The cost to extinguish an underground fire at an old stump dump on Trafalgar Road in Bella Vista could be millions more than first estimated, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday.
"We have a fund at ADEQ to help us in these kind of remediation efforts," he said at the Arkansas Municipal League meeting in Little Rock. "It has about $8 million in it." Hutchinson said he was told that the project might be in that price range. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said in a news release later Thursday that it had received a draft response action plan from EnSafe, the Memphis company hired by the state to help put out the fire.
"I have received the initial report from ADEQ that includes cost estimates for the Trafalgar Road fire cleanup. The $21 [million] to $37 million estimates for excavation are stunning and much higher than the initial estimates of $5 [million] to $10 million. I have directed ADEQ and EnSafe to explore more cost effective alternatives," Hutchinson said in the news release.