Waterline ROW about 25 percent complete

Easements for about a quarter of the roughly 250 parcels a 17-mile raw waterline is expected to cross are in place, the city said last month.

City Manager Bill Burrough said about half of the 87 property owners who have been contacted agreed to grant permanent, 20-foot rights of way for the 42-inch diameter line that will gravity feed water from Lake Ouachita to a treatment plant in south Garland County. Initial cost estimates of $25 million to $30 million make it one of the costlier components of the $100 million project to bring the city’s 23 million-gallon a day Lake Ouachita allocation online by 2022.

The 87 property owners control 127 parcels, Burrough said. About half of them have signed easement contracts, he said, 38 percent needed more information and 15 percent declined. Property records showed no easements for the raw waterline have been recorded since the 10 documented in May. They cover more than 2 miles, stretching from Airport Road west of the Pittman Road intersection to a large parcel south of Little Mazarn Creek, and include temporary 30-foot working easements.

The city said last month that $25,645 has been committed from the $300,000 restricted fund the Hot Springs Board of Directors established for easement acquisitions.

In May, the city said the acquisition will generally proceed from south to north, securing route access near the Little Mazarn Road location where the city plans to build a 15 million-gallon a day treatment plant before parcels on the upper part of the route are acquired

But the land services company subcontracted by Crist Engineers Inc., the Little Rock firm awarded the $5.26 mil

lion contract to oversee and design the water supply project, was working last month in the upper part of the proposed route, contacting property owners in the Treasure Isle Road area about potential easements.

Treasure Isle is between the proposed intake site located across the main channel from Echo Canyon Resort and Marina and where the line is expected to cross Lake Hamilton near the Highway 270 west bridge. According to a preliminary map provided by Crist, the route will also cross Glazypeau Creek on the east side of the Lake Hamilton watershed and Cearley, Mazarn and Little Mazarn creeks on the west side.

The route is expected to proceed along right of way for an Entergy Arkansas Inc. transmission line. The city planned to share the right of way with Entergy in some areas, occupying the outer 5 feet of the transmission line’s easement, but Burrough said requirements the utility stipulated made co-locating impractical.

“We’ve pulled away from that,” he said. “The (raw waterline) will be closer to (Entergy’s right of way) in some areas, depending on the parcel and landowner.”

Burrough said compensation in addition to the $1 per linear foot the city is paying will be provided for property owners with special considerations, such as trees, fences, wells and gardens that Treasure Isle property owners said the line will displace.

“We want to be sure we’re paying a fair price to those willing to provide easements,” he said. “If there’s a loss of a well, garden, fence or tree, we’ll pay for that. We’ll log it as a special consideration that will be returned to like or better condition.

“If you have pasture land, your cows can still graze on the easement. You can’t build on it, but you’ll be able to use the land. It’s much less obtrusive than an overhead power line.”

All of the system’s potable water comes from treatment plants on the west and north ends of the 145-square-mile service area. Crist has said locating a new plant 17 miles south of the raw water source will improve distribution system hydraulics and reduce water age for customers on the south and east ends.

Burrough said drilling that will determine the feasibility of boring the uppermost part of the line 300 feet under Blakely Mountain is scheduled to begin later this month. Drilling will yield soil samples along the entire length of the

2,600-foot tunnel Crist has proposed for gravity flowing water from the intake rather than pumping it over the mountain.

Crist has said boring data the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers collected prior to constructing Blakely Mountain Dam in the

1950s indicated favorable soil conditions for a tunnel, but it wants to conduct its own geotechnical investigation before committing to the tunnel concept.

Burrough said the city expects to have the results by the end of the year. Raw waterline easements and the design of the treatment plant should also be completed by then, he said.