Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Upgrades On Prescott Water Systems At $3.9 Million

Long term improvements to the Prescott water system will cost $3.9 million.

James Rice, with NRS Engineering, told the Prescott City Council, at its regular monthly meeting Monday, Nov. 20, just to upgrade the current system to meet the new Environmental Protection Agency and Arkansas Department of Health mandates will cost $1.8 million, and these are changes the city has no choice but to do.

The EPA and ADH mandates, he said, must be completed by 2003. This doesn't give the city much time to make the upgrades.

The reasons for the changes, he said, are because trihalomethane has been found to be carcinogenic. Cities with populations of more than 3,000 can have no more than 100 parts per million of THM in their water supply.

In the past, Rice said, this only affected cities with populations of 10,000 or more. He added, the amount will likely be reduced from 100 ppm to 80 ppm in the near future, and could possibly go lower than this.

The regulations on total organic carbon matter in a water supply has also changed, he said. Because of this, haleocylic acids, which are similar to THM, but react with chemicals and natural water, are having their limits reduced as well.

This also includes the turbidity of the water. Turbidity, he said, is the particles remaining in water after it's been treated.

Currently the turbidity must be 0.5 95 percent of the time, but this is being dropped to 0.3. Because of these strict levels, the water turbidity is tested every four hours.

Last year the filters at the treatment plant were replaced, and this helped the city reach compliancy.

Other work the city did, including using sand and anthracite media in its treatment facility, will help with the new regulations.

In 2003, Rice said, chemicals will have to be added to make sure the turbidity rate is within limits. This couldn't have been done had the city continued using only sand. The addition of the anthracite, though, will make this possible.

These changes have nothing to do with possible growth. Rice pointed out Prescott currently has 1,600 customers receiving city water. With a projected growth rate of 2.5 percent, he said, this number could be 2,550 by 2005, which will mean an increase in demand.

Currently the peak daily use for a single day is 1.2 million gallons, but with the 2.5 percent growth, Rice said, this could be 2.59 million gallons by 2020 and the existing system can't handle this capacity.

In fact, if the area has much in the way of industrial expansion, this could mean a demand of 3.74 million gallons daily by 2020.

The city, he said, needs to have a million gallons of water set aside for industry daily.

Rice pulled no punches in telling the council what it would have to do. He said the entire amount of upgrades doesn't have to be done at once, and could be done in two stages.

Prescott has two pumps at the Little Missouri River used to pump water to the treatment plant. These pumps, Rice said, are rated at 3.02 million gallons per day.

To meet ADH requirements, each of the pumps must be able to meet the minimum daily demand alone.

The pumps, Rice said, won't be able to handle the demand with growth of a million gallons a day.

The holding pond, though, is more than adequate, he told the panel. It has a capacity of 58.5 million gallons.

Water is held here for no more than three hours before being pumped to the filtration plant.

However, one of the main problems the city faces is with its clarifying system. It was originally built to handle industrial needs up to 11.3 mgd, but is inconsistent and hard to control with a start-stop operation.

One of the reason's the city is out of compliance on particle count is its current system doesn't filter out all of the particles in the water from the river.

Rice said some of the particles are torn into microscopic size which can't be stopped by the filters and get into the drinking water.

To alleviate this, he said, the filters need to be put closer to the clarifier. This will prevent particle damage and more can be removed from the water.By 2005, he said, just with the addition of the rural water customers, assuming 600 sign up, the demand will be at 1.91mgd. This means the filtration system will have to run 24-hours-a-day, and still couldn't handle any added industrial demand.

This is partly because the clearwell is too small. Prescott's clearwell will hold 50,000 gallons. However, the ADH wants all clearwells to be able to hold 30 to 40 percent of a city's daily capacity.

Rice, in talking about the THM, said there is no cause for concern. In order for THM to pose a serious health risk a person would have to drink 1,000 gallons of water a day for life. This, of course, would first result in renal failure or drowning.

He told the council of a double-edged sword the city would be facing when making changes.

Chlorine must be in contact with water for a specified amount of time to meet ADH and EPA regulations. This is currently done by adding it at the river.

But, if the clearwell is moved to the river, the water and chlorine won't be together long enough to meet requirements.

To solve this problem, he said, the city will need more storage after the water is first filtered.

Some of the changes Rice suggested will require new equipment. Part of this will be new, bigger pumps to handle a larger demand.

He recommended the current clearwell be used as a holding area for water to be used by the fire department, while building a larger one for residential and industrial use.

A generator needs to be put on the pumps at the water plant, also for fire protection.

The city will need a clarifier capable of handling 2 mgd, with the new clearwell able to handle 1.5 mgd.

The cost for this is $1,787,500, at today's prices.

Improvements to the treatment plant by 2005, he said, would require a rapid mix splitter box, a chemical feed box, influent water and meter vault, a modified chemical feed system.

To do this in a manner as to have an extra million gallons of water available daily for industry would cost $2,125,000 now.

This also includes, he said, replacing the intake pumps, building a new pump station and transfer pumps, expanding the filtration, building a 2.05 mgd clarifier, replacing the high service pumps and engineering fees.

Adding the two projects together comes to $3,912,500, at today's prices.

However, the city isn't required to do everything at once, but to get in compliance with ADH and EPA regulations, it will cost $1,787,500.

Rice said the city won't want to do a bond issue in 2001 and have to come back with another one in 2005. There are two or three other financing alternatives, he told the council.

Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor said the December meeting will include a financial representative from Stephens Inc., and discussions of a possible rate increase to pay for the construction.

Rice said raising the rates to pay for construction would add about $9 per customer on each month's bill, if the city tried to do everything at once.

Taylor said there are other ways of financing such projects without putting the burden on the customers, especially if the area gets an industrial announcement. "We need to get ready to do something soon."

Rice said the existing location of the water treatment plant should be fine for the upgrades.