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Jan 08, 2024

City board to consider raw waterline connector

A resolution the Hot Springs Board of Directors will consider next week would

A resolution the Hot Springs Board of Directors will consider next week would allow Lake Ouachita water to be treated at the city's plant on upper Lake Hamilton.

The resolution authorizing a $1,251,194 change order to a raw waterline contract that's part of the more than $150 million Lake Ouachita water supply project is one of seven items of new business on Tuesday night's agenda. It would amend the $9,167,669 contract the board awarded Belt Construction of Texarkana last February for two noncontiguous segments of the 17-mile raw waterline.

Major Capital Projects Manager Todd Piller told the board earlier this week that the change order will pay for a 48-inch diameter welded steel pipe connecting the south portal of the micro tunnel contractors are drilling through Blakely Mountain to the upper segment of the raw waterline.

The latter stops at Blakely Dam Road, the northern end of more than 2 miles of 48-inch steel pipe Belt finished installing in August 2021. The $4,769,153 contract included a connection to the upper Lake Hamilton plant, giving it a second raw water source.

Per the city's withdrawal agreement with Entergy Arkansas, it can take up to 30 million gallons a day from Lake Hamilton, with usage not to exceed a 20 million-gallon a day average calculated over a rolling three-month period. The state Health Department rated the plant's capacity at 21 million gallons a day, a level of production the city said the 50-year-old plant can't sustain over a prolonged period.

The south end of the 17-mile raw waterline will terminate at the new 15 million-gallon a day treatment plant the city is building off of Amity Road. Initially scheduled for completion this year, the new plant has been beset by supply chain disruptions that have extended its estimated completion to 2025. In the interim, the cross-connection on the upper segment of the raw waterline will allow Lake Ouachita water to flow to the upper Lake Hamilton plant.

The connection could be used if Lake Hamilton drops below the level of the intake or when heavy rains make the lake turbid. Runoff entering the watershed can disrupt plant operations when Blakely Dam isn't generating power. Mud from Owl Creek, which empties into the lake on the opposite side of the plant, backs up to the intake. Plant operators have to wait for turbidity in the water to settle out at the bottom of sedimentation basins, increasing the time it takes to convert raw water to potable water.

Piller told the board the almost 900 feet of pipe connecting the Blakely Mountain micro tunnel to the raw waterline should be delivered by July. The micro tunnel is expected to be completed by then.

Michels Corp. of Wisconsin was scheduled to have finished drilling last month, but its boring machine was only about a third of the way to the Lake Ouachita side of the mountain at the end of last year. Piller told the board the city hopes to send Lake Ouachita water through the mountain and to the upper Lake Hamilton plant by the end of the year.

The connector pipe will attach to the upper segment of the raw waterline, which Belt completed in August 2021, but the change order amends the city's other contract with Belt. A memo City Manager Bill Burrough sent his staff last month said amending Belt's $9.20 million contract, part of which includes a 42-inch diameter segment of the raw waterline from the Lake Hamilton plant to the east side of the main channel, was the fastest and most cost-effective means of getting the pipe.

The memo said Belt's $1.25 million proposal was the lowest of the three the city received. Michels proposed a $1.60 million cost and Garrett Excavation $1.50 million. The contract would be the first moneys drawn from the 2022 water bond fund. The city said proceeds from the $50 million of new and refinanced debt underwriters sold in December were deposited into the supply project construction fund earlier this week.

The board authorized the bond sale in November to cover cost overruns. The rate increase it also authorized that month will service the debt.

A report the city provided showed as of the end of last year $111.96 million had been committed from the $106.64 million the city received from a 2020 bond issue and $7.96 million bridge loan the board authorized from the general fund in August.

The rate structure that took effect in 2018, along with a subsequent one that will go into full effect in November, are paying down the debt. Monthly base rates for residential customers in the city will have increased more than $12 by November. Residential customers outside the city will see their minimum monthly charge rise more than $18 compared to their 2017 charge for 1,000 gallons of usage.

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