By John Brummett

State Sen. Bob Johnson’s quest for atonement, meaning his aim to become the legislator who saves rather than ruins Little Rock’s water supply, finds itself beset by complications of timing and legalities.

This won’t be as easy as writing a big check from the state General Improvement Fund, which Johnson, as president pro tempore of the Senate and the acknowledged leader of that body, has the will and muscle to do.

None of this is to suggest that the preservation of about a thousand acres spanning the Maumelle River is not viable or even likely. It remains both. This is simply to explain that Johnson probably won’t be able to get this done cleanly or certainly or completely in this session.

This is not exactly a problem. It’s more a delayed opportunity.

At issue is land spanning this main feeder of Central Arkansas’s main water supply. The property is owned by private parties represented by veteran real estate man Jay DeHaven. For assorted reasons, this group might be willing to sell. Until it does, the threat of residential development, with septic tanks and all the rest, hovers.

This acreage is generally known as the Winrock Sod Farm. Everyone who has explored it lately and with whom I’ve spoken has described it as spectacular, ideal for preservation, recreation and education. There are cypress trees and fern beds and wildlife and waterfowl and birds and butterflies.

Two sessions ago, Johnson, of tiny Bigelow on the opposite side of Lake Maumelle from Little Rock, became Public Enemy Number One in much of Central Arkansas. He sponsored and even passed in the Senate a bill to pre-empt Central Arkansas Water’s authority to prohibit housing development by Deltic Timber Corporation on the near periphery of Lake Maumelle.

Now, as he stares down term limits and enjoys the height of his legislative influence, Johnson — for whatever reason — wants the signature accomplishment of his term as president pro tem to be saving this land along the Maumelle River.

Weeks ago he talked of how he was attempting to put together a public purchasing consortium. Central Arkansas Water would ante up. The Game and Fish Commission would do the same and develop a management plan for recreational and educational activities to include bow-hunting, hiking and educational forays for schoolchildren and scouts.

Then, or so Johnson surmised, he would fill out the sale price with money from the General Improvement Fund through an appropriation in the currently ongoing session, probably routed through the Forestry Commission.

Central Arkansas Water was, and is, willing, even anxious. Indeed, as one official there told me, the utility is “antsy.” Game and Fish was, and is, too. Gov. Mike Beebe thinks this idea of Johnson’s is a swell use of General Improvement money.

So what’s the problem, or, as we put it before, the delayed opportunity?

It turns out that there is a national nonprofit group called Trust for Public Land that purchases land for public preservation. The group has taken a shine to this tract. It has secured an option to purchase it depending on several factors yet to be worked out, including a credible, agreed-to appraisal, now in progress.

Chris Deming, an official with the trust in Atlanta, told me the group hopes to buy this land, then hold it as long as reasonably necessary for the public parties to get their money and plans together to repurchase it for preservation.

“We appreciate the senator, and we appreciate you,” Deming told me by phone. “But things were perhaps getting a little ahead of themselves.”

Game and Fish has cash from oil and gas leases and the independent discretion to spend it. Central Arkansas Water has some money it could leverage on relatively short notice.

For his part, Johnson can’t know how much money to secure from the General Improvement Fund. He wouldn’t want to appropriate too little to do the deal. But he wouldn’t want to appropriate so much as to impair delicate price negotiations by the Trust for Public Land, which, as a nonprofit, is limited under federal law in how much it may vary from an appraisal in its purchase of land.

This may be a case in which it will be helpful to have that new annual budget session of the Legislature next year.

But the prospects are hopeful, especially when you behold the enthusiasm for preserving this land evident in state officials and the fellow in Atlanta. Game and Fish sees an urban eden. Central Arkansas sees clean water.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.