{"id":26000,"date":"2016-01-28T11:12:34","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T17:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=26000"},"modified":"2016-02-04T14:32:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T20:32:43","slug":"regulator-says-budget-cuts-could-imperil-vital-water-monitoring-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2016\/01\/28\/regulator-says-budget-cuts-could-imperil-vital-water-monitoring-programs\/","title":{"rendered":"Regulator Says Budget Cuts Could Imperil Vital Water-Monitoring Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_26008\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26008\" alt=\"Jet Stein with the OWRB's lake monitoring program prepares to test the water at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic1.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic1.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic1-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic1-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic1-300x200.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\">Jet Stein with the OWRB&#39;s lake monitoring program prepares to test the water at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Water contaminated by algae blooms or choked by sediment and pollutants kills wildlife and isn\u2019t healthy for humans. It\u2019s up to the state to make sure Oklahoma\u2019s lakes and rivers are safe, but budget cuts are threatening that mission, officials say.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/244242174&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>Water funding roller coaster<\/h3><p>Water was a big issue in 2012. <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/12\/04\/the-cost-of-oklahomas-drought-2-billion-in-two-years\/\">Drought was killing crops<\/a> and endangering municipal water supplies. The Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes had just <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/09\/19\/the-fight-for-southeast-oklahoma-water-has-19th-century-roots\/\">filed a lawsuit<\/a> over Oklahoma City\u2019s plan to pipe water from the southeast part of the state. Meanwhile, Texas was fighting for a cut of Oklahoma\u2019s water in a case that would <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/tarrant-regional-water-district-v-herrmann\/\">end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/a><\/p><p>State lawmakers took notice, and during the 2012 legislative session, made water a priority.<\/p><p>\u201cWe heard loud and clear from the public. They want us to be able to keep good tabs on the quality and quantity of our rivers, lakes and streams, and groundwater basins,\u201d says Oklahoma Water Resources Board Executive Director J.D. Strong. \u201cThe legislature heard that cry and in 2012 actually boosted the amount of funding to us.\u201d<\/p><p>That money was used for new tests, surveys and studies. State officials wanted a clearer picture of how much water Oklahoma had \u2014 and where \u2014\u00a0and its condition. Having a deeper understanding of the state\u2019s water inventory was deemed critical during drought times. But the <a title=\"NPRlink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/01\/19\/463622817\/in-oklahoma-low-energy-prices-drive-state-budget-crisis\" target=\"_blank\">biggest crisis facing the state today is fiscal<\/a>, and Strong says budget cuts could undo those water monitoring efforts.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s probably our monitoring programs that get hit the worst because they are the most reliant on state appropriations,\u201d Strong says. \u201cWe aren\u2019t able to charge the public a fee to go out and monitor our lakes and streams.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_26012\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26012\" alt=\"Julie Chambers, manager of the OWRB's lake monitoring program, uses a net and filter to capture tiny zooplankton at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic3.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic3.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic3-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic3-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/01\/PHOTO-1-28-Pic3-300x200.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\">Julie Chambers, manager of the OWRB&#39;s lake monitoring program, uses a net and filter to capture tiny zooplankton at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3>On the lake with OWRB<\/h3><p>Water quality monitoring is a tough, labor-intensive job for OWRB staff, like Julie Chambers, who manages the lake-monitoring program. It takes her to lakes in every corner of the state, big and small, whether or not they\u2019re easy to get to.<\/p><p>\u201cWhat we do is we monitor 130 lakes over a five-year time period \u2014 and we do that four times a year so we capture data seasonally,&#8221; Chamers says. &#8220;Rain snow or shine.&#8221;<\/p><p>On Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City, water now covers what was barren, exposed lakebed this time last year. Chambers and fellow OWRB staffer Jet Stein are braving frigid mid-January temperatures to get on the water and test the lake\u2019s pH levels, dissolved oxygen content, and more. The tiny life forms caught in a handheld filter tell Chambers the bottom of the lake\u2019s food chain is healthy.<\/p><p>On the truck ride back to the OWRB\u2019s Oklahoma City headquarters, Chambers isn\u2019t anxious to talk about budget cuts or hiring freezes at the agency she\u2019s been with for 18 years.<\/p><p>\u201cThat\u2019s certainly something we\u2019ll have to think about, but we haven\u2019t heard what those final budget cuts are going to be at this time,&#8221; she says.<\/p><p>Chambers is passionate about the science, not agency appropriations. That\u2019s Strong\u2019s job as the agency&#8217;s director. He\u2019s worried the agency will have to scale on a particularly expensive kind of test \u2014 for bacteria in water.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s very important for us to know and the public to know what levels of bacteria we have in our water, especially those waterways that you want to swim in,\u201d Strong says.<\/p><p>Strong says you can\u2019t manage what you don\u2019t measure. Those measurements take money the OWRB may not have when the new fiscal year begins this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s up to the state to make sure Oklahoma\u2019s lakes and rivers are safe, but budget cuts are threatening that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":26008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[526,42,444,427,600],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26000"}],"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=26000"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26028,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26000\/revisions\/26028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}