time high of 26.5 million gallons last week.

The city in August bought 653 million gallons from the water district.

The project also would include a 3 million-gallon storage tank at Chapman Avenue and South 40th Street. The tank would boost water pressure in areas in southwest Springdale that already experience low pressure at peak times.

Plans show that tank providing 8.4 million gallons for an average day and a maximum of 15.7 million gallons a day, Pulvirenti said.

Uphill climb

Just trying to get from Point A to Point B -- from one side of Interstate 49 to the other -- will prove a challenge as the Beaver Water project marches west, Crider said.

Highway crossings and railroad crossings both will require boring tunnels to install casing for both pipes, he said. Although the second pipe will be built during phase two, the district wants to minimize the disruption by installing the casing for both pipes, eliminating boring in phase two.

The pipe will be installed before the pump station is begun.

"Having it sit idle doesn't do anybody any good," Crider said.

Another challenge with the project is acquiring the property needed to serve the entire region, Crider continued.

"It's hard to get contiguous easements at one time when the area is seeing so much significant growth," he said. "We might have easements on the books for two or three years. But then land is sold for a housing development, and the developer has no idea an easement is already there. We've got to keep tabs on that."

Engineers are finishing preliminary designs and should soon start construction designs, he said.

The pumping station sits across U.S. 612, directly north of Shaw Elementary School. Crider said the pumping station will pull from the architectural design of the school and other area features.

He expects construction to start in spring of 2023.

The cost is expected to run a little over $90 million, Crider said. The estimate was raised from $89 million with the increases in material caused by the pandemic's interruption of the supply chain.

"They've had these plans in place a very long time," Hawkins said of the water district's board of directors.

Beaver Water District policy for capital improvements requires the district have in hand at least 40% of the cost of the project, Crider said. He and the board are considering options for funding under the American Relief Plan and the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission.

Crystal ball

Crider said that population expectations and a regional master plan for 2015 and 2020 determined by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission have been met, so he expects future projections to also become apparent.

The water district projects 170 to 175 million gallons of water a day will need to come from its treatment plant at maximum demand in 2040, Crider said. The current average daily demand is 55 million gallons per day, with as much as 90 million gallons in demand on a peak summer day. The intake point on Beaver Lake can pump 150 million gallons on an average day. The plant's capacity for treatment is 140 million gallons a day.

"We have enough now to make single day incidences of high use," Crider said. "Whatever the demand is, we have to be able to produce that."

And those projections could change dramatically up or down depending on the rate of growth.

"We wouldn't be the region we are without Beaver Lake," Hawkins said. Even before the 2020 census, 16.7% of the state population was getting its drinking water from Beaver Lake -- one in six Arkansans, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers allows the water district to take 120 million gallons on average days from Beaver Lake, Crider reported.

An increase in allotment would have to come from Congress with the help of local lawmakers, he said. Securing additional allotment will be a two- to three-year approval process.

Beaver Water District also will need to expand its treatment plant to 200 million gallons a day, Crider added. The district plans to make those improvements a bit at a time over four or five years, he said.