SPRINGDALE -- State government will help Northwest Arkansas find a way out of the biggest bottleneck to the region's growth -- the need for more wastewater facilities, the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission was told Wednesday.

Chris Colclasure, director of the state Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Division, and Aaron Benzing, vice president of Hawkins-Weir Engineering Inc. of Little Rock, came to the commission's meeting in the commission's Springdale headquarters to break the news: The Department of Agriculture and the Northwest Arkansas Council, a group of community and business leaders, will split the cost of a $1,049,000 engineering study to find solutions to the problem.

"The project, I'm proud to report, is already underway," Benzing told the commission.

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