Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Franklin attends meeting on DeGray water system

Gurdon Mayor Clayton Franklin recently attended a meeting concerning the proposed county wide water system.

Recently Franklin enlightened Gurdon's Rotary Club about the system.

"When DeGray Lake was built, some people were thinking ahead and reserved 30 million gallons of water from the lake for the people of Clark County," he said.

According to Franklin, there is enough water reserved to provide the whole county with water for years. Franklin also said he hoped having the water system would help attract business and industry to the Gurdon area.

Franklin reported making a proposal to all the surrounding water districts to purchase the water treatment plant from Arkadelphia to get the ball rolling on the new system.

However, Arkadelphia turned down the proposal and is expected to make a counter proposal to possibly sell water to the surrounding areas.

Franklin talked to Dr. Joe Nix, Chairman of the Ouachita River Water System, which is the system owning the 30 million gallons of water in DeGray Lake.

Franklin said the water districts may come together to form their own system with the water already reserved. Nix told Franklin there would be no problem with the system, however it would take time.

Franklin said he would give another report on the system after the next meeting is held.

"I hope we can do something with this thing. I know people are getting tired of the rising water rates," Franklin said.