No water system serves households between Mountainburg and Cedarville, Ark., so residents bring it from wells or other sources. The city buys water from the Lake Fort Smith Water Treatment Plant.

In 2022, the city began a series of steps toward a major project, adding 68 miles of pipe to provide about 625 Crawford County households with potable water service.

According to Mayor Susan Wilson, the project began in 1980 when she was just 11 years old.

“They’ve been trying for years to get this done, but it required major funding, and we just didn’t have enough. For decades, many households were being forced to haul water to their homes. When I was elected in 2018, the minute I took office I was asked if I would take this on: I said, ‘No. Absolutely not.’”

There was solid reasoning behind her refusal.

“When I first took over the water department was not solvent, so I had to get it under control before I could do anything else. There just wasn’t money for anything more, but then came 2020 and we know what happened. Who would have expected that money would become available as a result?”

By then, the project mattered as much to Wilson as it did to many other residents.

“At one of the meetings, I was speaking and this lady, Denise, and her husband came up to talk to me. She couldn’t quit work, she said, because they had to pay to have a truck to haul their water supply. It took a big truck to do that. Her husband said he hoped he would live to see this project happen.” He did not.

Wilson choked up and continued. “Afterward, I would go to deliver a speech and take questions, and learn that people had high-speed internet but didn’t have potable water.” She began to put it as plainly as possible: “This is not asking for something frivolous. This is not about new clothes. This is not about new shoes. This is not a Louis Vuitton purchase. This is water. We stress that.”

The funding came from several different accounts.

“Crawford County’s Quorum Court and the state of Arkansas each provided $2.5 million. The rest came from loans and grants,” Wilson said.

So that the plan could begin, the aim was to get 400 signed water-use agreements, with a deposit of $100 each. These deposits would be included in the project’s total cost and would serve as the participants’ buy-in. Western Arkansas Planning and Development plotted a map for the city, clarifying the layout of the proposal and assisting the city as it worked toward getting those 400 signatures.

With the funding now available, the 400 figure wasn’t as crucial to get the green light, though Wilson said the project ended up with 357 signatures. For a town populated by 527 people, the turnout was impressive.

There were hoops to jump through. “The Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Commission awarded us a $50,000 grant. Part of the USDA funding application requires a study to be done, and the city couldn’t fund that, so they had to find me a grant. And they did,” Wilson explained.

This cultural study covered several concerns and issues. “There had to be an environmental review of the project area,” she said. “It was one of the requirements to apply for money through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program from the USDA.”

Also involved were the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, to be certain that historic artifacts and sites would not be disturbed or destroyed. Another part of the study made sure that any threatened or endangered species of wildlife would be protected, along with their habitats. “That was covered with part of the $50,000.”

Wes LeMonier, whom Wilson affectionately calls “my cousin Wes,” thought the study would take about two months to complete and have all interested parties review. According to Wilson, “It actually took a little less than two months, but by the time the report was all completed, it was right at two months.” LeMoiner is affiliated with the Van Buren firm Hawkins-Weir Engineers.

She would advise any city thinking of tackling such a project to have an engineering report done first.

“We are so lucky here because our guys are all local boys. They went to school together; they know each other and like working together. One of them grew up across the street, and they were heavily invested in this. Before the funding was even granted, they had already spent several hundred thousand dollars of their own money to get things going.”

That kind of emotional investment is as valuable as the money itself, she said, and was encouraging to everyone involved in the project.

The estimated total cost was $12.4 million. “But we aren’t to that part yet, because we have to get all the easements, then have them certified. There will also be plans and work with the architects,” Wilson said. “I can’t do all that just now; it has to happen in a certain order. But we are fully funded and expect to have all the easements by the end of summer. Then it goes to the Health Department for inspection, and so on down the line.”

Residents who didn’t sign an initial agreement for the $100 tap fee still had some time to do so, she noted in May. “They can still sign up for the $100 tap fee, but at some point, I will have to cut them off and then it will cost $2500 to tap in if they want water,” she said. At that point, the town of Mountainburg will have all the potable water residents want, right in their homes – by simply turning on the tap.

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