OKLAHOMA CITY – A cooperative agreement among three agencies for the collection of data about the volume of water in southwest Oklahoma was renewed recently for state Fiscal Year 2022.
The Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) assists the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in a program to collect data about the water resources in Oklahoma.
For example, the OWRB and USGS recently signed new one-year agreements with the City of Lawton, the Lugert-Altus Irrigation District, and the Fort Cobb Reservoir Master Conservancy District.
The OWRB operates and maintains continuous stage recorders on East Cache Creek near Walters, Lake Lawtonka near Medicine Park, and Lake Ellsworth near Elgin, along with data collection platforms at the lake sites.
The City of Lawton will pay the OWRB $15,200 “to cover costs of necessary field and office work directly related to the collection and computation of records of streamflow” and other data. The USGS will provide $9,400 in matching funds plus $1,000 in National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP) funds, for a total of $25,600, ledgers reflect.
Similarly, streamflow gauging stations are operated on the North Fork of the Red River near Carter, the North Fork below Altus Dam near Lugert, and at Lake Altus near Lugert. The purpose of those stations is to provide a continuous record of the inflow to and storage in Lake Altus, and the outflow from the reservoir into the natural stream channel, the OWRB explained.
The program cost for the next year is $36,200, to be financed with $21,000 from the Lugert-Altus Irrigation District, $13,200 from the USGS and $2,000 in USGS NSIP funds.
Two stream flow stations and one reservoir station are operated in the Fort Cobb Master Conservancy District. One is operated on Cobb Creek near Eakly, another on Cobb Creek near Fort Cobb, and the third is in Fort Cobb Reservoir near Fort Cobb.
The purpose of the information collected from those is “to provide data to compute a complete water budget at the reservoir,” the OWRB said.
The FCMCD contributes $21,600 to the program, the USGS provides $12,300 in matching funds plus $1,000 in NSIP funds, for a total of $34,900.
“We used to have gauges that had to be manually inspected periodically,” said Bill Cauthron, chief of the OW- RB’s Water Quality Division. “Now it’s totally electronic, and even radar is used in the collection of data.”
The stations provide “real-time and historic water-flow information that is posted on USGS web pages for the water-user community and the general public,” Cauthron said.
According to the USGS, water resources data is collected at approximately 1.9 million sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The USGS investigates the occurrence, quantity, quality, distribution, and movement of surface and underground waters, and disseminates that information to the public, state and local governments, public and private utilities, and other federal agencies involved with managing U.S. water resources.
The USGS has more than 35,000 gauging sites in Oklahoma and nearby in Arkansas and Texas, records indicate.
HUNDREDS OF SITES IN SW OKLAHOMA
Gauges in southwestern Oklahoma have been stationed in and near cities and towns, lakes, rivers and streams and their tributaries. Gauge locations include:
Buck Creek, Bitter Creek, the West Fork of Sandy Creek and the Red River, all near Hollis; Sandy Creek and its East Fork near Gould; Salt Fork of the Red River, and a tributary, near Madge; numerous sites in and around Eldorado, including Mule Creek, Sandy Creek, Gypsum Creek, and a Red River tributary; Lugert drainage ditch at Lugert; Bear Creek and Horse Creek near Vinson; Fish Creek near Mangum; Jimmy Creek near Meers; Canyon Creek near Medicine Park; Medicine Creek near Fort Sill; Medicine Creek, East Cache Creek, Medicine Bluff Creek and Little Medicine Bluff Creek, all near Lawton; a Soil Conservation Service pond near Cyril and a Chetonia Creek tributary above and below Cyril; Fuqua Lake at the dam, Walters’ Dave Boyer Lake at the dam, Humphreys Lake at the dam, Tom Steed Lake at the dam, and Marlow’s Taylor Lake at the dam.
Other locations include in and around Olustee, Creta, Reed, Mangum, Hester, Martha, Victory, Altus, McQueen, Gould, Elmer, Headrick, Granite, Warren, Hobart, Roosevelt, Cold Springs, Mountain Park, Snyder, Tipton, Davidson, Apache, Elgin, Walters, Cache, Faxon, Cookietown, Frederick, Manitou, Randlett, Taylor, Sterling, Waurika, Rush Springs, Hulen, Marlow, Duncan and its airport, Comanche, Loco, Ringling, Mountain View, Carnegie, Fort Cobb, Cement, the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and a Saddle Mountain spring, plus several locations in and around Altus Air Force Base, including landfills #1, #2 and #3, a service station, the aircraft washrack pond, and Ozark Canal.
Many of the USGS gauges aren’t operated by the OWRB. “A number of cooperators” contract directly with the USGS, Cauthron said. “Quite a few” of the gauges are supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the CoE also coordinates directly with the USGS, he said. In addition, the USGS pays for several gauges as part of its national network “for a variety of purposes,” Cauthron said.
Regardless of the source of financial support for each gauge, its data is publicly available, he noted.
Besides the USGS gauges, “We at the OWRB also do our own stream gauging for a number of locations across Oklahoma, for a number of different purposes,” Cauthron said.
“This effort is not a part of the USGS data that you see on their web page. In general, the OWRB financially supports sites to support activities such as Water Compacts with other states or sites that are absolutely necessary for water quality assessments, the state’s Comprehensive Water Plan, or for other reasons.”