LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — If you take a boat ride through the largest urban wetlands in the south, you can see that Fourche Creek is seeing better days now.
Trash booms are still collecting massive amounts of garbage from illegal dumping and street litter, however, Chair of Friends of Fourche Creek Norm Berner said that what was once a larger problem has improved thanks to some changes.
"Little Rock's got 15 major waterways that feed into Fourche, that's the beast of all of this," Berner explained. "Some 10 years ago, you'd look out and see the contents that you're seeing here today, and they would be covered with the contents from inside the storm sewer. So you'd have the liquid contents as well as the toilet paper caught here."
Those things you no longer think about once they go down the drain would become the forefront and priority for many environmental organizations like the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority (LRWRA).
According to LRWRA Chief Executive Officer Jean Block, it all started with an agreement with the Sierra Club decades ago to reduce sewers overflowing by 2023.
"At the time, the city of Little Rock had 339 locations in the city, where there was access to work coming out of manholes, that's a problem. And Sierra Club said we'd like you to fix this. And we agreed. We entered into an agreement with them to do that," Block described. "So in the early-mid-2000s, when the utility knew that it had this massive undertaking of addressing the sanitary sewer overflows, the former CEO Reggie Corbitt and then his successor Greg Ramon basically implemented Project Renew, that was the utilities approach to tackle all the work that needed to be done."
The Reclamation Authority has spent $500 million to improve infrastructure, specifically improving more than 300 sanitary sewer overflow locations across the city.
It's been a team effort, especially for the collection system maintenance team, who have worked on 1,400 miles of sewer lines fixing leaks, build-ups, and collapsed pipes.
According to Block, there are enough underground pipes to cover the "amount or distance between Little Rock to Las Vegas."
"That's how many pipes are underground collecting used water that leaves our homes going down toilets or sinks or drains, leaves businesses, leaves restaurants, as well as local industry. All of that goes into those 1,400 miles of the collection system and gets transferred to one of our three water reclamation facilities," Block explained. "Once we are finished with the water reclamation process, we discharge the water or send it to the Arkansas River and what we send to the Arkansas River is actually seven times cleaner than the Arkansas River water itself.”
At Adam Field, LRWRA can treat up to 94 million gallons of water a day.
They say they are making the environment safer not only for people but also for our local plants and animals.
"You know, we are, I think one of those unsung heroes, and people don't think about the sewer utility. But without us and the work that we're doing, we would literally have sewer running through the streets," Block said.
Berner said he has been proud to partner with the LRWRA for many years now.
"The environmental problems that we used to have... there's a huge difference and we're happy for that now, just for our own sake that you know, we still wear gloves when we're doing this but we don't have to worry about you know, breathing something or if it goes through our gloves, you know, the nastiness that's been involved with, you know, sanitary sewers is no longer a problem here. So we're very grateful for that," Berner said.
If you have a sewer line concern, Block encourages you to call the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority first and they would be happy to send a team member out if it is on their side of work.
To learn more about the LRWRA or schedule a tour, click here. For more information on Friends of Fourche Creek, click here.