OKC “has no water to sell” these days, so Norman is relying on mandatory conservation and hoping the state Department of Environmental Quality will let it use reclaimed wastewater.
The Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District, which manages Thunderbird, learned recently that no water is currently available from Oklahoma City’s Atoka line, which runs near the east Norman lake. Members of Oklahoma’s Washington delegation, in particular Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, were successful in passing a bill to allow COMCD to bring in outside water to Lake Thunderbird. Oklahoma lawmakers had tried to get some form of that bill through in previous years and didn’t succeed until last session. The victory may have come a year too late to help Thunderbird and Norman through the current drought.
Read more at: normantranscript.com
