Helena-West Helena Secures $4.5 Million Federal Funds for Water, Harbor Upgrades

Helena-West Helena has been awarded $4.5 million in federal funding to address a failing drinking water system and to allow construction to start on a $10 million slack-water harbor project at Helena Harbor. City and state officials say the cash will be targeted to system-wide repairs and to improve rail and water infrastructure that supports local industry and river commerce.

The city’s drinking water network has suffered repeated failures that left large numbers of residents without service. A January 2024 well pump failure left about 1,400 people without water, and a later outage in September left half the city without drinking water. State reporting also notes a separate line break earlier that took water service from thousands of customers, underscoring the system’s chronic leaks and aging components.

Local officials say the $4.5 million is an important near-term piece of a larger financing picture. Helena-West Helena currently has about $32 million in state and federal funding for water work, which officials describe as roughly half of what is needed to repair the system. In addition to the federal allocation, state programs are slated to provide loans through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, including a $3,250,000 loan and a $9,750,000 loan with principal forgiveness to support the city’s repairs and upgrades. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the state is adding to those efforts: “My administration has prioritized investments in Arkansas’ water system and today’s announcement adds another $204 million to that effort.” She added, “I’m proud to work with our local communities and the Department of Agriculture to ensure every Arkansan has access to safe drinking water.”

John Edwards, general counsel and economic development director for the Helena-West Helena/Phillips County Port Authority, framed the federal award as both a reliability measure and a jump-start for harbor work. “This is going to improve the reliability of the drinking water system in that community. That’s the drinking water system that serves Helena Harbor,” Edwards said. He also emphasized continuing needs: “This is an amazing, wonderful thing that's happened to us. We've got a lot more asking to do, and we've got a lot more work ahead of us.”

The path that produced the $4.5 million has been politically contested. The earmark for Helena was placed in a federal spending package in August 2024, and that item was removed in a six-month funding bill passed in March 2025. Accounts differ over whether the allocation was later restored in recent FY2026 spending bills; that discrepancy will determine when and whether the federal funds are formally obligated and disbursed to the city.

For Helena-West Helena residents, the immediate effect will be planning and permitting work ahead of construction, and the potential for reduced outages if repairs proceed as intended. The larger fiscal reality remains: roughly $32 million on hand covers only about half of the estimated need, so officials say additional financing and federal obligation of the recent allocation will be decisive for long-term reliability and the timing of harbor upgrades.