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

[bradh]

If this type of weather cycle happens more frequently we many need to look into feeding water from Draper/Atoka pipeline to Hefner. Though without additional capacity like from the planned second pipeline and Lake Sardis or somewhere else that may not even be feasible.

Already happening. See the pipeline that's been going along I-44 down by the airport? That's to continue over to a pump station off MacArthur, and then I believe pump water to Lake Hefner (and then for treatment).

[RadicalModerate]

Already happening. See the pipeline that's been going along I-44 down by the airport? That's to continue over to a pump station off MacArthur, and then I believe pump water to Lake Hefner (and then for treatment).

Almost done fergot: Yup.
(with apologies for cross-referencing points of concern including Dust Bowls =)

[Plutonic Panda]

Already happening. See the pipeline that's been going along I-44 down by the airport? That's to continue over to a pump station off MacArthur, and then I believe pump water to Lake Hefner (and then for treatment).

Wait.. So there going to pump water from Draper, feed it into a pipeline, then into lake Hefner and then back into the water treatment???? Wouldn't it make more sense to just pump it straight from Draper to the treatment center?

[RadicalModerate]

Wait.. So there going to pump water from Draper, feed it into a pipeline, then into lake Hefner and then back into the water treatment???? Wouldn't it make more sense to just pump it straight from Draper to the treatment center?

Of course "there" are. Why do you appear to be so incredulous at the fantastic attack on reason and science and stuff?
(our water resources are being managed from a station on the dark side of the moon replete with a humming monolith =)

(sorry: forgot the subliminal plug: stop feeding lawn grass water. doing so flies in the face of the gravity of the situation.)

[Plutonic Panda]

Of course "there" are. Why do you appear to be so incredulous at the fantastic attack on reason and science and stuff?
(our water resources are being managed from a station on the dark side of the moon replete with a humming monolith)

Excuse me..... *they're* . and what's going on with moon?

[Plutonic Panda]

Of course "there" are. Why do you appear to be so incredulous at the fantastic attack on reason and science and stuff?
(our water resources are being managed from a station on the dark side of the moon replete with a humming monolith =)

To answer that... I question everything. Ask me a question and I'll likely answer it with question.

[bradh]

Wait.. So there going to pump water from Draper, feed it into a pipeline, then into lake Hefner and then back into the water treatment???? Wouldn't it make more sense to just pump it straight from Draper to the treatment center?

storage brotha...it's all about storage (i think)

[RadicalModerate]

. . . and still the waters roll, and flow, out of the automatic sprinkler systems, keeping the grass green, over the curbs and into the gutters and into the street on down to . . . =)
i wonder if "they" still accept beads and trinkets for manhatten?

[Dale Birchett]

I'm no inside expert on the city water supply system but I have heard the following:

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;

Once the water gets to Canton it is "turbid" primarily from upstream agricultural run-off;

The agreement with the City of Canton recognizes the economic impact of the lake as a recreation area and makes allowances for protecting this income source;

It is correct that the dry riverbed from Canton to OKC can absorb as much as 80% of a water release;

The Water Trust doesn't like to use Canton Lake water for the OKC water supply because the turbidity makes the water more expensive to purify which leads to higher water costs for system users;

The pollutants in the water settle into the lake beds making dredging a dicey proposition;

There are plans to: add a second pipeline from Lake Atoka to Draper Lake, build a 'sister' lake to Lake Draper on the west side, & build a pipeline from Draper to Lake Hefner;

While Hefner is primarily a water supply lake, in the early 1940's salesmen went door-to-door in OKC selling bonds to finance the lake envisioned by the late Mayor (Judge) Robert Hefner who said he wanted to build a lake to answer the future water supply needs of OKC and to provide a recreational area for our boys fighting in Europe and the Pacific so when they came home they would have a great park to take their families to for picnics! (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have my copy of his autobiography with me.)

Is the Oklahoma River impounding water that could have been used in Hefner and Overholser? Probably.

Would the smart move have been to run the Draper to Overholser/Hefner pipeline from Draper to the Canadian/Oklahoma river then up the river to Overholser BEFORE building the string of pearls dams? Seems that way to me.

But let's face it, Oklahoma is in infrastructure cheap mode right now, as long as it's not MAPS, and these things cost big money. So the choice is with the consumer, to keep the rates constant you can reduce water usage and let the lakes fill or keep the current utilization rate and have low lake levels. Somehow I think the golf courses and lawns are going to win out over the recreational water users.

[jn1780]

I'm no inside expert on the city water supply system but I have heard the following:

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;

Once the water gets to Canton it is "turbid" primarily from upstream agricultural run-off;

The agreement with the City of Canton recognizes the economic impact of the lake as a recreation area and makes allowances for protecting this income source;

It is correct that the dry riverbed from Canton to OKC can absorb as much as 80% of a water release;

The Water Trust doesn't like to use Canton Lake water for the OKC water supply because the turbidity makes the water more expensive to purify which leads to higher water costs for system users;

The pollutants in the water settle into the lake beds making dredging a dicey proposition;

There are plans to: add a second pipeline from Lake Atoka to Draper Lake, build a 'sister' lake to Lake Draper on the west side, & build a pipeline from Draper to Lake Hefner;

While Hefner is primarily a water supply lake, in the early 1940's salesmen went door-to-door in OKC selling bonds to finance the lake envisioned by the late Mayor (Judge) Robert Hefner who said he wanted to build a lake to answer the future water supply needs of OKC and to provide a recreational area for our boys fighting in Europe and the Pacific so when they came home they would have a great park to take their families to for picnics! (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have my copy of his autobiography with me.)

Is the Oklahoma River impounding water that could have been used in Hefner and Overholser? Probably.

Would the smart move have been to run the Draper to Overholser/Hefner pipeline from Draper to the Canadian/Oklahoma river then up the river to Overholser BEFORE building the string of pearls dams? Seems that way to me.

But let's face it, Oklahoma is in infrastructure cheap mode right now, as long as it's not MAPS, and these things cost big money. So the choice is with the consumer, to keep the rates constant you can reduce water usage and let the lakes fill or keep the current utilization rate and have low lake levels. Somehow I think the golf courses and lawns are going to win out over the recreational water users.

The Oklahoma River is downstream from Hefner and Draper so it has very little to do with these two lakes water levels. Even if it was upstream it would still have little effect since the volume of water it holds is nothing compared to these lakes. Of course, initially filling up the Oklahoma River when a dam breaks wastes a lot of water through evaporation and absorbition.

[Just the facts]

. . . and still the waters roll, and flow, out of the automatic sprinkler systems, keeping the grass green, over the curbs and into the gutters and into the street on down to . . . =)
i wonder if "they" still accept beads and trinkets for manhatten?

Good observation. Drought or raining cats and dogs, those sprinkler systems keeping all the grass green just keeps right on going. Sooner or later people are going to start to see the tremendous waste of resources we have created. Anyhow, good thing the City just finished that $50 million water plant expansion so Hefner can be drained faster. Seems like it worked as designed. The multitudes should rejoice that a public works project actually did what they designed it to do.

From 2011:

http://newsok.com/water-treatment-pl...rticle/3605613

Water treatment plant is expanded for growing Oklahoma City

The Lake Hefner Water Treatment Plant is in the midst of a $48.5 million expansion project. The plant will be able to pump out 100 million gallons of tap water each day after the renovation, up from the current 75 million gallons.

If you follow the link take a peek at the lone comment on that story.

[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.

[mkjeeves]

An older post from the Canton Lake Association web page:

Much of the watershed area for the North Canadian River is over the Ogallala Aquifer. Since the time of completion of Canton Lake, the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped some 10 feet in areas proximal to Canton, to as much as 40 feet in area of far western Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Panhandle. In northeast New Mexico, the originating point of the North Canadian River, there is no longer a measurable saturated thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer. The cause and effect comes down to this. Dry springs, dry creeks, and a dry Beaver River result in drastically reduced water flow into Canton Lake.

Canton Lake Association: A good read and some strong points by John Sprunger

I wonder when our friends in NW Oklahoma will admit to failing at conserving water, pumping the ground dry, contributing to low lake levels and the resulting damage to their economy? Will they do that when there's no more inflow, Canton is like Lake Optima, there's no water for OKC and we're no longer in the picture or will all their problems still be OKC's fault?

[Dubya61]

An older post from the Canton Lake Association web page:

Much of the watershed area for the North Canadian River is over the Ogallala Aquifer. Since the time of completion of Canton Lake, the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped some 10 feet in areas proximal to Canton, to as much as 40 feet in area of far western Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Panhandle. In northeast New Mexico, the originating point of the North Canadian River, there is no longer a measurable saturated thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer. The cause and effect comes down to this. Dry springs, dry creeks, and a dry Beaver River result in drastically reduced water flow into Canton Lake.

Canton Lake Association: A good read and some strong points by John Sprunger

I wonder when our friends in NW Oklahoma will admit to failing at conserving water, pumping the ground dry, contributing to low lake levels and the resulting damage to their economy? Will they do that when there's no more inflow, Canton is like Lake Optima, there's no water for OKC and we're no longer in the picture or will all their problems still be OKC's fault?

Per Wikipedia

[The Ogallala Aquifer] covers an area of approximately 174,000 mi² (450,000 km²) in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas

I strongly doubt it's accurate or equitable to say our friends in NW Oklahoma have failed at water conservation based on the level of the Ogallala Aquifer.

[1972ford]

Now would be a good opportunity to excavate some of the lake to increase its capacity once rain does finally fill it. I would not expect in amount necessary to make a difference until late march. All we can hope for in the meantime is a really good snowy winter and a fast thaw to fill the lakes.

[Snowman]

Now would be a good opportunity to excavate some of the lake to increase its capacity once rain does finally fill it. I would not expect in amount necessary to make a difference until late march. All we can hope for in the meantime is a really good snowy winter and a fast thaw to fill the lakes.

It would also be a good time to do rehabilitation on sections of the ramps into the lake that are normally inaccesable

[MadMonk]

Now would be a good opportunity to excavate some of the lake to increase its capacity once rain does finally fill it. I would not expect in amount necessary to make a difference until late march. All we can hope for in the meantime is a really good snowy winter and a fast thaw to fill the lakes.

Good idea! I bet that dirt would make for some pretty fertile mix-in / top soil.

[RadicalModerate]

Plus it would provide an opportunity to provide a jobs program writing citations for leaving muddy tire tracks where muddy tire tracks have never gone before . . . =)
(well . . . wouldn't it?)

[TechArch]

Or the city could place water restrictions on residents. We still have not recovered from last year's drought and this year is below average as well.

[BoulderSooner]

Or the city could place water restrictions on residents. We still have not recovered from last year's drought and this year is below average as well.

okc doesn't have a water issue .. our water trust has done a wonderful job to provide for OKC's future water needs

[Dubya61]

okc doesn't have a water issue .. our water trust has done a wonderful job to provide for OKC's future water needs

Maybe OKC doesn't have a water issue, but one of it's lakes clearly does.

[kevinpate]

Maybe OKC doesn't have a water issue, but one of it's lakes clearly does.

more than one, if memory serves.

[Bill Robertson]

Maybe OKC doesn't have a water issue, but one of it's lakes clearly does.

Actually all three lakes, Hefner, Overholser and Draper are very low. But this is only an issue as far as recreation and aesthetics are concerned. The capacity as far as usable water is not even near being dangerously low. I know that much of what's left of Hefner is still 50 to 70 feet deep based on depth at normal elevation. I believe that's the case with Draper also. The lakes are for water storage. Recreation is a side benefit when the water is there. Those of us that keep boats on the city lakes sign a form every spring that states that we understand that the lake may or may not be usable for boating. Again, the city can't make it rain.

[Achilleslastand]

Im suprised that Hefners maximum depth is about the same as Eufaula's. I always thought Eufaula was much much deeper.

[LandRunOkie]

A lot of good info there.
Here are some of the articles I've read on this:
Water issues are complex and easy answers few | Tulsa World addresses water battle with Texas

Some long form coverage from This Land (3 parts)
Troubled Waters, Part 1 | This Land Press
The Thirst Games | This Land Press

Donald Faulkner sees all this as downright disingenuous. “They’ve asked the Corps of Engineers to release 30,000 acre feet of water from Canton Lake to fill up this river in Oklahoma City, just so they can row boats on it,” he declares. “How can they say it’s okay for them to have nonconsumptive use of their water, but it’s not okay for us?”

Troubled Waters III: Balancing Act | This Land Press

Good news from newsok:
Second straight summer of drought hurts Oklahoma City reservoirs | NewsOK.com

Various projects to expand Oklahoma City's capacity to draw raw water from other parts of the state and to pump out more drinking water are under way. The city is expected to spend nearly half a billion dollars in the next five years on improving its water supply infrastructure.

Canton Lake to be lowered | Outdoors This newsok article claims 30,000 acre-feet of water went to Overholser and Hefner, not the Oklahoma River. Were there two purchases or is Ed Godfrey wrong or is Faulkner from the This Land article wrong? There is a lot of confusion on this issue..