PLAY WAVE PROJECT AT ROCKPORT: WHAT IS THE LATEST?

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

Will someone who is working on the Lower Ledge Project to build a play wave on the Ouachita River at the Tanner Street bridge site in Malvern please give us an update? The last time I know for sure that the ACC subcommittee for the project met was in August 2010. What is the current status of the project? Please include the MWDG cost estimate for the project so we will know how much fundraising needs to be done. The ACC has turned loose $15,800 for this project so far (see below); what are we getting?

A brief history of this project is as follows:

The "Lower Ledge Project", as it is officially called, began about the year 2000 with a few ACC members visualizing improved whitewater surfing at both the Upper Ledge near the boat ramp and the Lower Ledge in the rapid under the Tanner Street Bridge. Improved surfing was easy to sell to ACC members and funds were raised through donations and sales of locally produced whitewater dvds. About $1800 was spent to bring a whitewater park design firm, Recreation Engineering and Planning, to Malvern to assess the site, I believe in 2003. REP said the sites (both the presently used Rockport Ledge called the Upper Ledge and the Lower Ledge) had the potential to have good whitewater waves built. They produced drawings in 2004 showing a new wave at the Lower Ledge and improvements to the Upper Ledge. They also produced a cost estimate of $171,650 for the Lower Ledge and $41,500 for the Upper Ledge. The Mayor of Malvern had been whitewater rafting out-of-state and saw the potential for increased tourism which would help the area’s economy if the waves were built. He enthusiastically endorsed the project. The cost estimate for the lower ledge included $78,000 for 1300 cubic yards of stone. Since Malvern owned the old quarry adjacent to the Upper Ledge, and since the quarry was full of large stones, the cost of stone could be reduced substantially from what was estimated. The project now looked like it could be done for about $100,000 at the Lower Ledge. Malvern applied for and obtained the 404 Permit using REP’s assistance.

More funds were raised: a $50,000 grant was obtained from the Ouachita River Commission, the Walton Foundation contributed $75,000, Entergy donated $10,000. A grant request was made to a fund controlled by Entergy/AGFC/DEQ for $100,000 that is available for improvements to the fish habitat in the Ouachita River, to make up for the negative effects of dams built upstream of Malvern. The grant request was not successful. With the ACC donations which included $12,000 in 2007, there was well over $100,000 available and we thought we were ready to begin design and construction. Malvern holds all the funds except for about $8000 that the ACC has left from the Entergy grant.

REP was hired by Malvern through a local engineering firm (a license issue) to design the Lower Ledge improvements. Plans were completed and let out for bids in August of 2007. All the bidders were informed that the rock was free for the taking from the quarry before the letting. Two bids were received: about $995,000 and $775,000. They were rejected as being too high. The plans were trimmed down to the minimum components, a 60 feet wide wave feature and a stone wing and let out for bids in October 2007. One bid was received, $505,000, and was rejected. A review of the plans was made and two reasons for the high bids were arrived at: too much risk for the contractor and not enough information in the plans. According to the plans, the contractor would have to pay whatever it cost to start over if a flood washed out his partially completed work. No specific amount of rock or concrete grout was spelled out in the plans, so the contractor could not accurately determine what his costs were going to be. Those are two good reasons to bid high! The plans were described by the designers to be “conceptual” in nature, hence no specific amounts for the concrete grout, excavation, etc. Hence no low bids, either. Malvern declined to assume the liability of paying for rebuilding a partially constructed wave feature. We were at a dead end.

In January 2008, Ted Smethers of both the ACC and the Ouachita River Park Commission, began an effort to involve the AGFC in the project in order to use AGFC personnel, equipment, and expertise and hopefully qualify for the $100,000 that was available. On February 8, the AGFC, ACC, and Malvern met and worked out a plan that was to be a “win-win-win” situation. Here is the conclusion section of the minutes, quoted exactly:

Plan to Move Forward
• AGFC has agreed to provide technical support and assistance. They have a professional engineer who can provide design assistance and PE approval of design documents. They will also assist with contract bid documents and provide names and contacts of proven contractors.

• Steve Filipek will contact Mr. Terry Ferris who was described as an artist with a track hoe in placing large boulders in rivers. We will see if Mr. Ferris would agree to come and view the site, discuss with us what we will want to build and give us a rough estimate of the cost to construct it. This will be very useful for grant applications and other funding requests.

• Lance Jones and the Arkansas Canoe Club will inquire with Recreation Engineering Planners to determine if they are interested in the redesign of the project without the use of structural grout. If not, the ACC will locate another whitewater recreation design firm for us to work with. Lance has already made contact with one such firm. Once the ACC selects a whitewater design firm, a meeting will be set up for them to come to the site and meet with everyone to discuss details. If all goes well, the AGFC engineer can work with the WW designer and develop a set of drawings and specifications suitable to bid the project.

• All construction bid documents will be reviewed by the City of Malvern Attorney and Mayor and once found acceptable, bidding and construction contracting will be performed by the City. Details on whom and how construction oversight will be conducted has yet to be worked out.


The meeting concluded with some very positive and encouraging comments by Mayor Steve Northcutt. All who attended left encouraged that this project can be done and that we now have a viable plan with which to move forward.

End Quote

It looked like the project was on track once again. A year later a Request for Qualificaions for a new design firm was put out. McLaughlin Whitewater Design Group (MWDG) was paid $2000 by the ACC to come to Malvern for a site review. Their assessment was good; they were hired by Malvern near the end of 2009. Their preliminary plans were received in the middle of 2010. In my opinion, there were many problems with the plans, both in concept and design. I am a civil engineer with a lot of experience in hydraulic design, bridge design (including designing the Tanner Street bridge) and placement of ungrouted rock in rivers to avoid scour failures of bridges. The ACC committee and the ORPC committee for the project met jointly in August 2010 and decided to proceed with the MWDG plans, subsequent to MWDG making some minor adjustments. The resulting plans would use the same design technique (stones embedded in concrete, a divergence from the third bullet in the meeting minutes above) that received the high bids in 2007 and that failed to get AGFC backing ($100,000 grant) in 2007. In addition, the new plans would involve about three times as much work as the October 2007 plans did. In my opinion the cost of building the MWDG plans would greatly exceed that of the 2007 plans.

I resigned from the ORPC in August 2010 rather than devote more time to the Lower Ledge Project which appeared to be on a path toward a very expensive project, one for which fundraising might be beyond the means of the ACC and Malvern. I was secretary of the ORPC and have copies of all plans, minutes, correspondence, etc. if anyone wants more details. I haven’t seen any posts by the ACC committee members giving updates. MWDG was supposed to supply a cost estimate for the project when they made the adjustments to the plans.

Captain Aleve, alias Mike Coogan

[Lazer]

We are currently in wait mode.

The ACC committee and Ouachita River Park Commission (ORPC) reviewed the initial proposal from McLaughlin Whitewater Design Group (MWDG) in Summer 2010 and the City of Malvern sent a letter with our joint comments to MWDG in Fall 2010.

Revised plans incorporating our initial comments were received in December 2010. The ACC committee and ORPC reviewed the revisions and the City of Malvern sent a letter with our joint comments to MWDG in late February 2011. The February ACC Board of Directors meeting minutes note the review of the plans by the committee.

We are currently waiting to receive the final report from MWDG which is to contain plans and cost estimate for the in-stream whitewater enhancements as well as a proposal for other improvements to the Tanner Street site to enhance the overall park attributes (access, trails, viewing, parking, etc.)

It is anticipated that the plans will be received very soon and be discussed at the Summer ACC Board of Directors meeting.

Lance

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

Thanks, Lance.

If possible, it would be great to have the plans on the message board or somewhere on the web once they are received.

Captain Aleve, alias Mike Coogan

[jaxjack]

i am salida again for the summer . i saw mike harvey and he said he had not heard any thing for several years except the bids came in high. if they are out of the deal now you may want to let them know.

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

Contacting REP was one of the first steps to be taken when it was determined that a more in depth design was needed, as spelled out in bullet number three of the February 8, 2008, agreement between the ACC, Malvern, and the AGFC. Don't know why Mike Harvey didn't get the word.

The Request For Qualifications for a new design firm was finalized on April 18, 2009, a mere 14 months after the Feb. 8 meeting. That was an incredible delay on the part of the ACC and ORPC to turn out an eight page Word document that had a lot of white space in it. Once the 30% plans are completed and the cost estimate is received, serious fund raising can start since the 30% plans can be used in making grant requests to better inform potential donors. The ACC and ORPC will need to pick up the pace and make grant requests much quicker than one every year or so. It looks like some fresh volunteers may be needed to handle fundraising based on past performance.

Why do I keep saying 30% plans? That's all that has placed under contract so far. The plans will be better than "conceptual" since preliminary design will have been done, but no final elevations will be provided (the plans can't be used for construction at that point). A rough estimate of the cost of producing the final construction plans was provided by MWDG - about $20,000. There's money in Malvern's account for that, such that about $118,000 will be left to spend on construction between Malvern's remaining $110,000 and the ACC's $8,000.

Volunteers to raise funds is a critical void that needs to be filled; the ACC needs to be addressing that already. They should have already studied the available examples of whitewater park projects that were successfully completed. American Whitewater has several examples of successful completions on its website. They all involve long-term working relationships between multiple government agencies (city, state, and federal), environmental organizations, public groups (such as the ACC), and "sugar daddies" - wealthy individuals who donated substantial percentages of the total funding needed. A massive, coordinated effort is typically what is needed. In view of the trauma an eight page Word document caused for the Rockport project ........

It is too bad that the direction the 2008 agreement aimed the project was not adhered to since Malvern was prepared to accept more risk if the AGFC was involved directly, since the AGFC has funds, manpower, designers, heavy equipment, and connections with other agencies that could have been part of a group solution to getting the project built. I guess that just means a ltttle time delay in reaching completion.

Do you suppose grant writing will be addressed at the July ACC Board meeting?

Captain Aleve, alias Mike Coogan