HOT SPRINGS -- The Hot Springs Board of Directors approved a $10,458,975 contract Tuesday night for construction of 5.6 miles of the Lake Ouachita water supply project's 17-mile raw waterline.
The contract awarded to McKee Utility Contractors Inc. of Oklahoma puts more than 12 miles of the line under contract. In August, the board awarded a $4,769,153 contract to Belt Construction of Oklahoma for the 2.5-mile upper segment from the intake the city will build above Blakely Mountain Dam to the Ouachita Treatment Plant on Cozy Acres Road.
In May, the board awarded a $9,235,000 contract to Kajacs Contractors Inc. of Little Rock for the 4.5-mile lower segment tying into the treatment plant that the city will build on Little Mazarn Road. The city told the board that the lower segment will start near North and South Moore roads and Airport Road. It will go south down Pittman Road, around the Deer Creek Subdivision and across Marion Anderson Road before boring under Little Mazarn Creek and turning east toward the new plant site.
The $10.46 million contract awarded Tuesday starts west of upper Lake Hamilton, on the west side of where the city will have to bore under the lake. The city said the boring will be close to where Entergy Arkansas' overheard transmission lines and the crude oil Permian Express Pipeline cross the lake. The 5.6-mile segment will cross Albert Pike Road and stop at the Mazarn Creek boring at Timberlake Drive.
The contract taking the line from the Ouachita Treatment Plant, which treats water from the city's intake on upper Lake Hamilton, to the east side of the Lake Hamilton boring has yet to be awarded. Also outstanding is the contract for the segment from the Mazarn Creek boring to the intersection of North and South Moore roads and Airport Road.
The city has projected its more than 20 million gallon a day Lake Ouachita allocation will be online by 2023. The $109 million bond issue that the city board authorized in June 2020 is paying for the more than $100 million water supply project. Revenue from the new rate structure the board approved in late 2017 will pay down the debt over a 30-year period.
Piller said the first segment of the 13-mile finished waterline is nearing completion. The board awarded Kajacs a $4,431,775 contract in August to build the 2.5-mile piece connecting the new plant on Little Mazarn Road to the 12-inch main on Arkansas 7 South.