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West Memphis Utility highlights 2025 upgrades as wastewater plant nears full operation
Summary
The West Memphis Utility Commission reviewed 2025 infrastructure and operational gains, including substantial completion of a wastewater treatment plant expected to be fully operational by the end of January 2026, pipeline rehabilitation work tied to a corrective action plan, and systemwide reliability and staffing improvements.
Lauren Hoskins, the utility’s director of communications, presented the commission with a year-in-review of 2025 accomplishments, citing facility upgrades, staffing gains and regulatory progress. “We are positioned for continued growth and operational excellence in 2026,” Hoskins told commissioners during the Jan. 8 meeting.
Hoskins said the utility completed major exterior renovations to its headquarters and implemented department-by-department improvements, including full rehabilitation of several lift stations, pump replacements at other stations and completion milestones at the wastewater treatment plant. Staff told the commission the treatment plant reached substantial completion and the utility expects it to be fully operational by the end of January 2026, a timetable staff described as roughly four months ahead of earlier projections.
The utility said the plant upgrade doubles treatment capacity to 12 million gallons per day and moves the system into state and federal compliance. Staff also briefed commissioners on an ongoing pipeline rehabilitation program—described as a ‘‘cure-in-place’’ effort covering roughly 22,000 feet of pipe—that is part of a corrective action plan with the state. The presenter said all committed milestones have been met so far and that staff will apply for release from the corrective action plan at the end of 2026.
On system performance, staff cited reliability metrics—approximately 31 minutes of outage per customer annually and about 93 minutes to repair per outage—and said outage frequency has declined compared with the prior year. The presentation attributed much of the improvement to aggressive tree trimming, wildlife protection installations on equipment and targeted maintenance such as pole replacements and substation inspections.
Hoskins also listed administrative and customer-service changes implemented in 2025: migration to the Tyler financial system, new inventory controls, DocuSign rollout for document management and the start of SmartHub/CIS implementation for automated disconnects and mobile field service orders. She said the utility has trained customer-support staff and corrected historical account data ahead of a planned Spark Point go-live and wider CIS rollout.
The presentation closed with a note about external recognition: staff submitted an application for the American Public Power Association’s RP3 reliability designation and expressed confidence in receiving that recognition in 2026.
The commission did not take a formal vote on the accomplishments presentation. The next procedural step staff described is completing the pipeline rehabilitation and then applying to the state for formal release from the corrective action plan at the end of 2026.
