Published: November 28, 2007 11:38 am            

Water Puzzle: State struggles with uneven water supply

“Where do you go? Where do you live if you don’t have water?”

— A hand-dug water well has served Janet and Butch Crenshaw’s rural Pawnee County home for more than a century.

Last year, for the first time, it ran dry.

“Where do you go? Where do you live if you don’t have water?” said Janet Crenshaw, who inherited her home on 100 acres near where Red Rock Creek meets the Arkansas River.

“Let me tell you,” she said, “running a water hose (from a water tank) to do your laundry in the wintertime is not easy.”

The Crenshaws spent about $1,200 to drill another well. It was dry.

Then they got lucky. Rains came. Their old well came back to life.

“It was rough, but it never has been that dry, either,” Butch Crenshaw said. “Hopefully it will never happen again.”

Dry wells were far from the minds of the Crenshaws and other Oklahomans this past spring and summer, when record rains caused widespread flooding. All of the state’s reservoirs have since refilled to their limits. Oklahoma, with more miles of lakeshore than any other state, would seem to have plenty of water.

The state’s water wealth, experts warn, could become a mirage. State officials say growing population and increased demand could bring more water problems and dry wells in the future.

“We are beginning to see the limits of the water resources that the state has,” said Miles Tolbert, state secretary of the environment. “So the challenge then for Oklahoma is try to decide what kind of century this is going to be.”

Oklahoma’s problem is complex. Sustainability is a concern, especially for those who draw water from depleted underground aquifers. However, some parts of the state rely upon abundant lakes and reservoirs - water that is coveted by others.

Quality is also an issue, with tighter federal limits on groundwater contamination. These include rules for naturally occurring arsenic, which have shut down water wells in Norman and Moore.

All of these factors add up to an estimated $5.4 billion in water improvement projects needed throughout the state.

“The thing you have to understand is demand for water is soaring. Supplies are limited and shrinking. Prices are rising,” said state Rep. Guy Liebmann, R-Oklahoma City, former chairman of the Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust.

“Yet few of us are investing in the resource that is the source of life itself,” he said. “We wait until it’s just a disaster before we start thinking about it.”

Last year the Legislature voted to pay for a new Comprehensive Water Plan. Due in July 2011, the plan will address water needs, competing water interests, vulnerability to drought and flooding, environmental protection and economic development through 2016.

Balancing those concerns won’t be easy. Population and water use are expected to keep growing.

The state Department of Commerce predicts that Oklahoma will add 17 percent more residents over the next 20 years, with a population of 4.2 million by 2030.

Water use will grow nearly as fast, at about 14 percent, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The state will use more than 744 million gallons of water in the year 2030, the Corps of Engineers estimates.

The effects of growing demand and limited supplies were sped up during last year’s deepening drought. In one instance, Lone Chimney Lake in northcentral Oklahoma ran out of potable water. That left the towns of Glencoe, Morrison, Yale, Blackburn, Skedee, Marimec, Terlton, Pawnee and Cleveland high and dry.

The drought may be over. But even long, soaking seasons cannot wash away the strains on a finite water supply. Steve Thompson, executive director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said as much to the governor’s annual water conference in November 2006, before the rains came last spring.

“If there is a sense in the room that a good, hard, general rain would solve all our problems, my job is to try to dissuade you from that notion,“ he said.

That reality is especially apparent in areas that draw water from wells.

Drought-breaking rains helped refill the state’s 34 major reservoirs, most of which are now into their flood-control pools. These reservoirs store more than 4.2 trillion gallons of water.

But underground aquifers are still depleted.

These aquifers, whether bedrock or the more shallow alluvial areas near rivers and streams, will hold more than 24 times the amount of water pooled in the reservoirs. But pressure on their stores is growing.

The state reports a more than tenfold increase in the number of wells drilled into these aquifers since 1972. And several years with little rain in the past decade have dropped the water level in each.

The Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer in southcentral Oklahoma has declined more than any other bedrock aquifer since 2000. It dropped more than 21 feet in measurements taken in the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s well measurement program.

The Blaine aquifer in southwestern Oklahoma dropped more than 9 feet. The Garber-Wellington, in central Oklahoma, fell more than 6 feet.

Disparities in the state’s water reserves beg questions about pooling resources. One idea that stirs debate is whether to allow more water distribution from richer areas of southern Oklahoma to more arid parts of central and western Oklahoma. Cities in central and southeastern Oklahoma are close to forming a partnership to secure water rights for Sardis Lake near McAlester.

While Oklahoma looks inward to settle these issues, it also must handle outsiders’ claims to its water.

Two Texas water districts – the Tarrant Regional district that serves Fort Worth and Arlington, and the Upper Trinity district in Denton County – have applied to buy the state’s water.

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board has a moratorium on out-of-state sales. But the Tarrant district has sued, challenging the ban as unconstitutional. The case is pending.

Authors of the state’s water plan set out to hold 42 meetings to discuss local and regional water supplies with the public. They plan to inventory the state’s water supplies and size up the needs of local and regional water districts.

The water planners say they will tackle the complications surrounding Oklahoma’s water supply – balancing areas of scarcity and abundance, addressing quality concerns, deciding which projects are necessary.

It is a process that will affect the way water flows throughout the state.