Well testing documents for Franklin County prison contradict prison contractor

Department of Corrections officials Andy Powell, Chad Brown, and Wade Hodges at a meeting of the Arkansas Legislative Council on Aug. 15, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

By Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate

Test wells at the Franklin County prison site yielded far less water than a typical home needs, much less a 3,000-bed prison, records show — and at least one state legislator took notice.

Well construction reports obtained from the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Well Water Commission show the two wells drilled at the site on Aug. 1 yielded two gallons of water per minute and ten gallons of water per hour, respectively.

According to the New York State Department of Health, well yield “is a sustainable rate of water flow, usually expressed in gallons per minute (gpm), that a well can draw continuously over an extended period.”

The typical home needs six to 12 gallons of water per minute.

According to Arkansas Department of Health records, each of the four water wells supplying water to the DOC’s Tucker Unit uses 51.9 gpm on average, or 207.63 gpm across all four. The Tucker Unit is a 2,000-bed facility.

The well reports contradict what representatives from Vanir, the firm contracted to manage the prison construction, told the Board of Corrections about the test well flow rates at the beginning of the month. In their report to the board, Vanir said the test wells were yielding 15-16 gallons a minute and 5 gallons a minute, also noting that those numbers were preliminary.

The board authorized spending $50,000 to drill the wells in June, part of preliminary site work to determine whether the land can support the prison, which was not done prior to the state’s purchase of the Franklin County property.

Critics of the prison plan have questioned whether local infrastructure is capable of supporting the site’s water and wastewater needs since Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the land purchase last Halloween.

The site is roughly 26 miles from Fort Smith and 19 miles from Ozark. Fort Smith said earlier this summer that it could not support the prison’s water or wastewater needs. Ozark passed a resolution in February saying the town of 3,601 people couldn’t either, noting the prison would put substantial strain on its budget and infrastructure if the project moved forward.

Corrections board Chairman Benny Magness seemed to acknowledge the dwindling options for utilities for the project when the drilling was approved in June, saying that if the test wells proved unsatisfactory, the board would likely need to begin exploring other site options for the prison.

Magness did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Department of Corrections spokesperson Rand Champion did not answer specific questions about the discrepancy or why it arose other than to say that all numbers are preliminary.

“At this time, all the reports and numbers we have are preliminary,” Champion said in an email. “Once those reports are finalized, it will give the Board and the Department a better idea of what we’re dealing with and next steps.”

Once the reports are finalized, Champion said, the results will be analyzed to determine “next steps.” However, much will depend on the architectural and engineering contract, he added. That contract still hasn’t been approved by the Arkansas Legislative Council.

During an ALC meeting Friday, Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, referenced the discrepancy in the yield amounts when questioning DOC Chief Financial Officer Chad Brown as the council considered approval of a routine on-call engineering contract.

“We’re getting so much misinformation, that I would like to know why, why you guys can’t get your facts straight,” said Stubblefield, who has been a vocal opponent of the Franklin County site.

DOC Chief of Staff Wade Hodge told Stubblefield he got his information about the test wells from Vanir and didn’t know about the other flow numbers.

Adam Watson, another prison opponent who recently sent legislators a request for an investigation into the prison site selection process, said that regardless of what the correct yield number is, it won’t be enough to supply the prison.

“There’s no, no reality where those wells are capable of fulfilling the needs,” Watson said in an interview last week. “So the last ditch effort will be going to Ozark to see if they can pull water from there, which Ozark City Council has passed a resolution stating that the city is against this project and the way that it’s been handled.”

Watson said that if the state had done its “due diligence” before committing to the Franklin County property, everyone would have been better off.

“If they would have done their due diligence to start with … we wouldn’t be sitting here a year later with the most basic question about building a new prison still unanswered: Where the hell is the water going to come from?”

The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy.