Hot Springs water plant helps city avoid conservation restrictions during heat, drought

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (KATV) — As communities across Arkansas face water concerns during this summer’s heat and dry conditions, Hot Springs officials said a major investment is helping the city avoid water conservation restrictions.

The city’s new Amity Water Treatment Plant opened this year, adding 15 million gallons per day of drinking-water capacity.

Hot Springs City Manager Bill Burrough said the facility is the result of years of planning as the city prepared for growing demand.

“We’ve known we needed additional water supply for several years,” Burrough said. “And in 2012, we really started in earnest to build a new plant. We were seeing a trend.”

That trend included 53 days in 2012 when the city’s water system operated above 80% of its capacity.

The city also exceeded its state-mandated maximum output in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2022.

“We had days where we were using more water than we could produce,” Burrough said. “And so we started in earnest to build a new water supply for the city of Hot Springs.”

The project involved securing additional water from Lake Ouachita for municipal use and building infrastructure to transport it to the new treatment plant.

Burrough said the city bored about a half-mile through Blakely Mountain to access the lake, allowing water to gravity-feed 17 miles to the treatment plant.

The overall project cost about $150 million. Hot Springs now has 25 million gallons of water storage in Lake Ouachita.

Burrough called the expanded water supply a “game changer” as other Arkansas communities implement water conservation measures during the heat wave.

“We’re in very good shape,” Burrough said. “But without this new plant, we would have been right there with them.”

City officials said the expanded water supply could also help attract new businesses, particularly industries that require large amounts of water.

The project is part of the city’s long-term effort to prepare for future water demand before shortages become an immediate concern.