Effective Solutions in Disinfection & Communication

Keeping water clean and safe in its associated 55-mile-long pipeline was a significant challenge in designing the Freeman-Raney Water Treatment Plant. However, MWY’s staff created a solution that was simple, economical and effective – the use of ammonia to create chloramines as the residual disinfectant.

Consequently, the facility became the first treatment plant in Arkansas to use ammonia to disinfect potable water. The change reduced trihalomethane in the system, helping it to meet stringent federal requirements for disinfection by-products under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

The plant also was one of the first in the state to use radios for system telemetry. Our design takes advantage of the mountainous terrain between the plant and its farthest customer – the City of Harrison – by using UHF frequency radios to provide reliable, economical communication with the distribution system’s various tanks and pump stations.

Designed and built for the Carroll-Boone Water District in three stages (1980, 1989, 1994), the plant draws water from Beaver Lake to safely and efficiently meet the needs of Eureka Springs, Berryville, Green Forest and Harrison, Arkansas.

Ozone for Clean Water

With its principal intake on Piney Bay – a backwater of the Lake Dardanelle area of the Arkansas River – this plant is the only water treatment facility in Arkansas to use ozone as a primary disinfectant and granular activated carbon (GAC) as filter media. Our staff created this design to provide extra protection during possible spills or releases into the Lake Dardanelle area of the Arkansas River.

In 2003, the facility was expanded to 12 MGD. Improvments included construction of a new clarifier and replacment of the GAC filter media.

The benefits of ozone in the project are twofold: 1) It’s highly effective in killing bacteria and viruses; and 2) It adds oxygen to promote biological activity within the GAC filter media. Together, the ozone and the filter media provide highly effective treatment of organic contaminants.

Because the system mitigates the formation of trihalomethane (THM), a carcinogenic disinfection by-product, the Clarksville plant consistently provides water with the lowest amount of disinfection by-products of any surface-water system in Arkansas.

Serving Three Metropolitan Areas

The original, 10 MGD Joe M. Steele Water Treatment Plant was built in the early 1960s. It was expanded to 35 MGD in 1976 and to 50 MGD in 1976. The 40-MGD Hardy W. Croxton plant (designed jointly by MWY and another firm) was built in 1992 to operate in parallel with the Joe M. Steele plant.

Serving the cities of Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville and Rogers, the plants use Beaver Lake as their raw water source.