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

[Plutonic Panda]

We're not talking about California. And believe me, long before you were ever there, tons of measures were taken to reduce household water consumption, including spending millions on incentives toward getting homeowners to switch to low-water yards and landscaping. And, of course, every bit of agriculture in California -- of which there is absolute tons -- is done through irrigation. California is in no way comparable to Oklahoma.

In and around OKC, we're in a serious drought, trying to transfer water from other reservoirs, and of course the majority is being poured onto grass. Where else would it be going? Drinking fountains?

Agriculture, restaurants and hospitality use a sh!t ton of water, there’s more to water usage than just watering lawns and drinking water.

This article claims 50-70% of watering lawn use in Oklahoma is for lawns: https://okepscor.github.io/watercalc/

I’d like to see sources cited for that. I’m sure that water usage in Oklahoma is vastly different than California’s but Oklahoma is not in a doomsday scenario or anywhere close to it. There’s not even an exceptional drought classification anywhere in the state. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

I’m not here to be argumentative but it’s tiring to see the same line that watering lawns accounts for such a huge number when in reality it only accounts for a third of all residential use in the United States. That’s only a small part of the overall water usage in the country anyways.

https://ensia.com/articles/water-use/

I’m not saying it wouldn’t help to conserve water or switch to xeriscaping for those who want to do it. But out west there’s insane proposals to ban lawns which is asinine, IMO. We need to tackle the biggest culprits which are unsustainable agricultural practices and a massive waste problem it supports where tons of food is thrown away. Anyone who’s ever worked recently in the food industry can attest to that.

The drought will go away and come back. Oklahoma, the entire country rather, needs to be looking at dealing with climate change and the issues it will cause because we aren’t stopping it. You aren’t getting enough people to change their habits to reduce the carbon footprint enough to change it nor are the BRIC countries doing enough to reduce their footprint like the US or EU is. China already accounts for 30 percent of global emissions and is rising. We need to invest more in water infrastructure and like what’s said earlier in this thread we will have an “interstates for water infrastructure” plan long before the situation gets dire.

Water is extremely abundant. We just need to build more desalination plants find ways to distribute it.

[catch22]

Oklahoma like every other state downstream of Colorado need to realize we are having drier, shorter, and warmer winters and sporadic, unreliable monsoon cycles. Our snowpack can’t sustain all of these states downstream of us forever at current usages when taking into account less snowpack, faster melt times, and drier summers of our own.

Even if lawn usage accounts for 3% of Oklahoma water usage (I don’t buy that number given our lack of heavy industry and aquifer fed farming) , every drop really does matter. Most of the water in the southwestern part of the country comes from Colorado. Even Tulsa’s Arkansas river comes from Colorado headwaters. We have strict water restrictions of our so we can pass on water downstream. It sucks for Colorado to have to make sacrifices just to watch users downstream waste it away.

[Bits_Of_Real_Panther]

Oklahoma like every other state downstream of Colorado need to realize we are having drier, shorter, and warmer winters and sporadic, unreliable monsoon cycles. Our snowpack can’t sustain all of these states downstream of us forever at current usages when taking into account less snowpack, faster melt times, and drier summers of our own.

Even if lawn usage accounts for 3% of Oklahoma water usage (I don’t buy that number given our lack of heavy industry and aquifer fed farming) , every drop really does matter. Most of the water in the southwestern part of the country comes from Colorado. Even Tulsa’s Arkansas river comes from Colorado headwaters. We have strict water restrictions of our so we can pass on water downstream. It sucks for Colorado to have to make sacrifices just to watch users downstream waste it away.

We are okay on drinking water.

I do call it the " Colorado Dividend ", being downstream of the Rocky mountain runoff.

[Plutonic Panda]

Oklahoma like every other state downstream of Colorado need to realize we are having drier, shorter, and warmer winters and sporadic, unreliable monsoon cycles. Our snowpack can’t sustain all of these states downstream of us forever at current usages when taking into account less snowpack, faster melt times, and drier summers of our own.

Even if lawn usage accounts for 3% of Oklahoma water usage (I don’t buy that number given our lack of heavy industry and aquifer fed farming) , every drop really does matter. Most of the water in the southwestern part of the country comes from Colorado. Even Tulsa’s Arkansas river comes from Colorado headwaters. We have strict water restrictions of our so we can pass on water downstream. It sucks for Colorado to have to make sacrifices just to watch users downstream waste it away.

I never said Oklahoma lawn water usage makes up 3%. The number I gave is from an article claiming 50-70 percent. You buy that number?

[ChrisHayes]

I never said Oklahoma lawn water usage makes up 3%. The number I gave is from an article claiming 50-70 percent. You buy that number?

I don't buy that number at all. In my neighborhood, I never see people watering. Now, I don't live in an upper middle class neighborhood either. Oklahoma gets most of it's water from spring and early summer rainstorms. We're in a La Nina cycle right now, and La Nina's can offer up drier springs and summers like we've had this year. Then, when we go back into a neutral Enso or an El Nino, it's far more rainy and any drought is broken. For the most part, drought in the southern plains is temporary. Though, we can go into couple or few year droughts from time to time. Having a lawn here isn't that bad. People just need to be smart about watering it. Now, if we were in Phoenix, that would be a different story simply because of how hot it get every summer. I do wish Oklahoma would build a couple more reservoirs. We're going to need them eventually. There have been plans to expand one reservoir and build another in California for decades, but it's never been done. Now, they're paying for it and will for years to come.

[Pete]

I never said Oklahoma lawn water usage makes up 3%. The number I gave is from an article claiming 50-70 percent. You buy that number?

I believe it.

Only 18% of Oklahoma's cropland is irrigated.

Where do you think all the water is going? If you walk every early morning as I do, you'll see half the houses pumping tons of water on their lawns.

[Bill Robertson]

Not sure what the percentage could possibly be. But I know Saturday we used 337 gallons by watering two flower beds in the front yard for about a half hour each. I can imagine what watering the yard would use. We used 70 Sunday doing a couple loads of laundry and running the dishwasher. Both days of course also had normal stuff like flushing toilets and showers.

[gopokes88]

OKC and Oklahoma has plenty of water.

That flood a few years ago on Lake Keystone, just the water coming through the flood gates alone could have filled both Lake Powell and Lake Mead in 25 days.

While 350 gallons sounds like a lot, it isn't. One acre foot is 325,000. Arcadia Lake has 30,000 acre feet, Thunder bird has 100,000 acre feet, Hefner has around 70,000 acre feet. The bigger lakes like Eufula, Texoma, Grand all have over 2,000,000 acre feet.

The water problems start in the mountain time zone. The Colorado compacts are going to be renegotiated at some point. The country has a ton of water, just all of it in the wrong spots.

[Midtowner]

And with a decent network of reservoirs and pumps, "all the wrong spots" is a completely fixable problem. Oklahoma simply (and I say simply and it is not simple at all) needs to figure out the issue of sovereign tribal rights to water. As I said years earlier in this thread, the concept of tribal sovereign rights to water under the Winters doctrine only permitted the tribes so much water rights as would be required ot irrigate the arable land in their territory. In much of eastern Oklahoma, additional irrigation is not always necessary as they have plenty of rainfall. And even if we allot them all of the water they need to irrigate their arable land, there's plenty of water left over for the State to appropriate.

All of this talk about xeriscaping and conservation is highly premature. As our water resources become better developed, it's not as if we can xeriscape our yard in OKC and then someone in Las Vegas can take a shower. We either use our water resources or they don't get used. I, for one, enjoy a thick, luscious stand of grass in my yard.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^^ +1

[Pete]

There is a very long continuum between a no-water landscape and dumping thousands of gallons of water on your grass all summer long, often on 'cool weather' turf that has no business being planted in Oklahoma.

[Bill Robertson]

Speaking of cool or warm weather grass. The guy that lived in the house to our east seeded with something a few years ago that is dark green all summer without watering at all. This hot spell is the first time I've ever seen brown spots. And it's spreading and taking over my Bermuda. I don't know what it is but I wish it would hurry and take over the rest of my yard.

[mugofbeer]

And with a decent network of reservoirs and pumps, "all the wrong spots" is a completely fixable problem. Oklahoma simply (and I say simply and it is not simple at all) needs to figure out the issue of sovereign tribal rights to water. As I said years earlier in this thread, the concept of tribal sovereign rights to water under the Winters doctrine only permitted the tribes so much water rights as would be required ot irrigate the arable land in their territory. In much of eastern Oklahoma, additional irrigation is not always necessary as they have plenty of rainfall. And even if we allot them all of the water they need to irrigate their arable land, there's plenty of water left over for the State to appropriate.

All of this talk about xeriscaping and conservation is highly premature. As our water resources become better developed, it's not as if we can xeriscape our yard in OKC and then someone in Las Vegas can take a shower. We either use our water resources or they don't get used. I, for one, enjoy a thick, luscious stand of grass in my yard.

Seems to me the current organization of water rights is outdated. Water is a natural resource that should be governed based on what is best for the populous and not based on someone's "water rights", individual or tribal.

[DowntownMan]

There is a very long continuum between a no-water landscape and dumping thousands of gallons of water on your grass all summer long, often on 'cool weather' turf that has no business being planted in Oklahoma.

I think a lot of people water yards not realizing what’s best or what they are doing. I for one have seeded a special grass that stays green but is more drought friendly so I just water somewhat heavily once a week in early morning and I still have a very green yard. But then I have neighbors who’s yards are mostly brown and they are watering nearly daily or every other day at 3pm and their yards are mostly brown. I think a lot of people have sprinklers set and don’t think anything about it or monitor them. I check mine almost monthly to ensure they are spraying correctly and not leaking or spraying out into street.
There is just lots of waste by people who water and don’t even have green yards or monitor what they are watering. .

[Dob Hooligan]

I wish this was a new thread. The original dealt with a longer dry spell than we are currently experiencing. I drive by the east side of Lake Hefner on the parkway and it is obvious the water has not dropped at a problem level. I seek very little drop by the lighthouse and no dry shoreline by Stars and Stripes Park. 3 months of low rain is not a drought IMO.

[MagzOK]

I think a lot of people water yards not realizing what’s best or what they are doing. I for one have seeded a special grass that stays green but is more drought friendly so I just water somewhat heavily once a week in early morning and I still have a very green yard. But then I have neighbors who’s yards are mostly brown and they are watering nearly daily or every other day at 3pm and their yards are mostly brown. I think a lot of people have sprinklers set and don’t think anything about it or monitor them. I check mine almost monthly to ensure they are spraying correctly and not leaking or spraying out into street.
There is just lots of waste by people who water and don’t even have green yards or monitor what they are watering. .

What kind of grass did you seed with? Did you oversee Bermuda and have it take over? Thanks.

[bombermwc]

I think a lot of people water yards not realizing what’s best or what they are doing. I for one have seeded a special grass that stays green but is more drought friendly so I just water somewhat heavily once a week in early morning and I still have a very green yard. But then I have neighbors who’s yards are mostly brown and they are watering nearly daily or every other day at 3pm and their yards are mostly brown. I think a lot of people have sprinklers set and don’t think anything about it or monitor them. I check mine almost monthly to ensure they are spraying correctly and not leaking or spraying out into street.
There is just lots of waste by people who water and don’t even have green yards or monitor what they are watering. .

This kills me. When all the homes are built in my neighborhood, Taber uses the same sprinkler setup for them, which defaults to like a 9am time. So 9am rolls around and a bunch of houses start watering. I sit there and think, most of that is about to evaporate before it even makes it in to the soil. But like you said, they don't bother to check it. Mine runs for a short 5-10 minutes in each zone at 9PM. It's often still fairly wet in some areas the next morning when i go to mow. So it doesn't really get much water, but it's at the right time of day for it to soak in before it all boils off. My grass is quite green. It's slower growing right now because of the heat, but i'm not complaining. If you water too much, it also causes the roots to shorten because they dont have to reach as far for water. Drought hits, the upper soil dries out, and your grass goes dormant. Overwatering is actually BAD for your yard!!!

People often over mow when its hot too. Really every other week is about as much as you should. The weekly mowing in drought conditions promotes the browning. My neighbor has his lawn mowed by a service each week and its getting those large dormant splotches in it now. His yard waters at the same time as mine. Only difference is that mine gets mowed half as often.

You just have to put some thought into things and adjust those sprinkler times. Just because you have one, doesn't make you evil and water hogging. You just have to use it wisely. It can actually really help if you use it properly.

[TU 'cane]

Anyone is more than welcome to fact check the following statement but the top two biggest uses of water in the U.S. are for agriculture and electricity.

Those are the two biggest things we need to live today. For Plu Pan who keeps bringing up agricultural usage and wanting to tamp that down (presumably), please offer an alternative? Are you going to simply shut those farms down? Kick the farmers to the road so billionaire Bill Gates can go and buy up the land (not a conspiracy, he is now considered the largest farmland owner in the U.S.) instead? What happens to that family? What happens to that part of the food supply?

I'm not necessarily arguing or defending but these are some legitimate questions that aren't easily answered.

As for some of the other things mentioned, I asked in another thread how many new reservoirs have been built in the U.S. in the last 40 years? My guess is less than 10. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow and we continue to let some hundreds of thousands across the borders every year that only exacerbates the ongoing issues. I'm all for immigration but the fact is people need water. More people need more water. The infrastructure needs to be there and it isn't.

Talking about xeriscaping and all of that is great. Will it help a little? Sure, but probably not quite as much as we would hope. I still think we need to start looking at the "ideal green lawn" and its usage compared to other alternatives.

[Roger S]

If you water too much, it also causes the roots to shorten because they dont have to reach as far for water. Drought hits, the upper soil dries out, and your grass goes dormant. Overwatering is actually BAD for your yard!!!

Overwatering is only bad in the fact that you have overwatered. Bermuda grass roots will grow up to 2' into the ground if watered deeply.... That's exactly why it is such a drought tolerant grass.

Watering it shallow and mowing it to short is the biggest problem most people have with their bermuda going dormant.

[Midtowner]

My yard certainly isn't green. In the back, it's mostly gone dormant. In the front, I've been a little more agressive. This time of year, you should raise your mowing deck. If it will get down into the high 70's/low 80's for a few days, you need to do your Fall fertilization. I have what I think is a pretty neat controller box that was a pretty cheap/simple upgrade from my old RainBird controller box.

Check into the Rachio systems. They do some pretty cool things like interval watering where they'll water for 7 minutes, shut off for a bit to let it soak in, then start again. They have some decent conservation features such as being hooked into local weather networks to know when the wind/precipitation make watering pointless.

My thing here is that there are folks treating folks who keep nice lawns as if we are wasteful. If there was some small chance that the OKC metro was going to completely run out of water, I'd say you had a point. But since that isn't happening, and the only thing at risk is the water level at Lake Canton, which in this heat is probably not seeing a lot of business anyhow, goes down a bit, that's a risk I'm willing to live with.

[TheTravellers]

My yard certainly isn't green. In the back, it's mostly gone dormant. In the front, I've been a little more agressive. This time of year, you should raise your mowing deck. ...

I've been told by a greenskeeper for multiple country clubs (and read online also) that for Bermuda, you should start at your lowest notch (1.25" for me), and raise it a notch on Memorial Day, another on Independence Day, and again for the last time on Labor Day.

[Roger S]

I've been told by a greenskeeper for multiple country clubs (and read online also) that for Bermuda, you should start at your lowest notch (1.25" for me), and raise it a notch on Memorial Day, another on Independence Day, and again for the last time on Labor Day.

I like the process of using the holidays to know when to change the deck height... I mow mine like this but raise the deck quicker.... And I've always mowed my bermuda at 3" by the time summer heat hits to help shade the roots and slow evaporation.

I turned my last lawn, in Moore, from a dandelion patch, when I bought it, to the nicest yard in the neighborhood in 3 seasons.

I've turned 5 acres of weeds and Johnson grass at my farm in to thick bermuda doing the same and it only gets watered by mother nature..... It is dormant now since it's been 60 days since we had over .25" of rain there but it will snap right back when this drought ends.

[Midtowner]

I've been told by a greenskeeper for multiple country clubs (and read online also) that for Bermuda, you should start at your lowest notch (1.25" for me), and raise it a notch on Memorial Day, another on Independence Day, and again for the last time on Labor Day.

I love that. There's a lot of great collective knowledge here. I'm going to start a thread on lawn care. I bought a house in Edmond on a 1/3 acre lot. We were covered in all kinds of native plants, and in the first season went through a great deal of roundup just getting things right. This second season has been okay, but the heat has been oppressive. I have no idea if my irrigation coverage is acceptable or if anything I'm doing is right. I've got my deck set pretty high right now and am only mowing about once per week. I haven't been able to fertilize since May because of the heat.

[gopokes88]

There is a very long continuum between a no-water landscape and dumping thousands of gallons of water on your grass all summer long, often on 'cool weather' turf that has no business being planted in Oklahoma.

Agreed here. Bermuda is a fantastic grass. Tough, tolerant, doesn't need much water.

I like a nice lawn because it's where my kids play almost all day.

We've had 9 years of great rainfall. Weather isn't linear

[bombermwc]

Anyone is more than welcome to fact check the following statement but the top two biggest uses of water in the U.S. are for agriculture and electricity.

Those are the two biggest things we need to live today. For Plu Pan who keeps bringing up agricultural usage and wanting to tamp that down (presumably), please offer an alternative? Are you going to simply shut those farms down? Kick the farmers to the road so billionaire Bill Gates can go and buy up the land (not a conspiracy, he is now considered the largest farmland owner in the U.S.) instead? What happens to that family? What happens to that part of the food supply?

I'm not necessarily arguing or defending but these are some legitimate questions that aren't easily answered.

As for some of the other things mentioned, I asked in another thread how many new reservoirs have been built in the U.S. in the last 40 years? My guess is less than 10. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow and we continue to let some hundreds of thousands across the borders every year that only exacerbates the ongoing issues. I'm all for immigration but the fact is people need water. More people need more water. The infrastructure needs to be there and it isn't.

Talking about xeriscaping and all of that is great. Will it help a little? Sure, but probably not quite as much as we would hope. I still think we need to start looking at the "ideal green lawn" and its usage compared to other alternatives.

This is basically what I said before. What you DO have control over, is what you buy. That's how you can exercise controls here. We, the consumers, created the problem and the best, so we also have a responsiblity in fixing this. So here is what you can do with just a few examples.

Almonds - Well, buy as few as possible. They are a high high high water user and are mostly grown in areas of California that only exist as farmland, because of irrigation. Almond milk....hello. This is a HUGE consumer water user that can easily be adjusted by buying alternatives that do not require so much water in their cycle.

Avacados - pay attention to where they are grown. Haas from Mexico may not be available year round, but they dont require the same irrigation, again that the items grown in CA do. This really stretches to other items that we buy year-round, but require an immense amount of effort to make them be available year round. It's not just water, but the whole carbon cycle.

We can't just tell California that they can't have water anymore. We'd run out of food. The area fed off the Colorado obviously is not going to be able to sustain the basin like it once could. If you want water, you're going to have to start paying for it to be desalinated and piped in. That means that you, the consumer, is also going to have the cost of that passed on to you. So again, you decide how that goes based on your spending. If you're ok with paying $3 more for a carton of Almond Milk, then great, problem solved. If not, then you as the consumer, have to help decide how you are going to help the problem. And just saying you're going to cut it off, is not going to help.