Officials: Water to play key role in area's future

Millwood Dam is seen near Ashdown, Ark.
Millwood Dam is seen near Ashdown, Ark.

TEXARKANA - Water is essential to life and to growth, both in nature and economy. Texarkana's leaders say the area's abundance of the life-giving resource will launch progress during the next 20 years and beyond.  Wright Patman and Millwood Lakes serve the water needs for both sides of the line, and in Texas, areas west and south of Texarkana. The water is drawn from both reservoirs, blended and distributed to both cities by Texarkana Water Utilities.

The city of Texarkana, Texas, is the senior water rights holder in Wright Patman, which was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s for flood control. Those rights are given through 1953 and 1969 contracts with the corps. The lake is currently operated under the Interim Rule Curve of 220 feet, but the 1969 contract also allows for rights up to 228.64 feet, called the Ultimate Rule Curve. That's the maximum water level allowed under that contract.

Riverbend Water Resources District, acting on behalf of the city, is working to implement the URC to provide additional water for the area's increasing demands.

RWRD provides waterand waste water services to the Red River Army Depot and the TexAmericas Center and formally represents the counties of Bowie, Cass and Red River, as well as TexAmericas Center and the cities ofAnnona, Atlanta, Avery, DeKalb, Hooks, Leary, Maud, Nash, New Boston, Redwater, Texarkana, Texas and Wake Village.

The city of Texarkana, Ark. has water rights in Millwood, which was built by the corps in the 1960s. The rights for 144.8 million gallons per day or 162,200 acre-feet per year, are through a contract with the Southwest Arkansas Water District, which also provides water to Domtar, Hope and areas of Little River County. While Ashdown does have water rights in the reservoir, they currently depend on well water.

 

 

New Boston Road Water Treatment Plant

The New Boston Road water treatment plant currently draws water from Wright Patman, then treats and distributes the water. It was constructed in 1957 and expanded in 1971 and treats 18 million gallons of water per day.

It will be decommissioned in the next few years, as Riverbend is working on funding and preliminary design of a $200 million infrastructure project for a new plant to be located at TexAmericas Center, a new raw water line to the center and a new intake on Wright Patman.

On Nov. 22, Riverbend's Board of Directors approved Pape-Dawson Engineers to be the project manager for the new water intake on Wright Patman Lake, along with a new raw water line and water treatment plant to be located at TexAmericas Center.

Riverbend applied to the Texas Drinking Water State Revolving Fund for bonds to pay for the projects. The bonds will be paid for with an increase in water rates, which began Oct. 1. Customers are now paying $1.50 per 1,000 gallons of water and that rate will increase to $2.50 after three years. Right now for an average customer that uses 5,000 gallons per month, the is equal to a monthly increase of about $7.

 

 

Millwood Water Treatment Plant

The Millwood water treatment plant was built in 1935 and produces 15 million gallons daily (MGD), with the capacity to operate at 45 MGD with future expansion. Water is pumped from the plant, located close to Ashdown, across the Red River to Texarkana, through a 42" water pipe designed to carry 45 MGD.

 

 

How people will get their water in the next 20 years

Texarkana, Ark.

TWU Executive Director J.D. Phillips said in 20 years, area residents will still be getting their water from both reservoirs.

"The city of Texarkana, Texas, will be buying water from Riverbend in 20 years," he said. That will happen once the new water treatment plant comes online. TWU will remain and provide maintenance and billing services to Texarkana residents.

"The Millwood plant will still be meeting the needs of both Texarkana and mainly Texarkana, Ark.," Phillips said.

Millwood providing water solely for the Arkansas side is included in the Regional Water Master Plan released by Riverbend in 2017. It outlines the city's need for additional water for upcoming growth and industry. It also showed the need for the new plant at TexAmericas and for Millwood to meet only Texarkana, Ark. customers' water needs.

"If any big industry comes in that needs raw water or treated water, Texarkana, Ark. is in really good shape," he said. While Millwood is currently operating at 15 MGD, there are ways to get more flow out of the plant due to modern technology, he added.

"It was built 35 years ago, so the treatment technologies have advanced, so maybe we can get some more capacity, which that would be fantastic," he said. "There are some wholesale customers that are developing in Arkansas that could potentially buy water from Texarkana, Ark., and that would be great."

 

 

Texarkana, Texas

Riverbend Executive Director/CEO Kyle Dooley said the new infrastructure will set the area up for significant growth and serve their member entities.

"If we're looking at 20 years down the road, hopefully, we've been able to build the new infrastructure that we need to serve our members with the new water treatment facility, the transmission line and the intake, but then it's going to go beyond that," he said. "In the Regional Master Plan, for some of the other things, hopefully expansion, we will be needing to serve more businesses. As we're growing in population, we will need more water so we're going to continue to use that regional water master plan to both expand our facilities and probably add new into the future."

The new plant will be built to operate at 25 MGD initially and will have the capability of being mirrored for an additional 25 MGD to accommodate future growth.

"Our intent is to scale it front end so it is multipliable based on the need that surfaces in reference to treated water that we have the capability to expand that plant," Dooley said.

Initially, that growth is expected to be at the TexAmericas Center. Riverbend acquired the wet utilities to TexAmericas Center and the Red River Army Depot in 2016 and has a revised contractual obligation to provide them with no less than 30 million gallons of raw water by May 1, 2026.

They must also eventually provide an additional 60 MGD for a total of 90 MGD. That includes both raw and treated water, which both the water treatment plant and raw water line will provide.

Riverbend Director Fred Milton, who represents New Boston and previously served as president of the board, said ensuring the TexAmericas and RRAD footprint was supplied with enough water is essential for the region's growth.

"We are going to continue to make sure that we are appropriately represented in the region and our state plans from a perspective of our water strategies as well as our defined needs as far as economic development and sustainment of our military complex here," he said. "We want to make sure those plans are representative of our true needs and our Regional Water Master Plan did that initially."

Riverbend President Sonja Hubbard represents the city of Texarkana, Texas, and has been on the board since April 2018. She said they are doing the same their Texarkana's forefathers did in the mid-19th Century to plan for the region's growth.

"We are planning today for things people don't even have to think about in the future," said Hubbard, who also serves as chairman of AR-TX Regional Economic Development Inc., a nonprofit group working to bring economic development to the Twin Cities. "We will lay the structure to where we can add on and we can grow and people go to the faucet and turn on the tap and quality water come out, which is what you expect. Without planning it couldn't get there. It's a huge financial investment, but it's important."

Milton agreed that they are working to consider all aspects, known and unknown, of the region's possible growth.

"If we start to grow and how rapid that growth surfaces, how quick that takes place, will certainly drive our efforts as a regional planner to make sure we get ahead of that curve this time and not be behind it like we have in the past," he said. "We need to make sure our planning efforts match up with the footprint of the growth. That's a very tough thing to do, to plan that growth when we haven't seen it. We've seen it in certain sectors of our communities, but we now have the plan for that increase in the growth."

 

 

Transition

When the new water treatment plant comes online in the next five years or so, what will that look like for Texarkana residents?

Phillips said people won't notice a difference in their service, only in the quality of the water coming out of their faucets.

"The customers, they really won't notice a change," he said. "I think it's going to be a seamless transition. Literally, we'll be running the Wright Patman plant one day and then simply switch over to the new one and the water will run east instead of west. I don't foresee a problem."

The Regional Water Master Plan can be viewed on Riverbend's website, www.rwrd.org.

Upcoming Events