Fort Smith city administrator offers few details on ‘almost two-hour’ DOJ, EPA call about consent decree

Fort Smith city administration and officials participated in an “almost two-hour conference call” with state and federal officials on Monday (June 25) to discuss possible modifications to the estimated $480 million consent decree, according to City Administrator Carl Geffken.

Geffken categorized the meeting – which included officials with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) – as a “success” in the sense it will lead to a follow-up, in-person meeting “sometime hopefully in the first two weeks of August.”

Geffken revealed limited details from the meeting to the city’s Board of Directors at a Tuesday (June 26) study session, stating “We did discuss the fact that we do want to amend the consent decree outside of the language that just allows us to add more time. And everything seemed to have been received — received, I don’t want to say warmly, but it was not rejected out-of-hand.”

Sensing a line of questioning from Ward 4 Director George Catsavis, Geffken said, “The most important thing that needs to be sent home is this does not mean, George, that our rates are going to go down because we have 30 years of zero or poor investment, and that we cannot undo.” Catsavis asked if that meant rates would continue to go up beyond the average 167% increase ratepayers have experienced since the consent decree took effect.

“That’s going to be one of our requests, that we lock in rates in a specific way so they don’t have to go up. That’s what we’re doing a lot of work toward,” Geffken said, adding had the city not gotten approval to move forward with modification requests, “the amount of money we would still need to expend, is a $400 million figure and would likely go higher. So what we’re doing now is reorienting that trajectory on spending, on rates.”

Geffken commended the EPA and DOJ representatives for being “always willing to listen” to the city’s requests and concerns.

“They asked us a few questions, but we had the information. It was the benefit of having very good staff, very good consultants, and also very good attorneys, and all three of those cogs came together.”

The city has spent around $100 million to satisfy the terms of the decree thus far, which doesn’t count monies the city spent toward correcting its wet weather sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) prior to entering into the agreement. According to Fort Smith Utilities Director Jerry Walters, the main issue that remains is dry weather SSOs, which the city is dealing with, in part, through its Fats, Oils & Grease (FOG) program, which went into effect in January 2017.

In November, the Board approved a five-year capital improvement plan for the city’s wastewater program that will budget $153.8 million in consent decree spending from 2018 through 2022, an average of $30.76 million per year. The consent decree mandates improvements to the city’s 500 miles of sewer lines and 23 pump stations. This does not count necessary non-consent decree improvements and maintenance, estimated at an additional $48 million over the coming five-year period.