RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. — City Corporation is again exploring construction of a reservoir on the North Fork of Illinois Bayou, a project estimated to cost between $100 million and $150 million that the organization says could help secure drinking water for Russellville and surrounding communities.
The proposal, outlined by City Corporation CEO Steve Mallett during Thursday’s Russellville City Council meeting, revisits a project first pursued more than three decades ago. That earlier effort was eventually abandoned, and the U.S. Forest Service subsequently recommended the North Fork for federal scenic river protection, creating a potential obstacle to construction.
Mallett said the ongoing drought and increasingly serious water shortages in neighboring Conway and Morrilton have raised questions about the long-term reliability of Russellville’s own water supply.
While Russellville’s Huckleberry Creek Reservoir remains in substantially better condition, Mallett said it is currently about five feet below its normal full level.
He explained that City Corporation’s existing pipeline from Huckleberry Creek Reservoir can deliver 40 million gallons of water per day, nearly four times the system’s maximum daily demand of 10.8 million gallons this year.
But that capacity is only useful if sufficient water remains in the reservoir.
“The fallacy in that is that assumes we have water in the Huckleberry Reservoir to deliver to our plant,” Mallett said.
He pointed to the drought of 2012, when Huckleberry Creek Reservoir dropped 17.3 feet before heavy rainfall in January 2013 replenished its supply. Although the decline represented only a portion of the reservoir’s overall depth, Mallett estimated it accounted for more than half of its available water.
That experience prompted City Corporation to change how it manages the reservoir. Rather than depending primarily on rainfall and periodically pumping supplemental water, the utility now pumps from Illinois Bayou whenever conditions allow.
“Anytime there’s water in the Bayou, we’re pumping into the lake,” Mallett said. “But if there’s no water in the Bayou, we can’t pump.”
That limitation is driving renewed interest in the North Fork.
“We’re looking at a new reservoir above the Huckleberry Reservoir on the North Fork of the Illinois Bayou, and that would be able to recharge the Bayou,” Mallett told council members.
Under the concept he described, the new upstream reservoir would help maintain water in Illinois Bayou, allowing City Corporation to continue replenishing Huckleberry Creek Reservoir and drawing water through its existing infrastructure.
Mallett estimated that constructing a pipeline directly from the proposed North Fork reservoir to the treatment plant could cost around $300 million, making the approach of supplementing the bayou considerably less expensive.
“We’re just looking to keep the Bayou full, because as I mentioned, if there’s water in the Bayou, we can keep the Huckleberry full,” he said.
City Corporation also maintains an intake on Illinois Bayou at its treatment plant, providing another potential source of water.
Mallett said the additional reservoir could substantially increase the region’s available water supply and provide long-term security not only for Russellville, but also Dover and Tri-County Water users.
“Any talk about needing additional water for generations to come probably wouldn’t be an issue,” he said.
This is not the first time City Corporation has considered damming the North Fork.
In 1989, the utility pursued federal authorization to construct a municipal water-supply reservoir and dam on the North Fork of Illinois Bayou. The proposal involved approximately 1,400 acres of Ozark National Forest land.
The U.S. Forest Service announced plans to prepare an environmental impact statement to examine the project, including alternative water sources and potential impacts.
The original federal review considered other reservoir locations and water-supply options, including Huckleberry Creek, Lake Nimrod, Blue Mountain Lake and locations associated with Lake Dardanelle.
However, City Corporation withdrew its request for authorization, and the Forest Service formally canceled the environmental review in March 1992.
City Corporation subsequently developed Huckleberry Creek Reservoir, which Mallett said was placed into service in 1997 and financed through Russellville’s first sales tax.
One significant difference between the original North Fork proposal and today’s renewed consideration is the federal management plan governing the river corridor.
On September 23, 2005, the U.S. Forest Service adopted a revised management plan for the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests that recommended 22.6 miles of the North Fork of Illinois Bayou for inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
The recommendation covered a quarter-mile-wide management corridor encompassing approximately 6,219 acres of National Forest land.
The Forest Service’s decision was directly tied to the abandonment of Russellville’s earlier reservoir proposal.
In the 2005 Record of Decision, Regional Forester Charles L. Myers explained that the entire 22.6-mile stretch was now suitable for scenic river recommendation because it was no longer being considered as a water source for Russellville.
Although Congress has not formally designated the North Fork as a Wild and Scenic River, the Forest Service adopted management restrictions intended to preserve its free-flowing character and environmental qualities.
The plan prohibits management activities that would compromise those values and specifically restricts permits for activities on National Forest land that conflict with management goals for the river corridor.
Damming the North Fork to create a reservoir could directly conflict with those protections, particularly if the project would inundate land within the federally managed corridor.
The North Fork also carries an Extraordinary Resource Water designation under Arkansas water-quality regulations, providing a separate layer of protection.
Arkansas law generally prohibits significant physical alterations of habitat within designated Extraordinary Resource Waters.
The state does provide a process for removing that designation to accommodate a domestic water-supply reservoir, but the requirements are specific.
Under Arkansas Rule 2, now codified as 8 CAR § 21-310, the applicant must demonstrate that the reservoir is being funded and constructed solely to provide domestic water and that no feasible alternative exists to meet the drinking-water needs of Arkansas residents.
The rule allows incidental uses consistent with domestic water supply, meaning recreational fishing would not necessarily be prohibited. However, recreation or economic development could not independently justify removing the waterway’s protected designation.
The application process also requires extensive documentation of environmental impacts, engineering alternatives, costs and effects on downstream water quality, habitat and surrounding communities.
The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission would ultimately have to determine whether the protections could legally be removed.
In addition to the state review, the project could require federal authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest Service, depending on its location and impacts.
Mallett did not provide a precise proposed dam location or reservoir boundary during Thursday’s presentation, leaving the extent of any overlap with federally protected land undetermined.
For now, the proposal remains in the exploratory stage. But it revives a decades-old debate over how to balance Russellville’s future water needs with the protections established for one of Pope County’s most distinctive waterways.
