Published: November 28, 2007 11:52 am            

Water Puzzle: Aquifer’s uncertain future has city making other plans

“I don’t think the Ogallala is going to last forever."

WOODWARD, Okla. — Alan Riffel knows his city’s water supply is not here to stay. In fact, he expects bad news about Woodward’s main water resource, the Ogallala Aquifer, when the state releases its comprehensive water plan in 2011.

So Riffel is dealing with the issue now.

Last year Woodward began a study to predict the city’s water needs and plan where it will find its water in the future. The city is looking for places it might drill into the aquifer to find untapped pockets of water. Or it may stress conservation. Or it may join other communities in a regional effort, such as building a reservoir.

The Ogallala Aquifer is buried beneath eight states and is heavily tapped for irrigation and agriculture, especially in Oklahoma’s Panhandle. Over the past 20 years, Riffel said, demands of farms and industry have drawn down the groundwater supply and shrunk the water available to Woodward.

In just five years from 2001 to 2006, water levels in Panhandle-area wells dropped more than 3 feet, according to the state Water Resources Board.

The effect is not limited to his city. Fort Supply and the prison there both rely on Woodward’s water system. Plenty of other cities and water districts depend upon wells drilled into the Ogallala Aquifer.

John Ogden, operator of Rural Water District No. 2 in Woodward County, said changes to the aquifer’s water table could hurt his 355 customers.

The water level in many of his district’s wells is about 100 feet. If the water table drops 100 feet, those wells will dry up.

Even if it drops 50 feet, he said, the wells would be “effectively gone.”

“I don’t think the Ogallala is going to last forever,” Ogden said.

Marty Phillips, hydrologic technician for the U.S. Geological Survey in Woodward, confirmed that aquifer levels are gradually diminishing.

“And at some point in time,” he said, “we have to figure out what’s causing that and do something about it.”

Until that happens, Woodward is at least planning what it will do before its wells start to dry up. Approaches may include looking for new wells or conservation programs. Or the city may join other communities and nearby water districts if it considers tackling a large project such as building a reservoir.

Those projects can be expensive, Riffel said, and they have not always succeeded in an area of the state with little surface water.

Optima Lake, for example, was built in the 1960s under the presumption that the Beaver River would flow into and fill the lake, said Mark Becker, hydrologist and water quality specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Oklahoma City.

But irrigation increased in the Panhandle before the lake was finished. That depleted the water table, and the river dried up. The lake never reached normal pool.

Riffel called it “one of Oklahoma’s greatest boondoggles.”

Woodward has enough water for now, he said. The city’s supply has gotten low some summers, forcing it to run some well pumps around the clock. However, shortages have not yet required it to ration water.

While other communities on the Ogallala have been harder hit, Riffel said the aquifer is a complex system. Its supply is not evenly distributed.

“The characteristics of the aquifer in our area are much better than they are, say, in the Panhandle,” he said.