City says task force’s focus misplaced
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of two articles on the May 23 Water Provider Legislative Task Force hearing in Little Rock focusing on water and sewer issues affecting Garland County.
A legislative panel premised on defining water provider and customer rights statewide has taken a peculiar interest in Hot Springs’ regional water and wastewater systems, Deputy City Manager Bill Burrough told the Water Provider Legislative Task Force last month at the state Capitol.
Burrough suggested the panel’s time may be better spent elsewhere, given what it’s learned about many rural systems’ inability to maintain infrastructure and make capital investments for needed improvements under their current rate structures.
“I’ve heard we have some really serious problems around the state,” Burrough testified at the May 23 hearing. “Deferred maintenance has gone on so long, a lot of those areas are in a crisis and can’t fix their infrastructure.
“The city of Hot Springs has a really good system. We haven’t deferred maintenance. We’re moving forward with a plant expansion and going to bring a new water supply to our community, for the city and county. We’ve done so while remaining in the lowest 2 percentile of rates in the state. We’re doing everything we’ve been tasked to and charged with to move this process forward.”
The legislative intent behind Act 1056, the statute enabling the task force’s formation, listed several issues affecting water and sewer service in Garland County. Sen. Alan Clark, R-District 13, of Lonsdale, the legislation’s sponsor, has called it “Plan B,” a response to the state House’s 54-15 defeat last year of a bill Clark introduced to require water providers to allow connections to existing mains anywhere in their Arkansas Natural Resources Commission-designated service area or to build out the necessary infrastructure if customers were willing to pay for the improvements.
The city’s extension and connection policy limits commercial connections outside the corporate limits to one five-eighths inch meter per lot of record in the planning area and prohibits commercial and residential extensions in the unincorporated area. Act 1056 said it is not the prerogative of providers to deny service in areas they have agreed to serve.
Citing the 2017 Arkansas REALTORS Association Housing Market Report, Burrough questioned claims that the city’s policy has hurt economic development and property values in Garland County. Information he presented showed county housing sales increased more than 9 percent last year, with the average sale price increasing more than 13 percent.
“When I look around Garland County and Hot Springs, I see good things happening,” he told the panel. “There is development. There are things happening in our community, and they’re good for everyone.”
Burrough said accounts of service denials, such as those blocking the expansion of a Thornton Ferry Road apartment complex and the construction of a Walmart Super Center on Pittman Road, the panel has heard are not examples of economic development for which the city will consider making exceptions.
He pointed to the extension and connection policy provision committing the city to paying for water and sewer line extensions for new industries bringing 10 new net full-time jobs within 24 months to Mid-America Industrial Park.
“We need to be focused on true economic development, manufacturing,” he told the panel. “(The Hot Springs Board of Directors) has the power to do that. If it’s true economic development, I can’t imagine them turning that request down.”
Matter unsettled by consent order
City Attorney Brian Albright testified that a 1994 consent order barring the city from conditioning sewer service on annexation is not settled law.
“I think that would be an issue that would have to be litigated,” he said, responding to Clark, the panel’s co-chair, asking if the city’s policy violates the court order. “I don’t consider that to be litigated. It was not tried before a judge.
“The consent order was written by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Ron Naramore. Ron Naramore prepared an order that my predecessor, David White, signed and was entered by Judge (Vicki) Cook.”
Albright said the order bears on litigants involved in the 1994 lawsuit but should not be viewed as relevant to the broader connection and extension policy, citing in support of his statement a 2009 Arkansas Supreme Court opinion decreeing the order does not preclude the city from charging nonresident customers higher water and wastewater rates.
Royal Water District
Panel Co-chair Tim Lemons, the Cabot Republican representing District 43 in the state House, questioned the city’s agreement to service the Royal area without limitation in light of supply and capacity concerns the city invokes as justification for limiting service to other parts of the unincorporated area.
The 1999 agreement with the Royal Water Public Facilities Board obligates the city to service all customers in the district and provide infrastructure to connect new customers, remaining in effect until indebtedness the Royal system issued to pay for infrastructure connecting it to the city’s system is retired.
In October, the city granted developers Thomas and Bonnie Turner’s request for an approximately 1,000-foot extension of the 6-inch main on Whitfield Road. The application they submitted in September said the extension will serve eight lots in Paradise Ridge Estates.
“I do a lot of work in rural water systems,” Lemons, a civil engineer at Lemons Engineering Consultants in Cabot, told Burrough. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of a contract between a city and a secondary water provider that was unlimited.
“I see that as a recipe for disaster. I wish that was something the city would look into.”
Burrough testified the city serves about 3,400 customers in the Royal area, commitments it has to weigh when reviewing applications for new service. He said it will probably be another 10 years before the district retires its indebtedness and releases the city from the agreement.
“We share that concern,” Burrough told Lemons. “It really has restrictions on others because of those obligations. We have to consider those as we move forward until we get to a new water supply. The Royal Water District is a huge consideration.”