Lake Hefner at record low water levels, when will city buy Canton water?

[Midtowner]

I dug up a 1980s Oklahoman article saying the Elm Creek Reservoir next to Lake Stanley Draper was going to be built in the 1990s. Anyone know why that didn't happen or when the reservoir may be built in the future?

Here's a thread from 2009:

https://www.okctalk.com/showthread.php?t=12686

[Snowman]

I dug up a 1980s Oklahoman article saying the Elm Creek Reservoir next to Lake Stanley Draper was going to be built in the 1990s. Anyone know why that didn't happen or when the reservoir may be built in the future?

My first guess for why an 80s project in OKC got shelved would be Oil Bust, plausibly not helped by the Savings and Loan crisis around the same time.

It seems like this lake had come up in some of the city meetings in the last several years about the new pipeline. That the second pipeline is being built implies we are near the limits of capacity of the original pipeline, so even if it could have filled/maintained another reservoir in the 80s, we might have hit a window from population grown that needed to wait till additional volume from our eastern reservoirs was available to go forward.

[PhiAlpha]

I dug up a 1980s Oklahoman article saying the Elm Creek Reservoir next to Lake Stanley Draper was going to be built in the 1990s. Anyone know why that didn't happen or when the reservoir may be built in the future?

It appears that the city owns all or most of the land required to build it.

[jdross1982]

Oh yeah, you can find the plans for the development of OKC's water reservoirs. The city has things planned like 20+ years out.

There's a huge addition going in at Draper--going to massively increase the size of that lake. Two new pipelines, we've cleared up the water rights with the first nations. OKC is sitting pretty for a landlocked city with insufficient natural water sources and a drying up aquifer.

I'd be very concerned as a resident of Edmond, for example, that aquifer is still being depleted and it is still a major source of their water and they are struggling to even pass a GO bond to fix their roads. God help 'em when it comes time to pay the piper on their lack of planning for water resources.

Umm Edmond is in the process of an already approved water resource expansion to the tune of roughly 500 mil. Should all be done in the next 5 years. Will allow Edmond to no longer buy water from OKC.

[cinnamonjock]

It appears that the city owns all or most of the land required to build it.

I noticed that too. Good on them for being so proactive about it.

[jn1780]

My first guess for why an 80s project in OKC got shelved would be Oil Bust, plausibly not helped by the Savings and Loan crisis around the same time.

It seems like this lake had come up in some of the city meetings in the last several years about the new pipeline. That the second pipeline is being built implies we are near the limits of capacity of the original pipeline, so even if it could have filled/maintained another reservoir in the 80s, we might have hit a window from population grown that needed to wait till additional volume from our eastern reservoirs was available to go forward.

That and the original one is very old at this point. Need to get a second one up and going just so they can shut the original down and rebuild it.

[PhiAlpha]

I noticed that too. Good on them for being so proactive about it.

I never realized that the reservoir was the reason that sooner was randomly realigned there. Make sense now.