West Helena residents with access to water through their community's system can once again drink that water safely, according to Helena-West Helena Mayor Christopher Franklin.
The Arkansas Department of Health lifted the order on Friday, and Franklin posted a screenshot of the update on social media just five minutes later. A boil order had been in place for West Helena, which consolidated with Helena in 2006, since Jan. 18.
"Folks, this is a big deal," Helena Harbor & Phillips County Economic Development said in a separate Facebook post. "Let's celebrate today and be ready to work tomorrow for the future of a better and more resilient water system."
The notice followed an outage that began Jan. 17, after a decades-old well failed and left many of the roughly 3,500 residents who use the West Helena water system without access to tap water to boil in the first place. Crews have since worked to identify and repair significant leaks in the system.
Franklin said in an update on Friday that "at least 95% of our customers have water and decent water pressure." He added, however, that many customers have been turned off due to leaks connected to individual homes. Water to those homes won't be restored until those leaks are fixed.
"We cannot afford to have leaks anywhere in the system because those leaks keep the water department from providing good service to all customers," the mayor said.
The city also moved about 200 West Helena customers to Barton Lexa Water Association lines, with those residents continuing to pay West Helena rates and have their trash collected by their sanitation department. According to the mayor, Helena-West Helena signed an agreement with the water association and paid Poplar Grove-based utility a $3,000 deposit.
Calvin Murdock, the West Helena water system's former general manager, was "released from employment" Jan. 30, Franklin said. At a meeting the following day, the mayor presented a plan to remove the general manager role entirely and promote Saeed Rose to "water superintendent." In that role, Rose will run and manage most of the water department's operations as he works toward earning relevant licenses. His salary will be $60,000, a total that Franklin said saves the city $80,000, according to the mayor.
In his Friday update, Franklin also made the case to residents that their water and sewage utility rates need to increase if the city hopes to thoroughly fix its longstanding water issues; residents have been without a dependable water source for years, with the community having faced another major system failure in June and several additional boil orders.
City officials are working to develop and implement a long-term strategy to update or replace the community's overworked and geriatric water system, which relies on wells dug as far back as the 1960s, and an overall infrastructure that, according to one authority, leaks at least half of the water it produces. One of their first steps will be to replace the failed well, an effort estimated to cost as much as $1.5 million. Once completed, the city hopes to systematically replace its galvanized pipes, breaks in which have been "disastrous" for the community, according to James Valley, the mayor's chief of staff.
A package of about $5 million could help the city to address many of its water-related problems, according to John Edwards, economic development director at Helena Harbor and executive director of the Phillips County Public Utilities Board.
In early August, the state approved an emergency loan of up to $100,000 to help the city repair its most critical leaks and address other issues with the system. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also signed an executive order calling for a thorough analysis of Arkansas' water plan, which is nearly a decade old. A second loan of $100,000 that the governor encouraged the state Natural Resources Commission to expedite on Jan. 26 would be used to refurbish two wells and replace valves.
Franklin said the city is "aggressively applying" for grants and loans to help pay for the work that needs to be done. However, its water and sewer rates for 4,000 gallons of water needs to be 1.5% of the area's local median outcome in order to qualify for certain grants.
"That is to say that if we want free money, our customers must bear a certain portion of the burden," he said.
To that end, the mayor said the minimum water and sewer portion of residents' bills "will need to be set at $61.22," a fee that doesn't include taxes or sanitation/pump station charges. However, he said that figure is currently "for informational purposes only."