Engineering that serves the people who depend on it.

The Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority was approaching a hard capacity ceiling. The obvious answer was to build more — an expensive solution ratepayers would feel for years.

We looked for another way. Instead of starting with a bigger facility, we pursued a permit modification based on a federal court ruling that changed what the existing plant could do.

LRWRA and state and federal regulators, through a review no one in Arkansas had run before.

The result: peak capacity increased from 72 to 94 MGD, 34 million gallons of required storage was eliminated, and ratepayers saved more than $10 million before design even began.

In April 1996, an F3 tornado struck Fort Smith’s P Street Wastewater Treatment Plant, damaging the headworks, chlorine building, operations, laboratory and maintenance facilities. The plant still had to meet its permit.

Our approach was to restore compliance first, then rebuild the below-grade headworks pump station while keeping critical systems in service — and incorporate relocated chlorination into the new footprint.

We worked alongside the City, FEMA, the insurer and subconsultants to help move the recovery forward.

The work supported the City’s insurance claim and FEMA hazard-mitigation application, helping raise structures above the 100-year flood level. It ultimately earned an ACEC Engineering Excellence Award.

To maintain its FAA funding, Fort Smith Regional Airport needed an airtight boundary survey and ownership record for every parcel tied to the airport — decades of acquisitions, easements and tangled property records.

We approached it as more than a survey. We rebuilt the ownership story tract by tract.

The airport, Delta Airport Consultants, and the Sebastian County Tax Assessor.

We documented 35 tracts down to acquisition date, funding source and federal project number, compiled easements, established the perimeter with permanent monuments, and reconciled tax-exemption status.