BENTON - A proposed reservoir would yield enough drinking water to meet Saline County's need through 2030, a study by the Natural Resources Conservation Service has found.
Other water sources, however, would have to be tapped to provide water for the growing county through 2050, if population estimates and current water use hold steady.
Those results, revealed during a public hearing Tuesday, were good news for the Saline County Watershed Alliance, a group charged with securing a long-term drinking water supply for the county.
The county is projected to grow from about 100,000 residents to 144,000 residents by 2030, which combined with commercial growth and other factors will cause the water needs to more than double. Water officials have estimated that the county could exhaust its current sources as soon as 2016.
"With this reservoir, we feel like we've got our needs coveredthrough 2030," Byron Hicks, an engineer who works with the alliance, said while explaining the conservation service's findings during the hearing.
But such a reservoir is still years off, if it's even feasible, as further studies are needed and federal and state standards would have to be met. And there could be roadblocks, such as the discovery of an endangered species and securing funding.
The study, which also was presented to the Saline County Quorum Court on Tuesday, didn't indicate how much a reservoir would cost. That information will be determined during the next phase of the study, engineers with the Natural Resources Conservation Service told the Quorum Court.
That phase of the $15,100 study also is expected to address water quality issues and the environmental impact a reservoir would have.
Water officials have not yet determined where the water would be treated or how it would be delivered to the various purveyors in the county.
The alliance began looking for a new water source earlier this year after it learned that there could be a problem getting water from the Army Corps of Engineers-operated Lake Ouachita. The Corps is to begin studying the lake to determine whether the dam is leaking and consequently unable to deliver the drinking water that Saline County and several other central Arkansas counties are counting on for future needs.
Saline County Judge Lanny Fite proposed a reservoir as a backup, and possibly a better solution, after identifying 2,170 acres of timberland in the northwest corner of the county that he hopes will be well-suited for the project.
But the water supply from Lake Ouachita is still seen as an important supplement for the county even if the reservoir is built because the reservoir isn't expected to yield as much wateras officials had hoped.
Fite said a sales tax would likely be needed for the project, though nothing has been formally proposed.
"You're going to have to get some real money, and a sales tax will help pay it off quickly," Fite said.
The county currently gets the bulk of its water from Central Arkansas Water, which draws from sources such as Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona.
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 10/22/2008