De Queen completes $250K in improvements to water system

A major improvement to the water system for the city of De Queen, Ark., was completed recently with the addition of new pumps and drives at the high lift station on Stilwell Avenue at a cost of $250,000.

“With a new raw water line and improvements at the water treatment plant, the city’s water system should be in good shape for the future,” De Queen Mayor Billy Ray McKelvey said in his Around Townreport.

Three pumps operate at the location.

“The water department alternates between two smaller 100-horsepower pumps and one larger 200-horsepower pump. The dual set-up gives the system redundancy in ease of a pump failure,” McKelvey said.

“When the first pump was replaced last year, it was determined it was more than 50 years old. It soon became obvious that the other pumps and their electrical control systems were also obsolete,” he said.

The new parts were bigger than the old equipment, which created the need for a larger building.

“Old electrical controls were upgraded to variable frequency drives which control the speed of the pump motors by varying voltage and frequency. The largest pump, which is the everyday workhorse, is now pumping all of the water needed for the city at about 63 percent of maximum load. Motor speeds can be adjusted with the turn of a switch to fine tune the needs of the system. This should translate into savings on power usage,” McKelvey said.