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

[Plutonic Panda]

...or we could all just say hey, why don't we figure out a way to live that doesn't require so much water.

Your gonna hate me for saying this, I have a big lush yard and it won't stay that way without water. However, I have taken measures to reduce my water usage examples we going to tap into a well for our yard, anything that comes out of our sinks goes to a reservoir and then goes to our toilets (when needed), and switched over to "water saving" facets. Not much, but, I'm sure it has some kind of impact.

[Tritone]

"The flow down the Canadian to Canton is reduced and I believe there is a dispute with Texas over their use of the water but it also may be drought related because Lake Meridith , north of Amarillo has had very little water in it for years;..."

N.B. The Canadian River of Lake Meredith is not the same river as that which flows through Canton. The river from Canton is the North Canadian which starts near Ft. Supply with the confluence of the Beaver River (think Oklahoma panhandle) and Wolf Creek from the northern tier of counties in the Texas panhandle. The Canadian River from Lake Meredith is the one through Camargo, Taloga, north of Thomas, etc., that flows between Mustang and Tuttle and on to Norman.

[kelroy55]

Your gonna hate me for saying this, I have a big lush yard and it won't stay that way without water. However, I have taken measures to reduce my water usage examples we going to tap into a well for our yard, anything that comes out of our sinks goes to a reservoir and then goes to our toilets (when needed), and switched over to "water saving" facets. Not much, but, I'm sure it has some kind of impact.

I see a lot of people using their sprinkler system in the middle of the day when it's the hottest and also when it's raining. I know they are on timers but take a few seconds to shut it off if it's supposed to rain.

[Plutonic Panda]

I see a lot of people using their sprinkler system in the middle of the day when it's the hottest and also when it's raining. I know they are on timers but take a few seconds to shut it off if it's supposed to rain.

Oh yeah we have a rain sensor which helps a lot. But, I know what you mean too when I go out when its raining cats and dogs and all these commercial properties have their sprinkler just going ape and the same thing for in the front of our neighborhood.

[Dale Birchett]

Sorry about that, trying to follow those rivers on Google Earth must have made my eyes cross. But they both come from the same drought plagued region of the southwest so unfortunately my mistake doesn't change the water levels.

[billokc]

OKC doesn't have to 'buy' water from Canton, it already owns the water rights. When it's time, the city asks the Army Corps of Engineers for water and meets with the Canton Lake Advisory Committee for acceptance.

A couple of issues here:

#1. As of this time (mid-December) Canton is about 9 feet low and Hefner is about 16 feet low. OKC can access only 10K acre-feet of water which, under best case scenario, would raise the level only about 2.5 feet. Another part of this issue is that when it's time for a release, there are actually two releases. I got this information from a couple of city workers at Overholser a few years back. Here's why there's two: When the initial release is done, some of the water is lost due to absorption into the riverbed. And btw, it also takes 72 hours to reach the Overholser canal dam from Canton. But in addition to the riverbed absorption, it also picks up all the trash and debris in the river. By the time it reaches the city, the water has lost what's called "turbidity" which means it just not any good anymore. So that batch of water is released from Overholser to continue downstream. So in effect, it's a waste.

Issue #2 deals with getting water from another source. Since Hefner is a manmade lake, it has only one gravity intake feedpoint; the canal on the west side. Keep in mind Hefner is about 43 feet LOWER in elevation than Overholser. Overholser's elevation at full is 1242 feet above sea level. Hefner's elevation at full is 1199 feet. There's no pipeline input at all. And the only way to let water out of Hefner is to turn on your faucets. Someone raised the issue of Sardis, but that would demand a pipeline all the way from the other side of McAlester to NW OKC. And it's all an uphill climb from there which means pumping stations along the way. There has been some discussion regarding building a second pipeline from Atoka (which is pumped into Draper Lake) to OKC, but it's not clear which lake it would feed.

#3. There has been some repair work being done at the Canton dam by the Army Corps of Engineers, so water can't be released from Canton until after that repair work is completed.

Personally, I don't see anything improving until spring of 2013 when Oklahoma gets back into its rainy/storm season again, so we're talking March or April at the earliest, because we definitely don't get much rain during the winter.

[LandRunOkie]

Outside of banning agriculture (vast majority of use) and watering lawns all the conservation is a drop in the bucket.

You're definitely playing politics with that statement. The city of Seattle dropped its water usage by 20% per person strictly through conservation efforts [link (page 39)]. The same thing could be done in Okc by implementing their policies: -The seasonal rate structure is credited with saving close to 5 mgd since 1990. - Plumbing codes and regulations have saved more than 4 mgd. -Improvements in system efficiency have saved approximately 13 mgd since 1990. -The Home Water Savers Program involved 330,000 customers and saved nearly 6 mgd. It's time to stop pretending that we can bend nature to our will and implement some aggressive water conservation policies in this city.

[LandRunOkie]

Here's the link: http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/docs/u...vation_508.pdf

[law]

Here's how Canton Lake looks today. And the plan is to go 7 feet lower. If OKC takes water now, and we do not have a wet spring, there will be NO WATER. Canton will be only a little above inactive pool. If there is no water really means there is no water.

[law]

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...56587022_n.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...12047771_n.jpghttp://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...48118728_n.jpg

[OKCisOK4me]

The problem with Lake Hefner is that there is really no water intake other than what comes down the river from Canton. People probably think that the creek that goes under NW Expressway by Joe's Crabshack feeds into Hefner but it doesn't. It bypasses the lake. The lake, for all accounts, is a pool.

Guess it's time to start buying bottled water. My water bill last month was a whopping $9.80..for one person, that's not too shabby.

[MarkAFuqua]

While we realize OKC has every right to the water in the lake due to their contract, sometimes something greater than rights comes into play and a moral compass should be used to check our actions. The small amount of good that will come from the amount of water they will receive is a very short term fix for them in this extended drought situation facing our state and much of the nation. While they have the right to take the water, is it morally correct to wreck and destroy Canton Lake, possibly kill all the fish in it and cause many people of Western OK to loose their jobs and businesses? I think most would agree it's not. We have heard from experts from the Fish and Game Dept that if this water is released it is highly probable that we will have a total fish kill in Canton lake. We don't need experts to tell us what will happen to local businesses and employees due to lack of lake traffic, it will be devastating to many communities of Western Oklahoma who depend on lake traffic to support them and their employees. It will also hurt most other lakes in the state as Canton lake supplies the Walleye that those lakes are stocked with. It will do OKC a small amount of good for a short time, but it will do our area great harm for a long time. It just doesn't add up.

[MarkAFuqua]

You are EXACTLY correct! As a member of the Canton Lake Association I sat in a meeting yesterday with the organization that that is responsible for supplying the drinking water for OKC and surrounding communities, and they don't have a viable back up plan in place should rains not come this spring! If I were a citizen of that part of the city that is supplied from the water from Canton lake and then Overholser and Hefner, I would be very nervous about this situation! Water rationing and water conservation awareness should have been going on for over a year now as the drought has been here for at least two. I think the majority of people in the City have no idea how severe this could become very very quickly! Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust which is charge of providing water to the city, plans to take another draw from Canton lake. The proposed 30,000 acre feet will devastate the local economies surrounding Canton lake and potentially kill all fish in the lake according to the Wildlife dept. The Wildlife Dept has spent millions of tax payer $$ over the last 20 plus years building the fish population in Canton lake. All will be lost if the City takes the water and we don't get spring rains. Blue Green algae will then grow in the shallow waters and potentially ruin the water source for quite sometime. It's estimated that in the extended drought we are in, it could take as little as 5 years and as many as 8 for Canton lake fish numbers to return and who knows how long until lake levels stabilize. The organization involved needs to seek alternative solutions besides Canton Lake as a water source for the residents of OKC that now currently depend on that water, because if they take this draw and kill the lake, then you guys will all be in deep trouble next year! If I lived there I would be checking it out, it's far more serious than most realize! According to all forecast this drought isn't going anywhere anytime soon!

[Plutonic Panda]

This is kind of scary! I don't understand why OKC, along with all other suburbs, aren't taking heavier measures.

[OKCTalker]

Mark - Thanks for sharing your perspective from "upstream." You are correct in that we have been living in OKC as if the Canton water was virtually inexhaustible, and that water levels there were as good or better than they are here. Clearly those assumptions are incorrect.

Maybe this is the time that Oklahoma Citians assume greater responsibility for the water that our two communities share.

[Plutonic Panda]

I just don't understand how this isn't making major headlines across the state. It seems that this is becoming very serious and almost every person I know is completely unaware of this. In my neighborhood, Asheforde Oaks, there are sprinklers that come on every night and about 4 heads are broken and I mean it floods down the street like there is a monsoon. There are places all over Edmond like this. Drive around at 3am and you will see how many places flood their yards(a lot of time the street) with stupid amounts of water. This even happens in the daytime in some places. You know humanity is really smart when it's poring rain and you drive down the street and you see people running there sprinkler systems for hours. smh :/

[1972ford]

Isn't there a proposed reservoir for east okc on the books for a decade or better sounds to me that this needs to be moved from proposal to action soon as we run out of water resources in this 2 year drought it should become clear that we need this built. It may be a decade or better before we can draw from it but it should be plainly obvious that it needs to happen sooner or later.

I wonder how much rain we would need to get canton back to normal

[ljbab728]

I just don't understand how this isn't making major headlines across the state.

PluPan, do you not read the paper? It was a major headline on the front page of the Oklahoman today.

[Snowman]

It was either featured or mentioned in related topic stories at least monthly during the the summer last year

[Plutonic Panda]

PluPan, do you not read the paper? It was a major headline on the front page of the Oklahoman today.

No, I usually just watch News9 and read news stories online. I have seen it a few times here and there.

[OUSoonerfan3]

The Wildlife Dept has spent millions of tax payer $$ over the last 20 plus years building the fish population in Canton lake.

I agree with all you are saying about but I want to correct this point. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation receives no tax appropriations.

About the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

[OKCisOK4me]

When rain comes to the state, I wish for it to pour down upstream from Canton!

[UnclePete]

I wrote to my local Councilman concerning OKC water and if there was a contingency plan for getting water if the drought continues. Of course, he didn't respond. Of course, I would guess that the Oklahoma River will have enough of that lovely brown water to thrive.

Isn't there a proposed reservoir for east okc on the books for a decade or better sounds to me that this needs to be moved from proposal to action soon as we run out of water resources in this 2 year drought it should become clear that we need this built. It may be a decade or better before we can draw from it but it should be plainly obvious that it needs to happen sooner or later.

I wonder how much rain we would need to get canton back to normal

[BoulderSooner]

Oklahoma city is NOT in a water crisis

[Achilleslastand]

I wrote to my local Councilman concerning OKC water and if there was a contingency plan for getting water if the drought continues. Of course, he didn't respond. Of course, I would guess that the Oklahoma River will have enough of that lovely brown water to thrive.

Isnt the Oklahoma river just a fancy name for the north canadian river............