Watkins appointed by governor

— A Rogers man, Bill Watkins III, was named recently to the state Task Force on Water Quality and to the Task Force on Water Source Protection.

"I got two for one there. How about that?" Watkins joked.

The Task Force on Water Quality is to identify systems that provide the public with drinking water, and to review the systems' laws and standards, as well as those from other jurisdictions, to ensure high-quality and safe drinking water. Also, the task force is to assess the state's facilities for ensuring the quality and safety of public drinking water and to recommend improvements to drinking water's safety and quality.

The Task Force on Water Source Protection is to study ways to preserve the water quality of lakes and reduce the risk of contamination by surface discharges from nonmunicipal treatment plantswithin the lakes' watersheds.

Both the entities to which he's been appointed were created in the 2009 state legislative session, he said.

A lawyer, Watkins is a longtime member of the Beaver Water District Board, he said.

"As a board member of the Beaver Water District, it sounded (to me) like something one of us needed to be involved in. The board of the Beaver Water District is the governing body that watches over the Beaver Water District itself, which produces the drinking water for Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville," he said.

With erratic growth, planning for the future is at once more difficult and absolutely necessary, Watkins said. "Probably the biggest challenge for the future is the safety and security of the watershed, which is the source of thewater that ends up in Beaver Lake. And it's always a whole lot cheaper to purify clean water than it is to purify dirty water. You've also got to keep in mind the rights of the property owners in the watershed, so it's always a balancing act," Watkins said.

Watkins' law firm is Watkins, Boyer, Gray, Edwards and Noblin. It is at 1106 W. Poplar St. in Rogers.

News, Pages 5 on 09/23/2009

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