OKLAHOMA CITY – The state 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.
“I hope we’re out of the rainy season now and things will dry out,” he said Friday.
After the storm finally passed, 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 three feet, until we hit solid rock, so we know it won’t wash out.”
Soon after, the mayor said, a major water-line repair project was undertaken. Financed with a grant from the Eastern Oklahoma Development District, nearly a mile of the 3.5-mile water main that extends from the town’s water treatment plant into the city was replaced – and Beggs, an Okmulgee County town of approximately 1,180 residents, was out of water for the next five days.
“That line is gravity-fed, and it took that long to bleed the air out of it,” Branson explained.
Yohanes Sugeng, chief of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s Engineering and Planning Division who also is in charge of 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. “I think we’re almost done with the documentation,” he said Friday.
Repair estimates range from $800,000 to $1.5 million. “We don’t have that kind of money just laying around,” Branson 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 public information officer.
The crescent-shaped New Beggs Lake is approximately 2.5 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.