Official says meeting with EPA ‘went well’

FORT SMITH — A meeting between the city administrator and representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week reportedly “went well.”

City Administrator Carl Geffken brought the city Board of Directors up to speed Tuesday on a meeting he had with Ken McQueen, EPA regional administrator for Region 6, in Dallas on Jan. 29 concerning the city’s consent decree.

Fort Smith officials signed the consent decree in 2015 with the EPA, the Department of Justice and the state agreeing to make an estimated $480 million in repairs and upgrades to the city’s wastewater system over the course of 12 years to clear up chronic violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

Geffken said the meeting was just with him; McQueen; and McQueen’s chief of staff, Erin Chancellor.

He made clear that the meeting was not a negotiation, but rather a “sharing of information.”

Among the information Geffken said he provided concerned the rate of poverty, food adequacy and median household income in Fort Smith.

“Our point of view is one that says we’d like to work with all of [the agencies] to help us be able to continue to afford the consent decree without raising our rates so high that we put the city of Fort Smith at a disadvantage economically, for business and residents,” Geffken said after Tuesday’s meeting.

“… It was a very good meeting. We’re hoping to hear back very soon.”

Geffken said that he got a sense that the EPA listened and were “genuinely interested” in what he had to say.

During the city board’s study session on Jan. 28, Paul Calamita, chairman of the Richmond, Va., law firm AquaLaw, who the city hired in 2016, presented the board four options to consider regarding renegotiation efforts on the consent decree. Those included:

■ Getting together with federal agencies and determining, out of the remaining require- ments, what makes sense for the city to do through the life of the consent decree, which is the end of 2027.

■ Acquiring more time to complete all the requirements of the consent decree.

■ Taking additional time to implement some revised requirements instead of doing everything in the consent decree as written.

■ Going to federal court modify the contract if the agencies will not agree to changes.