Lake Fort Smith gets 10-year extension on meeting regional water needs

Preliminary estimates indicate the capacity of Lake Fort Smith will serve regional water needs to 2060 — a full decade longer than expected when the $200 million Lake Fort Smith expansion was approved in the late 1990s.

Based on water consumption rates of the past few years, Fort Smith Director of Utilities Steve Parke recently estimated the expanded lake will meet regional water needs “at least to 2060,” Ray Gosack, Fort Smith’s deputy city administrator, told The City Wire. The lake expansion, completed in late 2006, increased water storage from about 8.4 billion gallons to almost 28 billion gallons, according to city info.

A series of water rate increases began in 2002 to help fund the lake expansion and water and sewer system improvements have had the added effect of reducing water consumption far more than any city-mandated water conservation efforts, Gosack noted.

Water consumption for the first five months of 2009 reached 3.927 million CCF, down 4.2% from the same period in 2008 and down a surprising 3.8% from the same period in 2002. In May 2009, the city reported water consumption of 776,761 CCF, down 6% from May 2008 and down a surprising 18.5% from the May 2002 consumption rate.

Between 1997 and 2008, water production — similar to water consumption figures — increased in only five of the 12 years, and 2005 was the only year of increase since 2002, Gosack said. In fact, water production in 2008 was 9.3% less than in 1997.

Also, the peak production of 48.7 million gallons of water in a 24-hour cycle was reached in 2000. The peak number in 2008 was 37 million gallons, a 24% drop from the 2000 high.

Prior to rate increases that began in 2002, Fort Smith water users paid less than the cost to treat and deliver water. The water production system was subsidized by other city revenues. Aligning water rates with the cost of water service has had more to do with declines in usage than weather or economic conditions, Gosack asserted.

“The economy was strong between 2002 and 2007, so it can’t be an economic slowdown. … And we are seeing the same rate of declines in winter months as in the summer months, so you can’t explain it away by saying we had wet or dry summer months,” Gosack explained. “I think the real cause and effect here are the rate adjustments. … The cost of the water now more closely reflects the cost of actually providing the service. I think it’s safe to say the rates have had a conservation effect.”

Although Parke has conducted research for a preliminary estimate, city staff hopes to obtain board approval for a more comprehensive study of the future water supply capacity of Lake Fort Smith, Gosack said.

“The last projections are more than 10 years old now,” he said.