The White River Regional Irrigation Water Distribution District (WRID), a program developed by Natural Resources Conservation Service Arkansas department, has announced that it is seeking a developer to complete and manage Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project in eastern Arkansas on a P3 basis.

The irrigation project is in the territory of the Arkansas Grand Prairie Area, which covers parts of Arkansas, Lonoke, Monroe and Prairie counties. Arkansas Grand Prairie Area is located between the bottomlands of the White River and the Arkansas River covering an area of about 500,000-acre much of them used for farming, which has severely depleted two local aquifers.

The project consist of an electrical substation, two bridges, a water conveyance system, gate and pump control systems, and metering and data management systems.

The project will be developed on a design-build-finance-operate-maintain basis during a 50 year lease agreement.

In 1991 the US Army began the Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project to provide water to eastern Arkansas for the purposes of agricultural water supply, aquifer recharge, prairie and wetland restoration, water conservation and waterfowl management. However it was not completed.

The contract for the project development will be awarded in April 2017. To obtain a copy of the RFI, send a request to GrandPrairieP3@am.jll.com.