Regional Treatment Plant Under Budget, On Schedule

By John Gore

Posted: November 22, 2009 at 2:42 a.m.

Anthony Reyes
The regional wastewater treatment plant project, seen Friday in Highfill, remains under construction with plans to come online next year.

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ROGERS — Construction on the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority wastewater treatment plant is ahead of schedule and nearly $16 million under budget, which should benefit Tontitown and Bentonville customers when the plant comes online next year.

John Sampier, the authority’s executive director, said bids for the plant construction and other elements of the regional wastewater facility came in under the estimated cost.

“We are delighted the bids came in this way. It will save our ratepayers some money,” Sampier said.

Sampier said the lower bids are surprising since the Environmental Protection Agency changed the specifications for the plant’s discharge midway through the design process. The plant was scheduled to have a permit for 1.0 parts per million, but the EPA lowered the limit to 0.1 parts per million, forcing the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority to spend an additional $6.1 million for a different filtration system.

The plant is one of two in Arkansas that has to meet the low phosphorus output.

Springdale, Fayetteville and Rogers expanded or built new wastewater plants within the last three years and have permits allowing 1.0 parts of phosphorus per million in discharge. When current permits expire, those cities may have to meet the same low phosphorus limit, which could cost taxpayer millions of dollars to retrofit existing plants or pay for the expansion of the authority’s plant.

Once Sampier and the board of directors learned of the new EPA limit, they were able to substitute the new filtration unit without slowing construction on the $56.9 million wastewater plant. The plant, designed to handle 3.5 million gallons of wastewater per day, will serve Bentonville and Tontitown when it comes online.

Other cities are members of the authority but aren’t planning to use the facility immediately.

Bentonville and Tontitown are locked into using the new facility for several reasons.

The Bentonville wastewater plant is operating above its permit level of 4 million gallons per day, said Mike Bender, Bentonville public works director. The city is are running about 4.5 million gallons a day through the plant. The regional plant will relieve a lot of stress on the environment, Bender said.

The city complies with EPA regulations in regards to the quality of discharge leaving the plant, he said, and the state knows that the regonal plant will solve Bentonville’s overage.

Bentonville will send 1 million to 1.2 million gallons of wastewater a day to the regional plant, he said.

Authority representatives said the rates charged customers should be lower than initially expected because the plant is expected to come in under budget. What the exact rate will be has not been determined.

Bender said there are no firm figures on what the water and sewer rate for users will be when the city begins using the regional plant. Bentonville recently increased water and sewer rates.

“We do know we are scheduled to pay NACA $600,000 in 2010. Then the payment jumps to $2.1 million in 2011 and to $5 million in 2020.”

Based on preliminary reports, Bentonville won’t need another rate increase until 2012, he said.

Tontitown faces a somewhat different situation, according to Mick Wagner, authority chairman and head of the Tontitown Water and Sewer Commission. Tontitown has a wastewater contract with Springdale.

“We really don’t have any choice. Our contract with Springdale states we have to be off the Springdale system by 2012 or when NACA comes online,” Wagner said.

Tontitown has 110 businesses and a few households on the sewer system and sends 75,000 to 100,000 gallons of wastewater to Springdale daily.

Like Bentonville, Tontitown officials have no idea what it will cost ratepayers when the regional plan comes online.

The city council in 2006 earmarked a portion of sales tax revenue to offset sewer user costs and that helps keep rates low, Wagner said.

“We will have to wait until the dust settles after NACA opens to determine what the sewer rate will be,” he said.

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