The Natural State has an abundance of clean lakes that are great for playing and as a source for drinking water, but with growth on the horizon, the state's largest water utility officially locked in a new source for the future on Degray Lake on the Caddo River near Arkadelphia.
“It’s an exciting day for all of us. And it's large and monumental in scope,” said Col. Mike Derosier, the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in the region. “We are about ready to execute the largest water supply agreement that the Vicksburg district has ever been a part of.”
The colonel signed documents Wednesday that officially allocates 100 million gallons of drinking water out of DeGray to Central Arkansas Water and another 20 million to the city of Hot Springs at a future date.
“The agreements that we sign today will ensure the economic vitality of our community of central Arkansas,” said Pat McCabe, the mayor of Hot Springs.
DeGray Lake is already doing several jobs as a flood control site, good fishing and swimming and hydro-power generation. It also already provides water to the Kimzey Water District in Hot Spring County.
The agreement has been more than 30 years in the making, and the big districts aren’t expected to need to dip into this lake for possibly decades more.
“Today sets up the structure for water withdrawals to begin when the communities here reach a point when they need to draw from this resource,” said Col. Derosier.
“For Central Arkansas Water it's not going to have any impact on rates,” said Tad Bohannon, the CEO of CAW, which will pay $1 million for the storage for the next four years. “We've been planning for this for a long time.”
“Now that the path is set, there is one additional thing that we must all keep in mind,” said Dr. Joe F. Nix, the man who chaired the original commission that started looking for drinking water sources in 1988. He became emotional in his remarks. “we must take care of this resource.”
Boating and swimming are tightly controlled on Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona beyond what is allowed on DeGray. Officials said that’s because it is a deeper and different type of reservoir and won’t require any changes to recreational activities in the wake of the deal.