Published: November 19, 2007 11:07 am            

Water: When and where we need it

Above normal rainfall in Ada just part of the weather cycle, officials say

Ada is approaching its all-time record of precipitation during the past century, but if it is to be the wettest year on record, it’s going to take a lot of rain — and possibly snow — during the final weeks of November and in December.

So far, in 2007, the city has received 50.55 inches of precipitation. Ada’s record high is 63.97 inches in 1990.

While the area welcomed the summer rains, it didn’t end concern for many about the area’s water needs of the future.

Even the 12.70 inches received in June is not a record. Less than a year after Statehood in June 1908, Ada residents were swamped by 17.45 inches of rainfall. And 14.61 inches fell in May 1957.

When it comes to all-time precipitation — rain, sleet, snow — it’s difficult to put it in perspective.

Statistics for Ada’s precipitation go back to January 1907, when the city was part of the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory. During that century, Ada has received more than 3,700 inches. Put another way, that century of rainfall would reach the 30th floor of some skyscrapers. Flip a football field on its side, and water would rise from one end zone to the other.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service say statistics can be very misleading. Oklahoma’s precipitation runs in alternating wet and dry cycles.

After several years of below-average totals, Ada received what city officials say was the 100-year storm in June.

Brian Vance, an Oklahoma Water Resources Board spokesman, said “rainfall in the Ada area runs in cycles. Wet years will normally be followed by less than normal rainfall.”

According to data from the Oklahoma Mesonet, the statewide average rainfall through July 16 — 29.05 inches — had already eclipsed the yearly rainfall amounts of both 2005 and 2006. The yearly totals for 2005 was 26.93 and in 2006 it was 28.59 inches. While the drought is over — at least for now — in the Ada area, water will continue to be a top priority for city leaders.

Water concern will not end soon

Oklahoma’s governor was concerned about the state’s future a quarter-century ago.

“In the year 2007, if we haven’t faced it (Oklahoma’s water problem), there can be no growth whatsoever in western Oklahoma and we will actually have a retrenchment former Gov. George Nigh warned.

As Oklahoma celebrates its 100th birthday, some say we’ve made little progress when it comes to water issues.

Nigh, a graduate of East Central University in Ada, is still concerned about the Sooner State’s water.

“It is such a valuable resource for the state,” he said recently. “It will only before more valuable in the future.”

A year after Oklahomans were celebrating their state’s 75th birthday in 1982, the Associated Press offered readers a look ahead to 2007.

“Parts of Oklahoma will have gone dry by the year 2007, even if all the feuding and fighting over water development ends soon,” one the AP articles predicted. “That’s the dismal forecast of water planners, noting 29 years elapsed from the time California enacted a water transfer law until the project was in place. A breakthrough occurred in Oklahoma in 1982 when the Legislature approved a $25 million fund to generate an estimated $250 million in loans for local water projects.”

But soon after, supporters of Oklahoma water development suffered what Nigh called a “double-whammy.” The water fund idea drew a negative vote of the people and federal officials cut back on funding earmarked for water projects. And Oklahoma’s economy was hampered by a budget crunch, led by the oil industry bust in the early-1980s. That led state legislators to divert water funds for other purposes — a move fought by outnumbered lawmakers from arid western Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s Civil War

Twenty-five years ago, state legislators squared off over water. Heated skirmishes between eastern and western lawmakers became the norm.

Geography can be blamed for some of the turmoil. Oklahoma is split into two halves: The eastern portion that receives, most years, plenty of rainfall, and the dry western region.

Oklahoma western lawmakers were warning a quarter-century ago that parts of their area were drying up, raising the specter of another Dust Bowl. Meanwhile, those is the east have taken a protectionist stance against efforts to tap into their water supply.

Irrigation in western Oklahoma — an area that explorers in the early 1800s called the Great American Desert — turned a former desert area to rich wheatland.

A comprehensive water development plan completed in 1978 envisioned a conveyance system for moving water from east to west, but planners concluded such a transfer, at $7.8 billion, was too expensive for irrigation.

Nigh said recently he regretted not pushing harder for a plan unveiled late in the 1981 session to trade oil for water.

The oil-for-water plan had the west giving up revenue from oil and gas production in return for water development funding.

Prediction that Oklahoma’s water will be valuable was on money

A quarter-century ago, some legislators made startling predictions.

“I firmly believe that in this state, a barrel of water will be worth as much someday as a barrel of oil (currently nearing $100 a barrel),” said former state Sen. Ray Giles, D-Pocasset in 1983.

But others were not convinced.

In 1983, former state Sen. John Young, D-Sapulpa, called the water transfer plan “just a pipedream. “I don’t even think anybody could ever be able to afford the utility bills to pump it.”

Young said back then that a plan to bring drinking water to central Oklahoma’s cities had a better chance of passing in the state Legislature.

Nigh said the drought of 1980 changed thinking on water development, indicating that he believes things could get rolling again if the economy improves.

Where did it come from?

Oil and water may not mix, but Oklahoma’s two most valuable resources developed side by side over the eons leading up to man’s arrival.

Geologists say present Oklahoma was flat and almost completely engulfed by a shallow sea some 400 million years ago.

Our area, scientists believe, changed very little during the next 100 million years or so. But there was a force building beneath the watery surface. There were massive explosions as the earth quaked violently. Meanwhile, entire sections of the seabed rose, producing sprawling mountain chains as the earth was tilted and folded.

The violent upheaval formed two large basins in what is now Oklahoma — Anadarko Basin in the west and Arkoma Basin in the east.

Geologists say these massive depressions, over the millenniums, filled with water. As the eons passed, skeletons and shells of marine creatures of all shapes and sizes formed a layer on the outer edge of these inland seas in swamps and marshlands.

From time to time, those water-filled basins and adjacent swamps sank even more. As mud, sand and gravel washed in to cover the swamps, the material was sealed in deposits, preserving it from decay until wildcatters in Indian and Oklahoma territories began recovering crude oil and natural gas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The same forces that turned ancient swamps into “black gold” also trapped something else that could be, in the long run, even more valuable — fresh water.

The creation of limestone and sandstone rocks, alluvial deposits and other formations allowed storage of billions and billions of gallons of water in aquifers.

Man arrives on the scene

Oklahoma celebrated its 100th birthday Nov. 16, but the area has been home to people and animals for quite some time.

As a crossroads and home, its history goes back more than 10,000 years, anthropologists say.

A bison skull recovered in a Harper County dig a little more than a decade ago is the oldest painted object in North America. The skull is from the Cooper site, a 10,000-year-old spot near Fort Supply, where Folsom-period inhabitants killed bison along the Beaver River.

And the Domebo site in Caddo County is where hunters killed a 10-ton mammoth around 11,000 years ago.

Scientists believe Clovis people were in present Oklahoma about 12,000 years ago. And an accepted theory is that the ceremonial and burial complex for a Caddoan-speaking Mississippian culture was at Spiro Mounds.

Geography has greatly influenced Oklahoma history

Oklahoma is divided geographically by the Cross Timbers, a natural barrier of scrub timber and thickets. Much of the land east of that line is rough woodlands, while western Oklahoma is largely flat prairie.

Lifestyles, according to archaeological studies, show that those who lived in eastern and western sections were as different as its geography.

Clovis man, 12,000 years ago, lived in scattered, temporary camps. Their main source of food was probably the mammoth, a huge , hairy creature that resembled the elephant.

Conversely, as recently as 800 years ago, there were no towns in the west.

Water remains a controversial issue in Oklahoma

Oklahoma’s water comes from a variety of sources, including underground aquifers and surface lakes, rivers and streams.

A 2000 study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Oklahomans use 1.7 billion gallons of water daily.

In three days, for example, Okies use as much water as Oklahoma City’s Lake Overholser can store.

Projections show another 1.3 million people will be moving to Oklahoma during the next 50 years, Smith said.

“One billion people will be facing absolute water scarcity by 2025,” according to a recent prediction in “The Futurist” magazine. “Countries such as China and India will have to drastically reduce water use in agriculture to satisfy residential and industrial water needs.”

One thing is certain: Water continues to become more valuable every day. And one year of above-average precipitation will not change.

        

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