Water utility borrows $20M more for plant upgrades
Central Arkansas Water will get up to $20 million more on its loan from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission to continue with a project to improve its two water-treatment plants.
After approval by the commission’s board Wednesday morning, $42 million of commission funding is set to go toward rehabilitation at the Ozark Point water treatment plant, and to motor and electrical upgrades and building renovations at the Wilson treatment plant.
The utility, which serves about 450,000 customers in central Arkansas, was approved for up to $22 million in loans from the commission in 2016.
The commission also approved an $18 million loan for Little Rock on Wednesday, a continuation of a previous loan. That money will go toward either rehabilitating the city’s existing collection system or installing a new sanitary sewer main.
Those funds were among about $42 million in loans and $405,800 in grants approved by the commission at its July meeting.
Loans from the commission are often sought by communities and utilities that anticipate a lower interest rate than a bank would charge.
Commissioners did not discuss the loans at the meeting before voting on them. The loans already had been recommended by staff members.
Ozark Point is located just a few side streets off Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock’s Hillcrest neighborhood and has operated for more than 100 years. It can treat up to 24 million gallons of water per day.
Utility officials said its operation is advantageous because water is set up to flow in by gravity, meaning it doesn’t have to be pumped in. That means low overhead costs, even if the plant is small, utility spokesman Doug Shackelford has said.
Central Arkansas Water’s only other treatment plant for Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona waters — the Wilson plant — has the capacity to treat 133 million gallons per day.
The commission’s board also approved water-project loans of up to $2 million to Star City in Lincoln County for improvements to the city’s wastewater system, up to $1.6 million to Flippin in Marion County to rehabilitate the city’s lift station and buy new equipment, up to $600,000 to the North White County Rural Water Public Facilities Board for meter upgrades, and up to $154,500 to Helena-West Helena in Phillips County for emergency repair to sewer plant levees.
The commission approved grants of up to $314,150 to Shirley in Van Buren County to install part of a waterline pipe; up to $32,960 to Joiner in Mississippi County to repair and upgrade a water storage tank; up to $32,960 to Wabbaseka in Jefferson County for the emergency installation of a new well pump; and $25,750 to Stone County for an improvement project on the Little Red River.