Ensuring ample water for central Arkansas

Water woes in Southern states have been making national headlines in recent months. They tell of boil water orders for entire metroplexes and complete system failures in other cities.

We haven’t seen those problems in central Arkansas. The resiliency of your community water system that serves half a million people—one in every six Arkansans—is namely due to a history of focus on infrastructure maintenance and replacement by Central Arkansas Water leaders.

Instead of catastrophic headlines, the latest water news here is a 10-year strategic investment plan that will ensure safe, clean, affordable, and dependable drinking water for current and future generations, followed by headlines detailing one city board member’s attempts to halt that plan.

Public water supply is intrinsic to the public and economic health of a community. Cities and regions cannot have economic growth without a resilient water system. This is something the Central Arkansas Water Board of Commissioners is cognizant of and considers with every decision made.

This isn’t the first time local politicians have attempted to object to projects that protect your community’s water security.

Back in 1954, the then Little Rock Municipal Water Works Board of Commissioners submitted to the then Little Rock City Council a carefully studied proposal for the construction of a new drinking water source, Lake Maumelle, along with the bonds that needed to be issued to finance the project, and the rates necessary to pay the debt service on the bonds.

The City Council, after objection from a few members who believed they had not been adequately consulted, balked. The Arkansas Gazette reported that the “‘uninformed’ aldermen questioned its merits and sought to substitute measures.”

We now know in hindsight that the construction of Lake Maumelle has been pivotal to the resiliency and abundance of water in central Arkansas. If the generations before us had not made that investment, we may be more like other cities, some in this state, scrounging for rights to water supply sources.

CAW has secured enough water rights and sources to keep our communities supplied with high-quality drinking water for the next 100-plus years.

Back in 2001, CAW was created in a joint effort by the cities of Little

Rock and North Little Rock after what locals and newspapers at the time referred to as “water wars” when Little Rock lowered rates to Little Rock residents and significantly increased North Little Rock rates.

The purpose of joining together to create CAW was to “serve two cities efficiently and economically, without any vestige of discrimination or inequality in rates or infrastructure based upon geographic location and to assure that funds expended are for the betterment and improvement of the utility’s infrastructure.”

I am proud to be serving in my 12th year on the CAW Board of Commissioners. My role is to ensure the water that flows from your tap is of the highest quality and there when you need it, and that we leave a quality water system for future generations. It’s a job I take very seriously.

With our eye toward 2050 and beyond, CAW’s long-range strategic plan incorporates a 10-year investment outlook to 2032. It’s the first time we have worked to forecast generational water system investments in such detail over a decade span. We know it’s our duty to invest in and plan for our future, just like generations before us did with Lake Maumelle and other water system projects.

CAW Commissioners are legally obligated under state law and ethically sworn to manage your water utility, a duty imparted on them by the two cities’ governing bodies.

Last week, a Little Rock City Board member asked his fellow board members to not support CAW’s investment plan and rate structure.

When the CAW Commission approved the new rate structure on Jan. 12, the decision wasn’t made on a whim. We spent months exploring options with a top-notch consultant and staff input. We made fact-based decisions to ensure critical work required to maintain a high-performing system was funded, while keeping rates affordable over the next decade.

In the end, CAW was able to propose a plan that not only funds $685 million of capital improvements to your water system, but does so by only increasing the cost per gallon from half a penny today to one cent in 10 years. Those cost increases will be incremental, in an effort to limit the impact on you, the customers.

CAW met with many community groups and neighborhood organizations, all of which have been understanding and supportive of the investment strategy.

CAW’s rates currently rank third-lowest compared to similar utilities across the nation, according to the annual study done by Memphis Light, Gas and Water. There are dozens (probably hundreds) of utilities across the U.S. that have rates now that are higher than what CAW is proposing water costs to be in 10 years.

The process set up when Little Rock and North Little Rock joined together to create Central Arkansas Water works well, and our community is stronger because of it. When politics impact public health investments, history shows that communities suffer.

Carmen Smith is an attorney whose professional career has included corporate and transaction law, with extensive experience providing counsel on ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA and the Affordable Care Act; she joined the Board of Commissioners as a North Little Rock representative for Central Arkansas Water in the summer of 2010.