Fort Smith city, board launch consent decree modification effort

On Tuesday (April 17), the Fort Smith Board of Directors unanimously approved a $300,000 contract with consulting firm Burns and McDonnell to pursue modification of the federal consent decree imposed on the city for decades of violations of the 1973 Clean Water Act. The board also approved $50 million in revenue bonds to pay for water and sewer system improvements.

Speaking to the necessity of the contract with Burns and McDonnell, Fort Smith City Administrator Carl Geffken explained that “When we have a consultant like Burns and McDonnell, what they bring to the table has worked on the engineering and financial capabilities for many other cities like Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas, and Springfield and Jackson, Mississippi.”

Geffken said it was Burns and McDonnell’s “financial capability” that allowed the city to point out the discrepancy between the relation of sewer rates as a percentage to median household income. “We would not have been able to adequately or correctly tell them (the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice) we’re already at 2.2% of median household income, and if we spend any more time on this, we’ll be up to 2.5%,” Geffken said.

Responding to a question from Director George Catsavis on the full scope of the modification, Geffken said the city will be asking “for more than just an extension of time” to pay for the improvements scheduled for completion by 2027. “It’s the general layout and form of the consent decree as well — the required work the current consent decree has us performing in an illogical and inefficient manner. That’s what needs to be changed as well.”

Expanding on that after Tuesday’s meeting, Geffken said the “illogical” comment relates to “the sequence of events.”

“The point is, you don’t want to waste money. You don’t want to say, ‘Do I need extra capacity when you haven’t had the chance to clean out all the pipes yet,” Geffken told Talk Business & Politics. “That’s what the consent decree does.”

As to whether immediate relief on current sewer rates — which have increased by around 160% in the last three years — Geffken said “the probability of that is very small.”

“We’re catching up for 30-plus years of lack of work, lack of maintenance, lack of everything. That’s why we’re in the consent decree. So the best we can do is to say it needs to make sense and it needs to be financially affordable to the residents of the city of Fort Smith, and that is the goal. We can’t get rid of the federal Clean Water Act. However, we now have the ability and the opportunity to bring our case to the EPA and DOJ and say, ‘This is not affordable in its current format. You’re asking us to do work in an inefficient progression, and it’s wasting scarce resources of our residents.’ And our median household income has been flat since 2015, since we entered into this, and it’s been flat since we entered into the negotiations.”

While the city would “love to say let’s have a reduction, and it’s not something that’s ruled out,” Geffken said, “what we need to focus on is what is possible and what is logical with this administration. And that is to amend the consent decree: additional time and a better focus on what is efficient and financially feasible.”

Also Tuesday, directors approved the issuance of an estimated $50 million in revenue bonds to help fund various water and sewer system improvements. Included in that, directors individually approved a $9.895 million contract with KAJACS Contractors, Inc. The Poplar Bluff, Mo.-based company beat out two local firms by $1.5 million in the competitive bidding process. The contract is for capacity improvements at Sub-Basins P002 and P003 near Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, and it will be funded through capital improvement funds in addition to the revenue bonds.