This is not the final vote from the council to remove the weir, but a big step toward it.

When the Harrison City Council Committees met on Thursday night one item brought before the Resources & Policy Committee was the partnership with the Arkansas Department of Transportation to restore Crooked Creek to a natural flowing stream by removing the weir out of Lake Harrison and restoring the banks of the stream.

This partnership would allow ARDOT to fund most of, if not all, the project which was initially estimated to be a $2.1 million investment. Wade Phillips, Harrison’s Chief Operations Officer said that estimate was from 18 months ago and he believes a more accurate estimate in today’s market is around $2.85 million.

What the committee passed along to the full council is a resolution of willingness to enter a contract with ARDOT for the overall project, but not an actual agreement to move forward at this time. Phillips said that will come after the entire project is fully negotiated.

If an agreement is reached with ARDOT the city would have to front the money for the project and wait to be refunded until the project is complete. ARDOT would then purchase stream credits from the city in the amount that they have agreed to contribute to the project. That amount could be the full cost of the project or a lesser amount. The final contribution from ARDOT will be finalized before an agreement is signed.

Phillips explained that stream credits are used by ARDOT to be able to enter protected waterways while doing projects that damage a stream.

“They have to compensate for that damage in some way, whether that means they go somewhere else and do restoration of a previously damaged stream and they establish protections for that stream. Basically, what they do is that establishes stream credits that they can do for other projects,” Phillips said.

The City of Harrison has a number of these stream credits for waterway projects as well, so ARDOT is willing to purchase a portion of those credits in exchange for covering the cost of restoring Crooked Creek.

Phillips did acknowledge that, “we’re dealing with a somewhat volatile construction market right now,” and that leaves the potential for the cost of the project to rise before it’s completion leaving the city to pick up the tab for anything in excess of the amount ARDOT has agreed to pay for the stream credits.

Councilman Mitch Magness said, “There’s an assumption that we’re going to do this, that we’re going to change it from the lake back to Crooked Creek. That vote has not occurred yet.”

Magness said he’s heard from people both for and against the project and he makes it a point to explain the decision is not final yet and that there is a cost to leaving the weir the way it is. The build up of debris at the base of the weir must be cleaned out every few years and the average cost is considered to be $50,000 to $75,000 a year to the city. That is not paid out annually but in a larger lump sum every few years when the cleanout happens.

In the past cleanout of the weir has been paid for with FEMA funds but that, along with permits from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has become more difficult to get because of the growing push to remove low water dams, like the weir in Lake Harrison, from governmental agencies.

In the end the resolution was passed from the committee to the full council for consideration on July 29th.