OKLAHOMA CITY – The $5 million in ARPA funding earmarked for dam maintenance “is intended for publicly owned, non-federal, high hazard-potential dams,” said Zachary Hollandsworth, dam safety engineering manager with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.
“This will be more for the municipal dams than for the 2,107 upstream flood-control structures maintained by the state Conservation Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service,” he said.
Priority will be accorded to communities of less than 7,000 population.
“There is further prioritization of funding based on the condition of the dam being rehabilitated and the number of people downstream of the dam who could be affected by a dam breach,” Hollandsworth said.
Two such dams are in Osage and Okmulgee counties.
Waxhoma Lake spillway project
The Waxhoma Lake Spillway Project at Barnsdall, an Osage County town of approximately 1,060 residents, is among the projects that could benefit from ARPA funds, said state Rep. Jud Strom (R-Copan).
After flood waters flowing over the Lake Waxhoma dam cut into the spillway, subsequent floods threatened to destroy the levee. Residents of Barnsdall and the surrounding area rely on Lake Waxhoma as their water supply, Strom said.
According to the OWRB, Waxhoma encompasses 128 surface acres, has a maximum depth of about 40 feet, and has a capacity calculated at 1,832 acre-feet (597 million gallons of water) when the conservation pool is full.
“ARPA dollars have eased the concerns of hundreds of citizens in the city that, without these funds providing for repairs to the dam, would have very few viable options for clean drinking water,” Strom said. Repairs to the dam “also will mitigate flood damage to hundreds of homes and businesses downstream that rely on the dam” to slow flood waters into Dog Thresher and Bird Creeks, he said.
Beggs Lake dam damaged by flooding
The Legislature set aside $5 million this year to provide grants for communities whose dams are in “poor or unsatisfactory” condition. One in Okmulgee County is a likely candidate.
The earthen dam at New Beggs Lake overtopped on May 4-5, washing out several large sections of the downstream side of the embankment and the access road, officials reported. Approximately one-third of the 900-foot-long embankment was overtopped, Mayor Jacob Branson confirmed.
However, the damage was not discovered until one evening in early June, he said. “We weren’t in the habit of checking out there every day,” he said.
A rainstorm hovered over Beggs for approximately 12 hours, from 8 p.m. May 4 until about 8 a.m. May 5, Branson said. A farmer outside of town recorded 24.5 inches in his rain gauge at the time. In addition, another 4 to 5 inches of rain fell later in the day May 5, Branson recalled.
After the storm finally passed through, a trench was dug near the dam’s earthen spillway, which is covered with riprap consisting of stones and broken up concrete, “to release some of the floodwater,” Branson said. “We dug down about 3 feet, until we hit solid rock, so we know it won’t wash out.”
Damage to the dam has not posed a risk to Beggs because of the extreme summertime temperatures and the corresponding drought, the mayor said. “We’ve been under a burn ban for about a month and a half,” he noted. “We had a dry spell.”
Yohanes Sugeng, chief of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s Engineering and Planning Division who also oversees the agency’s dam management program, said the Beggs dam is classified as having a high hazard potential because of the presence of a highway immediately downstream of the structure. However, no homes have been identified as possibly impacted if the dam were to fail, he told the Water Resources Board.
The individual who inspects the dam for the city is “putting together a package” to submit in an application for funds to finance repairs, Branson said. “We’re still in the planning phase, trying to round up some money,” he told Southwest Ledger on Sept. 8.
Repair estimates range from $800,000 to $1.5 million. “We don’t have that kind of money just laying around,” the mayor said. “We’re trying to get some emergency funding from FEMA, from the OWRB, wherever we can.”
Beggs’ engineer “has reached out to us,” said Robby Short, the Water Board’s communication and marketing coordinator. “They have an application in the works.”
In addition, the Creek Nation is “helping us with funding from the Indian Health Service,” Branson told the Ledger. The IHS is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
The crescent-shaped New Beggs Lake is approximately two and a half miles east of town, north of S.H. 16 (U.S. 75 alternate route), and was completed in 1965, records reflect. Its earthen dam is 43 feet high.
The lake is fed by several artesian wells and by Adams Creek, Branson said. The lake encompasses 16 surface acres, and the town’s emergency management director measured the depth of the reservoir at 70 to 80 feet, the mayor said.