Watershed Management Program

Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona provide a high-quality and abundant supply of drinking water at a reasonable cost for approximately 398,000 of us in the Little Rock-North Little Rock metropolitan area.

The two lakes are public investments that have a vital and indispensable role in our quality of life and public health.

As the local water supplier, Central Arkansas Water (CAW) governs and manages the two lakes and maintains as a top priority service water protection, ensuring safe, adequate, and reliable drinking water for customers now and in the future.

The quality of the raw-water sources determines (1) the amount of treatment required to meet federal and State of Arkansas standards for safety and health, (2) the cost we, as consumers, pay for water service, and (3) the quality of drinking water that ultimately flows from our tap. Thus protecting and maintaining the quality of raw-water sources have become a focus for us locally and for public drinking water suppliers around the state and across the United States.

Our water utility for more than a decade has been strengthening our program of measures to protect Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona from pollution and other sources of possible contamination that could affect the quality of our drinking water. A critical factor is to monitor and address sources of contaminated runoff that feeds the lakes and ultimately, after treatment, becomes our drinking water.

The surrounding Ouachita National Forest provides a priceless protection for Lake Winona. Lake Maumelle's watershed, even though about 80% forested, is vulnerable to urbanization and other land-use changes.

Lake Maumelle’s watershed encompasses approximately 88,000 acres of mostly forest land that straddles parts of Pulaski, Perry, and Saline counties. There are pockets of homes, farmland, forestry activities, and timber harvesting within the lake’s watershed. Stormwater and other runoff from the surrounding lands drain into the lake and replenish it during the four seasons of the year. When precipitation flows over the ground, it may carry pollutions into the lake.

In response to the imperative to take a comprehensive approach to protecting Lake Maumelle, the CAW Board of Commissioners, adopted a comprehensive Lake Maumelle Watershed Management Plan in February 2007.

Two years in the making and the first such formal initiative in the State of Arkansas, the plan’s provisions are to maintain Lake Maumelle as a high-quality drinking water supply, protect the lake from increased pollution that results from development and other land disturbances, provide for the equitable sharing of costs and benefits associated with this protection, and minimize land-use restrictions on owners of property surrounding the water source.

The plan specifically directs that the water utility undertake strategies related to lake management, private land development, forestry activities, other land disturbances, property owner practices, and land acquisition to ensure the long-term viability of the lake, as a drinking water supply, and to minimize land-use restrictions on owners of private property in the surrounding watershed.

Implementation of the plan has involved close collaboration with governmental jurisdictions that have planning or other authority over the lake or surrounding watershed lands and with owners of private property around the lake.

CAW’s watershed management efforts for protection of the Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona watersheds place the utility in the vanguard of national efforts to protect public surface drinking water supplies. The programs also are key components of assuring the effective and long-term protection of our metropolitan community’s drinking water and the affordable cost that we pay for it.

Learn more about the Pulaski County Lake Maumelle Land Use Plan.

Learn more about the Lake Maumelle Watershed Management Plan.

View Lake Maumelle achievements to date.
View Hazardous Materials Spill Plan.