{"id":25424,"date":"2015-11-05T15:23:48","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T21:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=25424"},"modified":"2015-11-05T15:23:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T21:23:48","slug":"water-redistribution-and-wild-new-ideas-dominate-legislative-study-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/11\/05\/water-redistribution-and-wild-new-ideas-dominate-legislative-study-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Redistribution and Wild New Ideas Dominate Legislative Study Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_25431\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25431\" alt=\"Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Tom Buchanan address lawmakers at a legislative study on water Monday, November 2, 2015. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic2-e1446756878538.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic2-e1446756878538.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic2-e1446756878538-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic2-e1446756878538-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic2-e1446756878538-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Tom Buchanan address lawmakers at a legislative study on water Monday, November 2, 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>This spring, Oklahoma <a title=\"Weather.comLink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.weather.com\/forecast\/regional\/news\/plains-rain-flood-threat-wettest-may-ranking\" target=\"_blank\">faced a problem<\/a> it hadn\u2019t in a while: <i>too much<\/i> water. Much of that floodwater flowed into rivers and out of Oklahoma \u2014 and that\u2019s sparking big new ideas at the state capitol, and rousing an old fight.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/231728335&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>A touchy subject<\/h3><p>Oklahoma City pumps water to Lake Stanley Draper along the 100 mile long <a title=\"DigitalPrairieLink\" href=\"http:\/\/digitalprairie.ok.gov\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/redriver\/id\/648\" target=\"_blank\">Atoka Pipeline<\/a>. The water comes from poverty-stricken but water-rich southeast Oklahoma, where water drives the tourism industry. The pipeline helps quench the needs of the thirsty metro, but it also fuels <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/04\/02\/the-view-from-sardis-lake-why-moving-water-to-where-its-needed-is-so-hard\/\" target=\"_blank\">the fight between those who have water and those who don\u2019t<\/a>. So when the group Oklahomans for Responsible Water Policy heard about a legislative study called \u2018Drought and the Redistribution of Water\u2019 at its annual meeting, speaker Jerry Ellis, a former state senator, fumed.<\/p><p>\u201cWhy do you think Representative Doug Cox requested this interim study? He has one year left. He\u2019s not going to face the voters again,\u201d Ellis told the crowd.<\/p><p>Adding to the anxiety, the legislative study coincides with a <a title=\"KSWOlink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kswo.com\/story\/30388809\/controversy-over-water-rights-in-oklahoma\" target=\"_blank\">potential change<\/a> in the powerful Oklahoma Farm Bureau\u2019s position on selling water out of state. In the past, Farm Bureau has been against the idea, but VP of Public Policy John Collison says it\u2019s time to reconsider, and thinks the potential exists beyond Texas.<\/p><p>&#8220;Maybe it\u2019s to California. Maybe it\u2019s to New Mexico,\u201d Collison told StateImpact. \u201cIf we have an excess amount of water \u2014 and that\u2019s to be studied down the road and looked at \u2014 if we do have an excess amount of water, why wouldn\u2019t we sell it? We sell our oil and gas. We sell our excess wind. We sell our excess resources all the time. Why are we not looking at selling excess water to fund water infrastructure?\u201c<\/p><p>Farm Bureau would love to see more pipelines bringing water to farmers and communities in western Oklahoma. President Tom Buchanan made that clear during the study on Monday.<\/p><p>\u201cWe have areas where it rains, and we have areas where it doesn\u2019t. We have areas that have more water, and areas that don\u2019t. But the waters of Oklahoma \u2014 Oklahoma Farm Bureau believe \u2014 need to be developed, so that all Oklahomans benefit,\u201d Buchanan told lawmakers.<\/p><p>That kind of talk worries Russell Doughty with Oklahomans for Responsible water policy. He knows how important tourism is for his part of the state.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25432\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25432\" alt=\"A plaque at the end of the Atoka Pipeline, where it meets Lake Stanley Draper. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic1-e1446756994770.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic1-e1446756994770.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic1-e1446756994770-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic1-e1446756994770-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/11\/PHOTO-11-5-Pic1-e1446756994770-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plaque at the end of the Atoka Pipeline, where it meets Lake Stanley Draper.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>\u201c[Buchanan\u2019s] comment seems to assume that water in southeast Oklahoma isn\u2019t somehow developed. As if it\u2019s just sitting there undeveloped,\u201d Doughty says. \u201cAnd I would say that a strong and vibrant recreational community down in southeast Oklahoma requires that water to be there. We <i>are<\/i> using it.\u201d<\/p><p>Farm Bureau might call water used for boating, fishing, and swimming \u2018excess water,\u2019 and push for it to be piped west. That fight continues. But that\u2019s not the water Farm Bureau is talking about right now, or that Representative Doug Cox had in mind to sell when he proposed this study.<\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;Excess&#8217; water<\/h3><p>\u201cI\u2019ve lived on Grand Lake for 34 years, and I stand on that spillway and watch that water racing over it, and thinking we\u2019re not making electricity with it. We\u2019re not using it for industrial use. It\u2019s just waste,\u201d Cox said at the beginning of the study.<\/p><p>Cox, a Republican from Grove, envisions a much more grandiose, and some would say outlandish idea to solve Oklahoma\u2019s water problems for good: Capture the water that dams release when it rains too much, store it, and sell it to help fund the construction of a network of water pipelines crisscrossing the state.<\/p><p>\u201cThe solution is to create a central treatment and distribution network using that excess eastern Oklahoma water, so that we can get economies of scale to hold down costs and relieve local communities of the increasing burden and expense of treating the water locally,\u201d Cox says.<\/p><p>The idea has merit, and wouldn\u2019t touch water used for recreation. But the list of problems with it goes on and on. Water only flows over spillways occasionally. How would we store this excess water?<\/p><p>\u201cI was thinking along the lines of tank storage, the concept of a tank farm for water similar to the tank farms we have in Cushing for oil,\u201d Cox says.<\/p><p>Tank farms. New lakes. Pumping water into depleted aquifers for storage. And, Oklahoma has agreements with other states like Texas and Arkansas to let certain amounts of water flow naturally across the border.<\/p><p>But the biggest problem \u2014 water infrastructure is massively expensive. And the scale of Cox\u2019s idea is huge. There are plans to <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/08\/12\/okcs-tab-for-tapping-sardis-water-could-be-1-billion\/\" target=\"_blank\">replace the Atoka Pipeline<\/a> with a new one. The cost for just that one pipeline project: more than $1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cox, a Republican from Grove, envisions a much more grandiose, and some would say outlandish idea to solve Oklahoma\u2019s water problems for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":25431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[429,468,644,519,351,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25424"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25440,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions\/25440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}