Addressing water leaks continues to be a struggle in Fort Smith

The City of Fort Smith repaired 182 leaks in the second quarter of the year, bringing the total number of leaks down to 426 throughout the city. However, that is up significantly from the 371 confirmed leaks the city had at the end of 2022.

Lance McAvoy, director of utilities, said that while his department is continuously working on water leaks throughout the city, more continue to be reported. McAvoy originally told the Fort Smith Board of Directors there were 193 total leaks repaired during the quarter, but corrected his math during the board’s study session held Tuesday (Aug. 8 ).

The city had 2,575 reported water leaks in 2022, 779 more leaks than the 1,796 in 2021.

City workers repaired 133 leaks April through June, 10 of which were emergency leaks, McAvoy told the board. The city also put in 98 new service meters during that time. All of this was completed with a 40% vacancy rate of “boots on the ground” in the department. City Administrator Carl Geffken said there are 22 vacancies listed on the city’s website for the utilities department.

Forsgren Inc. of Fort Smith, with whom the city has a contract to repair leaks in the city, repaired 49 leaks during the April through June period. They repaired 30 in June, 19 in May and zero in April, McAvoy said.

“Both April and May had very low repair rates from the contract. Forsgren has assured us that this will not happen again,” McAvoy said. “They had several contracts come in during this time, and they were dealing with the same staffing issues we have.”

The city has $768,690.52 left in its contract with Forsgren, which is estimated to be able to repair 173 more leaks. McAvoy said Forsgren should be able to complete 90 repairs in a quarter in the future, noting the max they can usually repair in a month is 30.

“In house we average 64 (repairs) a month. Forsgren because of April and May being so low, they averaged 16 a month,” McAvoy said.

He said challenges the department are facing include the loss of supervisors due to burnout. He said having people pass the Class 4 distribution/operator license has also been a challenge because those who are taking the class are not able to work on repairing leaks.

“And of course we still have aging infrastructure. One of the things we are going to be facing next that kind of ties into this is, of course, the revised lead and copper rule. We are going to have to do an inventory of all of our services from main to the meter, what it’s made out of, and then from the meter to the house, what that is made out of,” McAvoy said.

He said the department is going to have to research how they can do that without violating state trespass laws. The city has until Oct. 18, 2024, to submit that inventory. Then a schedule will be devised on how to replace those lines, McAvoy said.

“With the leaks that are going on, we are getting some good information. We are putting in new lines, but again it’s a new federal requirement,” he said.