Wastewater project gains federal funds
A $2.8 million federal grant and $947,000 federal loan will help the city of Lockesburg replace its aging clay wastewater pipes.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant program will provide the money.
The money will fund the replacement of 32,000 feet of pipe and the remaining manholes and sewer mains that were not replaced in an earlier project, according to the USDA's project description.
The USDA's Rural Development office previously funded the replacement of some manholes and sewer mains.
The Lockesburg project is the only one in Arkansas among $201 million in planned projects announced Wednesday. Those projects, specifically for rural communities with 10,000 or fewer residents, will be carried out in 31 states, according to the USDA announcement.
In 2018, the southwest Arkansas city had an estimated population of 725, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meeting to examine new emissions rule
The Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment is scheduled to hold a public meeting Thursday on a new federal air-emissions rule.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the department's headquarters in North Little Rock, according to a department announcement. It will also be livestreamed on Zoom. People can call in or watch it online.
Officials are set to discuss the Affordable Clean Energy Rule -- the Trump administration's replacement rule for the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which would have imposed stricter requirements on new and existing coal plants for climate change-contributing emissions.
The new rule calls for smaller reductions in carbon emissions from power plants.
Information about the meeting and how the state plans to comply with the new rule can be found at www.adeq.state.ar.us/air/planning/sip/111d.aspx.
Solid-waste district on panel's agenda
The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission will meet Friday at the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment's headquarters in North Little Rock.
The regularly scheduled meeting has only one voting item on its agenda -- the creation of a new solid-waste district in Carroll County.
Commission Administrative Law Judge Charles Moulton has recommended that Carroll County Solid Waste Authority run its own regional solid-waste district. The authority petitioned to be its own district earlier this year.
Carroll County is one of six north Arkansas counties in which an annual $18 fee service for landowners has been levied to pay back the nearly $14 million in work done by the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment. The department completed the work -- a landfill closure and a tire dump cleanup -- after the financially troubled Ozark Mountain Solid Waste Management District could not pay to do it.
Leaders in those counties opposed the fee, but Moulton determined that the fee would still apply to county residents, even if a county broke off from the Ozark Mountain district.
The state has 18 regional solid-waste districts, funded largely by the state. In recent years, as struggles at Ozark Mountain and other solid-waste districts have prompted the department to disburse funds and take legal action, the department has ended some fees and grant programs for the districts.
The meeting starts at 10 a.m., which is the new start time for commission meetings.
Rouse now leading air-quality division
The chief of staff at the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment is now in charge of the department's air-quality division.
Mitch Rouse, 30, assumed the new position Monday, said Jacob Harper, a spokesman for the department.
More recently, Rouse served as chief of staff in the department and earned $100,353.34 annually. His salary won't change in his new position, Harper said.
Rouse replaces Stuart Spencer, who served as an attorney and air-division chief for the department before joining the Mitchell Williams law firm in Little Rock.
Rouse's background is in law. He started at the department in May 2016 as an attorney.
Metro on 10/20/2019