BENTON - Plans to build a reservoir for drinking water in a remote pocket of the county moved forward Thursday when the Saline County Quorum Court and the Saline Watershed Alliance approved funding a feasibility study.
The Natural Resource Conservation Service will conduct the $15,100 study, which will reveal what kind of environmental impact a reservoir would have and if it would produce enough water to serve the county.
The two entities agreed to split the cost of the study. The alliance approved its share of funding for the first phase of the study and said it would meet later this month to approve funding the second part.
The first phase is to be completed in roughly four months, and the second part in two moremonths.
The project is being labeled the Little Alum River Project.
The proposal to build the reservoir on timberland in the northwest corner of the county comes after water officials learned earlier this year that a plan to tap into another possible drinking water source, Lake Ouachita, is in jeopardy.
Water off icials in seven central Arkansas counties were expecting to get an allocation of water from Lake Ouachita, but its dam may be leaky. And that could prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from granting the allocation request.
A decision is likely five years off because the Corps has to study the lake's dam and then consider the communities' requests for water.
In the meantime, the reservoir is being viewed as anattractive alternative and possibly a better solution to meet Saline County's growing water demand.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 05/09/2008