Published: November 28, 2007 11:42 am            

Water Puzzle: Water sources connected by nature, not law

“You can’t read a newspaper anywhere west of the Mississippi (where) there’s not a water controversy."

— Danny Feerer’s livelihood depends on water.

He, his father and son run a ranch and wheat farm near Woodward. Their business, which has been passed through six generations, demands long hours, hard work and plenty of water.

About 1,600 acres of wheat soak up water pumped to the surface from the Ogallala Aquifer. Each of the family’s 350 cows drinks about 40 gallons of water every day, Feerer estimates.

Water is plentiful now. But if the aquifer beneath the farm ever starts to deplete, keeping the business going will be a challenge.

“We depend a lot on the water system,” Feerer said.

Like the Feerers’ farm, Oklahoma is blessed with ample water, according to those who monitor the resource. But not everyone has easy access to it. Differences in geography mean communities draw water from various sources.

Water experts say all communities have a common need, especially as demand grows. That is to keep tabs on how much water is left while balancing various needs and planning for the future.

The process is not always easy.

“You can’t read a newspaper anywhere west of the Mississippi (where) there’s not a water controversy,” said Dick Scalf, an Ada city councilman who is retired from the Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center in Ada.

“We need to plan for the future use of the water and not use it all up,” he said.



Where the Water Flows

Variations in Oklahoma’s water supply reflect those of the country, says Brian Vance, information director for the state Water Resources Board.

The eastern part of the state, like the eastern United States, largely depends upon surface water in rivers, lakes and streams. The dry west has groundwater aquifers, or conglomerations of rock and sand with water stored in the spaces.

The two are connected. Aquifers feed springs and surface water sources.

However, state laws treat them differently. Surface water is owned by the state, which issues permits for its use. Groundwater belongs to those who own the land above it. Only those who pump large amounts of groundwater for non-household use must get permits and report how much water they take.

Managing the different supplies, in light of growing demand, can be political and tricky.

The Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer in southeast Oklahoma, for example, supplies drinking water to towns including Ada, Durant, Tishomingo, Davis, Sulphur and Ardmore.

Several years ago, growing communities in central Oklahoma wanted to tap the aquifer, too, and buy water from ranchers and others with rights to it. But the Legislature imposed a moratorium on permits until the state could determine how quickly the aquifer recharges and how much water can be pumped without affecting its springs and streams. The study will be finished next year.

Hydrologists are also studying one of the world’s largest aquifers, the Ogallala, which extends into eight states, including northwest Oklahoma. The aquifer is heavily used for irrigation. Some experts fear it is losing more water each year than it gains in water that seeps into the ground.

“You don’t want the rivers going dry, which is in fact what happened in the Panhandle of Oklahoma,” said Scott Christenson, a hydrologist and groundwater specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “The Beaver River, which used to flow, now flows very little, and it’s directly related to groundwater development.”

Although the Arbuckle-Simpson and Ogallala aquifers are more in the public’s eye, they are not the state’s largest groundwater source.

The Garber-Wellington Aquifer in central Oklahoma is estimated to hold about 52 trillion gallons, which could cover the entire state four-feet deep.

It has problems of its own.

In spite of its size, parts of the Garber-Wellington have too much arsenic to meet drinking water standards. The arsenic is naturally occurring from rocks, said Vance, of the Water Resources Board.

Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion for public wells. This meant about half of the 24 wells the city of Norman had tapped into the aquifer were not in compliance.



Where the Water Needs to Flow

Such complications may only get worse, experts warn, as the population swells. More people mean more demand for water for drinking, agriculture, tourism and industry, which doesn’t include water for wildlife or navigation.

“How do you weigh the value of those competing needs?” said Kim Winton, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Oklahoma Water Science Center. “Who’s more important, the public drinking supply or the industry that’s generating the tax money for the city?”

Such questions may be less critical in the state’s larger communities.

Metropolitan areas such as Oklahoma City and Tulsa are always looking for water necessary to support growth, said Mark Becker, hydrologist and district water quality specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Oklahoma City office.

Becker said the cities are in good shape.

Oklahoma City gets its water from Canton, Hefner and Overholser lakes, as well as McGee Creek and Atoka lakes in southeast Oklahoma. Water moves from the southeast through a pipeline to Lake Stanley Draper, a reservoir near Oklahoma City.

Tulsa gets water from the Oologah, Spavinaw and Eucha lakes.

The future is less certain in other areas, Vance said.

“There are a lot of smaller communities around Oklahoma that when they project their needs out for 50 years, they are going to find that they have insufficient supply for their customers,” he said.

A statewide water plan, to be finished in 2011, may resolve that.

“One of the primary priorities of the water plan,” Vance said, “is to help communities establish what their water needs are and help them locate sources.”

In Ada, the future is not as opaque. The city has ample supply and is even thinking of building a recreational lake that also will ensure long-term drinking water supply.

That sort of planning is critical to Tony Pyrum, general manager and golf pro at Ada’s Oak Hills Golf and Country Club.

“Water’s what makes us live, and we have a lot of acreage and greens that we have to have water to keep them alive,” he said.

Last year’s drought cracked the ground and dried the grass. That won’t keep everyone away. In the old days, Pyrum said, people played on brown grass.

But for a golf course, the green of money and the green of turf are interconnected.

“It can survive without it, and you make do the best you can if you don’t have the water,” he said. “But it sure makes life easier when you have the water.”