CAVE SPRINGS — Twice-yearly payments will drop for Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority bonds after officials redrew the agreement Thursday.
The authority borrowed less than projected and payments will be reduced from $134,998 a year to $90,472. The total amount will be spread across the original term of the Arkansas Natural Resource Commission bond through 2041, which is the life expectancy of the wasterwater treatment plant built with the bond money, said George Spence, chairman of the authority’s board.
Up next
The Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority meets next at 3 p.m. July 16 at its 11579 Snavely Road office.
The day’s action lowered Bentonville’s annual payments into the authority by about $38,000 a year and Tontitown’s by roughly $6,000, said Bob McCaslin, Bentonville mayor.
It will save taxpayers money, he said. However, it won’t mean lower sewer rates because spreading that amount over 20,000 users would be insignificant.
The new agreement will save the authority $912,378 in interest over the original agreement, McCaslin pointed out. It will cost the authority $4,500. Had the authority continued to make payments at the same rate the bonds would have been paid off by 2029, according to documents provided to the board. There would have been an additional $300,000 savings in interest had they elected to keep making the higher payments.
“It’s about use of money,” Spence said.
Talk turned to growth after the board approved the bond change.
There are two separate oxidation ditches at the plant that aerate waste, said Rick McClain, facility manager. Each was designed to process about 1.8 million gallons of wastewater a day, but so far they’ve only used one.
The plant was averaging 2 million gallons of wastewater a day during March. McClain told the board he expects to be using both lines before the year is out.
“We’re fast exceeding the capacity of one of those,” he said.
Community growth increases flow, McClain said.
“It all depends on Bentonville,” he said.
The plant treats wastewater from Tontitown and Bentonville.
Board members said they may need to look at adding capacity at the plant in the next few years.
There is room to add a third line east of the other two, McClain said. That would bring capacity to 5.4 million gallons of wastewater a day.
Bentonville’s 2008 projections call for an additional 200,000 gallons of waste a day, each year, Mike Bender, public works director for Bentonville told the board. The city treats some of its own waste, but at least a third comes through the authority’s plant, Bender said after the meeting.
Spence said after the meeting that except for 2007 to 2009 he has yet to see a growth prediction fail to come through in a shorter time frame than predicted for Northwest Arkansas.
Amye Buckley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter@NWAAmyeTwitter@NWAAmye.