Arkansas Blog

Again, you trot out this deception. "Clean water" is a bogeyman.

The fact remains, uncontested, that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS (at least) of Arkansans SAFELY drink water from very heavily developed lakes on a daily basis and have for decades. I drink water in Hot Springs every time I'm there. I've never gotten sick and don't know anyone who has. It ought to be easy for you to pile up documented news stories of people getting sick from drinking the water, if it was happening. Feel free to tell us about it.

Otherwise, this is a just an attempt to control what people do with their land.

If anony was a real person instead of a stooge hired by the developers, I'm sure that anony would like to keep the cost of water as low as possible and would know his facts. The cost of cleaning the water before it comes out of our home faucets is increasing around the country, due to the increased pollution of the water sources. More and more wells are failing to meet safety standards and, despite the gas company's full page ads, the water pollution problems are going to multiply.

As for development, think of the range of chemicals we use in our homes and yards. Public areas, such as roads, parks, golf courses also use chemicals that run off into our water supply. And as development increases, more water runs directly into the lakes and streams without the natural filtration of the surrounding land. Construction disturbs subsurface chemicals like mercury that otherwise would have leached into the lakes at a tiny relatively safe rate.

A municipal water system uses a variety of methods to clean water for home use - filtration, sedimentation, biological, and chemical. As the range of contaminants increases, the methods to clean them out have to keep pace. Already, prescription drugs and other chemicals have been found in water systems. As the concentration and types of pollution grow, the costs of cleaning the water will grow and the measures have to become more extreme. Anybody who has traveled to large cities will tell you about the high level of chlorine in drinking water. With increased development comes more demand for water and more opportunities for a contaminant to slip through the system.

If a clean water supply was not important to providing safe drinking water, we would be pumping water from the base of Little Rock's Main Street bridge. If anony believes that the city of Hot Springs pumps water directly from Lake Hamilton to his faucet, he is welcome to go down to the lakeside and drink his fill from the shore. Hot Springs treats its water:
http://www.ci.hot-springs.ar.us/dept-utilities.html

It's a lot cheaper in the long run to keep pollution out of the water rather than taking it out after it's in. I would think a conservative would applaud saving the tax payer money through sound financial management.

Someone's free use of their property stops when it damages me. If the property owners wish to reimburse citizens for the added expense of water treatment, that would be just.

And the amount of land speculation in the watershed is nothing but extortion. Developers bought property with the full knowledge that it might be condemned, gambling that they'd be bought out at a great rate of return. Why should they be allowed a deliberate windfall for taking a position against the public interest?

Jim Lendall and The Levee are correct on all counts. Stay on Doug Reed's case, Max.

Anonymous need never go thirsty. Wherever anon finds him/herself, he/she can just drink whatever is available: swamp water, salt water, waste water. Who cares, right? Anon- take the test and let us know how it turns out. Or rather have your next of kin let us know. Bottoms up!

Now, to the rest of you who are more serious about the issue of clean, safe drinking water at an affordable price.

The Lake Maumelle watershed is currently about 90% forested. That's been our saving grace during the first 50 years since the lake was built by Little Rock as, yes, a drinking water supply. Central Arkansas Water (CAW) owns some of the watershed as does the U.S. Forest Service. The CAW-owned, forested land will always be managed with protection of the lake being the top priority. The Forest Service follows Best Management Practices, and as a federal agency manages its forest lands in a way that minimizes adding pollutants to the primary drinking water supply for almost 400,000 central Arkansans.

That leaves us with the privately owned land in the watershed. How do we respect the private property rights of those landowners, large and small, while protecting the lake's water quality for generations to come? Part of the answer to that question lies in the lifestyle that many of those particularly small landowners who actually live in the watershed currently enjoy. They moved to that area because they value the rural lifestyle. And, by and large, most of those small landowners have been good stewards of the watershed even though they don't get to drink the water that comes from the lake.

The science-based, comprehensive Lake Maumelle Watershed Management Plan (the "Plan") measured the amount of various pollutants like phosphorous, total organic carbon, etc. going into the lake today. Then various restrictions on the number of lots and houses on privately owned land in the watershed were tested to see how assorted combinations would limit the number of houses that could be built in the watershed, and thus the increased amounts of those same pollutants that would enter the lake in coming years.

Everyone who drinks CAW water needs to understand- the Plan would allow limited development and by design would lower the current water quality in Lake Maumelle, but would still maintain a high quality drinking water supply at an affordable cost. I said 'would' three times, because for now it is just a Plan without the regulations in place to implement the Plan's interconnected elements. And certain folks are working hard to make sure some parts of the Plan are never put into place.

So, how do we go about protecting lake Maumelle? There are several options available- the best one is to keep pollutants (herbicides, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, etc.) from entering the lake in the first place. The more houses built in the watershed, the more people and dogs and other animals will live there, and the more runoff and pollutants will enter Lake Maumelle. That's a fact that no amount of spin will change. The Plan limits the number of new houses by setting minimum lot sizes, requiring a fixed percentage of undisturbed area and having a maximum percentage of impervious areas (for example, driveways, rooftops, etc.). The Plan is science-based, which means the impact of all these requirements has been calculated so that at build out (no undeveloped lots left), whenever that occurs, Lake Maumelle would still provide the high quality water we have all come to expect.

The Plan compensates small landowners who have owned land in the watershed for a number of years by granting them exemptions so they can develop up to five 3-acre lots from their land without having to comply with the plan. CAW was required to buy 1.500 acres in the watershed to balance out the exemptions granted to existing small landowners.

And keep in mind that nobody has to do anything different from what they are doing now unless they want to develop their land. That's true for small or large landowners.

Another option is to try and treat whatever gets into the lake before it comes out of your tap. That is a much less desirable option for several reasons. In my mind the most important objection to increased treatment is that the chemicals and other means used to treat water can in and of themselves produce carcinogenic (yes, cancer causing) byproducts. On top of that is the higher cost of trying to take something out of the water rather than keeping it from getting into the water in the first place. And, finally, some things cannot be treated. CAW has now started testing for pharmaceuticals using certain predictors like caffein. I wonder if anon drinks the water, but if he/she does would anon mind a cocktail of assorted drugs- yes, at low levels, but with totally unpredictable results on anon's health or the health of any one of us (particularly children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems). When I drink a glass of water from Lake Maumelle, I don't want to play Russian roulette with my health. Anon may feel differently and have nothing to lose.

Now to Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines comparison of the Plan and the proposed county subdivision ordinances. The Plan was an 18-month process, that cost in excess of $1.2 million to finally create a fair compromise that was agreed to by consensus by over 20 'stakeholders' including large and small landowners, environmental groups, ratepayer representatives, government bodies, etc. As a compromise nobody got everything they wanted, but all these community-based groups agreed they could live with the elements of the Plan. Now the large developers are working behind the scenes to get Pulaski Co. government to get some of what they failed to get during development of the Plan. So if the compromise in the Plan gave 50% to each side, and if now the large developers can get another 50% off the compromise, the drinking water public gets stuck with 25% of what it wanted and the large landowners get the other 75%.

Judge Villines may tell you the county subdivision ordinances will achieve more than that, but neither he nor the county have done the science or spent the money to prove it. So far it's been just magic and mirrors. If Villines tells you what percentage of the Plan the county ordinances will achieve, that's his opinion not based in any scientific analysis.

Villines is running for reelection this November as are a number of Pulaski County Justices of the Peace. If you drink the water and think it's worth protecting, you'd better hustle to let these folks know you care or your views won't matter. You can e-mail Villines at:

cojudge@co.pulaski.ar.us

The Watershed Management Plan is posted on the CAW web site (http://www.carkw.com/) if you care to read it, and the 6-page Executive Summary (pages ES-1 through ES-6) in the front of the Plan will bring you up to speed on the reasons the Plan was developed and what became part of it.

Do you really care Little Rock, North Little Rock and all the other towns that buy water from CAW?

"If anony was a real person instead of a stooge hired by the developers, I'm sure that anony would like to keep the cost of water as low as possible and would know his facts. The cost of cleaning the water before it comes out of our home faucets is increasing around the country, due to the increased pollution of the water sources. More and more wells are failing to meet safety standards and, despite the gas company's full page ads, the water pollution problems are going to multiply."

Jim, I wish I was being paid by the developers. The truth is, I don't have to be paid by them to know the truth. The water bills of people in Little Rock and Hot Springs are not significantly different. I'd bet that the rates are higher in Little Rock. Either way, this is not a "clean water" issue, as you've just proven. Now, you're changing the subject to make it a cost issue. Feel free to prove that water rates are significantly higher in Hot Springs or any other town where the residents drink from heavily developed lakes. I bet you can't.

"It's a lot cheaper in the long run to keep pollution out of the water rather than taking it out after it's in. I would think a conservative would applaud saving the tax payer money through sound financial management."

That last sentence shows how little you understand conservatism. First of all, people who buy waters are paying rates, not taxes. Second, it's not conservative to assault private property rights.

As I said, the notion that drinking water will be negatively affected is absolutely false. HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been drinking water from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES, at similar water rates to Little Rock. These are pretty simple facts. Feel free to disprove them.

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Do I hear crickets chirping?

Anony, Drinking water from municipal utilities undergoes very frequent, if not constant, testing and the utilities adjust their operations accordingly. Therefore, it has been safe for you to use that water. Even so, there are many "boil orders" issued every year. The deleterious effects of some of the contaminants that do get through the systems may not be evident for many years. This may account for your current state of mind.

Comparing the water utility rates in Hot Springs and Little Rock are very difficult because of many factors: among others, age of the infrastructure, distance of transmission, sources of revenue, whether developers pay impact fees, and type of treatment. Simple common sense, though, will tell you that the more contaminated a water source is, the more treatment is necessary and is, therefore, more costly.

For years, industries fought regulations that sought to reduce emissions of air pollutants, using your argument that it was an assault on private property rights and that business should not be required to prevent pollution of the air. Business, in this case developers and speculative landowners, want their profit while they leave the public to foot the bill to protect their own lives.

I realize that nothing waterboy, the Levee, or I have said will cause you to look beyond avaricious profit and think about the health of people today and their children.

Where do I begin? There is so much truth that has been unsaid by Judge Villines in his "comparison."

Let me begin with his opening statement. "The Ordinance requires the County, at the expense of Central Arkansas Water, to develop a 'Site Evaluation Tool,' and, when that is done, all concerns should be addressed."

The "Site Evaluation Tool" clearly will not address all of my concerns or those of anyone who has a desire to maintain a balance between personal property rights and the water quality of Lake Maumelle.

I want to give the Site Evaluation Tool a more accurate name - "Let the Fox Guard the Hen House" - for short let us call it FOX. Engineers refer to it as S.E.T.

The S.E.T. (FOX) is a computer spread sheet filled with formulas that evaluate the many design variables proposed for a development. It is intended to project the impact of the development on the water quality. The concept of a S.E.T. (FOX) is not bad. It is the many, many opportunities it provides for manipulation that are such a problem. For example:
. Whose engineering firm will develop the spread sheet?
. Whose engineer will be responsible for placing the input into the spreadsheet and reading the results?
. Will there be "boots on the ground" with training and knowledge to assure that the final standards established by S.E.T. (FOX) for a particular development are actually being followed?
. Who is going to sign the paychecks of the boots?
. Can small landowners who want to develop afford to use the S.E.T. (FOX), or is this just something for the big boys?

The S.E.T. can be a good tool but it should be viewed as only one of the many tools needed for the complicated job of protecting "the balance" (property rights/water quality).

There are so many more untruths that have been unsaid in Judge Villines' "comparison." If it be the will of the readers and the webmaster, I would like to post a new "unsaid truth" each day for the next few days.

After all, it is only the future of this community's drinking water that is at stake.

"Anony, Drinking water from municipal utilities undergoes very frequent, if not constant, testing and the utilities adjust their operations accordingly. Therefore, it has been safe for you to use that water. Even so, there are many "boil orders" issued every year. The deleterious effects of some of the contaminants that do get through the systems may not be evident for many years. This may account for your current state of mind."

Jim, I am truly honored that you have seen fit to condescend from the halls of the proletariat. You're right that there are boil orders from time to time. I see them often when visiting family who live in the Lake Maumelle watershed. According to your logic, I shouldn't see any there, I guess.

As for the deleterious effects of the water taking years to show show me. Prove it, with something other than anecdotal evidence. Show me newspaper articles from Arkansas. The Sentinel Record and DemGaz should be rife with them. It ought to be easy to prove.

I love that you had to insult me, though. Brilliant. I'm obviously an idiot if I don't agree with you. You mentioned that common sense demands that it be more expensive to filter water that is more polluted. I don't know if you were aware of this, but CAW still filters the water from Lake Maumelle, which TetraTech's report showed has no appreciable pollutants. I'd also like to introduce you to an amazing invention called a Brita water filter. Did you know that it will filter pure water and water with some pollutants for the same cost? Only under extraordinary circumstances do our water utilities have to do some sort of extra work to filter the water because the systems are basically the same whether the water is pure as the wind driven snow or filthy like that in Lake Hamilton.

"For years, industries fought regulations that sought to reduce emissions of air pollutants, using your argument that it was an assault on private property rights and that business should not be required to prevent pollution of the air. Business, in this case developers and speculative landowners, want their profit while they leave the public to foot the bill to protect their own lives."

That might be compelling if there was some sort of air utility that purified our air. Otherwise, it's not really comparable. The fact remains that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been drinking safely from HEAVILY developed lakes for DECADES at comparable rates to people drinking from Lake Maumelle. Insult me, bring up clean air, insinuate that people get sick after years of consumption, but that fact still remains. It ought to be easy for you to demonstrate a significant price difference or that people get sick. All you and your comrades have done is make insinuations and offered NO evidence. I understand. There isn't any. This is absolutely based in the liberal desire to control people and prevent "avaricious" profits from evil speculators, like family I have and their neighbors who have lived there for decades.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I bet you think we should prevent "urban sprawl" in favor of dense urban cores with mass transit replacing everybody driving an suv. That's a big part of what this is about. You just happen to have a water supply to "protect", too. This is the same driving force behind efforts to alleviate traffic jams at the 430/630 intersection. That's usually called "white flight", which is a neat little turn of a phrase which further demonstrates your moral superiority over conservatives who choose to live in safe neighborhoods that are affordable and have good school districts. But you know that it's really just inherent racism and they/we should be forced to live in the urban center. Besides greedy developers are destroying the sylvan majesty of western Pulaski county and Saline county.

To sum it all up. Don't bother typing another word if you won't provide proof that a) rates are significantly different from one area to the next, as I've mentioned several times, b) people are getting sick, even over a long period of time. That second one is a smokescreen. You're just making things up or repeating things you'd like to be true. If it was true, the people I know who've lived in Hot Springs for decades would be ailing right now and you'd have piles of newspaper articles to point to. You really ought to be embarrassed.

Again, not one of you has offered any evidence that the hundreds of thousands of people who have been drinking water from heavily developed lakes are a) sick or b) paying significantly higher rates.

Anon: Try taking a daily bath and drinking your h20 straight out of Lake Catherine. You need to get your facts straight.

"You're right that there are boil orders from time to time. I see them often when visiting family who live in the Lake Maumelle watershed." Anon

Well, I find that very interesting, anon. You see, Central Arkansas Water doesn't currently provide drinking water to customers living in the Lake Maumelle watershed. In fact, that has been a point of contention in this whole debate about protecting Lake Maumelle. So if your family "who live in the Lake Maumelle watershed" have received boil orders, they would either be boiling well water or water purchased from other water suppliers that is definitely not coming out of Lake Maumelle. I'm sorry if the truth is so inconvenient.

The fact that you say you have family living in the watershed offers a glimpse into your thinking. Some small landowners in the watershed don't like the fact that things are changing in that area. That's understandable, but that's the reality, and that change will either come in the form of large developments that would rapidly impact your family's adjacent land or in the form envisioned in the Watershed Management Plan (the "Plan").

One example is the Plan sets minimum lot sizes of 5-acres on low sloped land (0-15% grade) and 10-acres on high sloped land (15-25% grade). Pulaski Co. Judge Buddy Villines doesn't like that element of the Plan because he "won't do zoning". That's a political consideration on his part, and he won't change his mind unless enough CAW customers contact him and politically force him to change his mind. He is running for reelection this fall, so you can threaten to vote for one of his opponents.

Villines wants to use an engineering tool, Site Evaluation Tool or S.E.T., that can be easily manipulated by developers who don't give a tinker's damn about your family's rights or how much it costs to treat the water coming out of Lake Maumelle. After all, the developers aren't paying for the increased treatment costs. It's all about money with them, water drinkers be damned.

Everybody living in the watershed knows what 5-acres or 10-acres means, but the S.E.T. will require folks to hire engineers and other professionals at much higher costs if they want to develop their land.

Keep in mind, under the Watershed Management Plan nothing changes for folks living in the watershed unless they want to develop their land. Under the Plan they could add on to their existing house, subdivide their property into five 3-acre tracts (depending on the amount of land they own, of course) and sell or develop those 5 lots without having to get anybody's permission.

Anon, it's all in the Plan if you care to read it and speak from a basis of knowledge rather than rumor.

Get what facts straight? I don't know if you have a map, but Catherine gets its water from Hamilton and they don't filter it before it gets to Catherine.

I don't take baths or drink directly from lakes, by the way. Maybe it's a hippie thing.

Get your facts straight. No one has answered the very simple facts that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been safely drinking from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES.

"Well, I find that very interesting, anon. You see, Central Arkansas Water doesn't currently provide drinking water to customers living in the Lake Maumelle watershed. In fact, that has been a point of contention in this whole debate about protecting Lake Maumelle. So if your family "who live in the Lake Maumelle watershed" have received boil orders, they would either be boiling well water or water purchased from other water suppliers that is definitely not coming out of Lake Maumelle. I'm sorry if the truth is so inconvenient."

I believe that's called jumping the gun, waterboy. I never said that they receive their water from CAW. It's not inconvenient. The non-well water comes from Fourche La Fave, I think. It feeds Maumelle, by the way and neither are known to be polluted. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. You missed the point completely. The point was that Jim mentioning boil orders was completely irrelevant because people who get water from "clean lakes" get boil orders, too. By the way, I've never seen a boil order in Hot Springs and there's been a lot of rain there lately. That may not mean anything, but it further illustrates the absolute irrelevance.

"The fact that you say you have family living in the watershed offers a glimpse into your thinking. Some small landowners in the watershed don't like the fact that things are changing in that area. That's understandable, but that's the reality, and that change will either come in the form of large developments that would rapidly impact your family's adjacent land or in the form envisioned in the Watershed Management Plan (the "Plan")."

My family and most of the people they know aren't upset about development. They're upset that their land value is going to be hurt because of the near prohibition on development. People who aren't accountable to them are telling them what they can and can't do with their land.

I've read the plans. Thanks for the lesson, professor.

"Villines wants to use an engineering tool, Site Evaluation Tool or S.E.T., that can be easily manipulated by developers who don't give a tinker's damn about your family's rights or how much it costs to treat the water coming out of Lake Maumelle. After all, the developers aren't paying for the increased treatment costs. It's all about money with them, water drinkers be damned."

I oppose the use of complicated formulas, but developers aren't violating my families rights. They're increasing the property value. Did it ever occur to you that land owners might want to have their land developed or sell it?

Now that it's been established that this "clean water" garbage is a farce, it gets back to liberals who want to control what others can do with their property.

One more time: HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been safely drinking from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES.

Aony,
You repeatedly say: "HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been safely drinking from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES."

It is because the water systems these people use do frequent testing of the water and upgrading of the facilities so that those people don't get sick. Responsible water systems do not wait for people to get sick before they act.

If all we needed was a Brita filter attached to our faucets, we could do away with any municipal water treatment. You seem to be unaware that cleaning water for potable use involves more than simply filtering the incoming water.

It is obvious that my spending hours calculating the cost increases involved with cleaning water that is more polluted will still not convince you. But, just pretend that all that is involved is filtering. How often do you have to change your Brita filter when the water coming to your faucet is dirty compared to when the incoming water is relatively clean?

The long-term effects of pollutants in water have been definitively proven and documented among people, unfortunately, in countries where they are not as lucky as we are to have the water systems that we have.

Logic and science will not sway you -there's nothing else to say.

""HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been safely drinking from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES."

Name the lakes and communities.

Jim, if you had offered any logic or science we might have something. It wouldn't be very difficult to show that rates are higher in areas with more developed water sources.

Sooooo, your example to demonstrate people getting sick from water is from other countries and undocumented? Well, I'll buy that water in other countries may not all be potable, but you're also dealing with sewage systems that consist of a pipe running into a river or lake. That's hardly comparable.

Either way, you've more or less admitted that this isn't a "clean water" issue because of your attempt to change the argument to a matter of cost to ratepayers. Again, though, it wouldn't be difficult to show a significant difference in water rates. Amazingly, you are offering me foreign countries as your nebulous proof and dancing around some pretty simple facts. You might as well insult me again.

By the way, I understand that there is more to water treatment than filtration. I also know that you have yet to demonstrate that there is a significant difference in rates between communities with and without heavily developed water supplies and you haven't shown any evidence of a problem with people getting sick.

Greers Ferry and Lake Hamilton are a few examples. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out. Got any other questions?

Yes.

What communities get their water from Greers Ferry Lake?

Heber Springs, for one.

I'm sorry. I was mistaken. It is perfectly consistent with the conservative point of view for government to subsidize business. Haiiburton and Exxon are great examples.

And I didn't realize that rate payers didn't pay taxes. My bad.

I, as a citizen, have an ownership interest in Lake Maumelle. You're asking to pollute my property to make money with yours.

An easy way to get at the incremental cost of cleaning up polluted water is to simply take the cost of the capital equipment required and spread it among the property owners in the water shed on a per-acre basis.

You're right. It's subsidizing business to let people use their property how they wish. How could I have missed that.

This is an absolute farce that it will cost ratepayers a significant amount of money to do what is already being done now.

"And I didn't realize that rate payers didn't pay taxes. My bad."

People who shop at Wal-Mart pay taxes too, but paying Wal-Mart for their product is not the same thing as paying taxes. Aside from the sales tax, the cost of toothpaste is not a tax, just as the cost of water is not a tax. You'd have figured that out if you weren't too busy scrambling desperately to avoid the very simple facts of this issue.

"An easy way to get at the incremental cost of cleaning up polluted water is to simply take the cost of the capital equipment required and spread it among the property owners in the water shed on a per-acre basis."

The capital equipment that you're talking about is already in place. This is a myth. This discussion has gone from a clean water issue to a cost issue, neither of which are valid. The burden is on you to prove that rates will go up appreciably if the lake is developed more. I have given several examples of heavily developed lakes that serve as water supplies. Feel free to show that rates are significantly higher for those municipalities.

I'm waiting.

Someone, please, anyone, prove me wrong. I'm begging you.

HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of Arkansans have been drinking safely from very heavily developed lakes for DECADES...and their water rates are not appreciably different from those of Little Rock or other municipalities with undeveloped water supplies. Disprove that, please. Go ahead.