OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Water Resources Board announced the passage and signing of “a historic suite of water policy legislation” during the recently concluded 60th Oklahoma Legislature.
The enacted legislation addresses critical needs in water infrastructure, resource administration and long-term funding intended to ensure that Oklahoma remains competitive and prepared for the evolving demands of its growing population and economy.
These measures represent the first major implementation of policy recommendations from the newly published Oklahoma Comprehensive Water Plan, a 10-year update to the state’s 50-year prospectus for water security. “We are delighted to see many of the major recommendations of the 2025 OCWP move off the page and into action,” OWRB Executive Director Julie Cunningham said.
The Legislature approved nearly $73 million in water infrastructure funding, which included $35 million appropriated for a new Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Investment Program. This program addresses critical gaps in the availability of low-interest capital funding and ensures that smaller or underserved communities can access the financing needed for essential upgrades and long-term infrastructure expansion.
The funding also includes $10 million for Rural Economic Action Plan water infrastructure grants, $2 million for a regional water project in northeastern Oklahoma, and nearly $26 million in interest earnings from the American Rescue Plan Act (a 2021 federal stimulus bill) for infrastructure projects.
Following recommendations from the Comprehensive Water Plan adopted last year, Senate Bill 1509 was signed into law, empowering the OWRB to implement statewide groundwater well spacing and avoid potential impacts from well-to-well drawdown.
SB 1509 authorizes the Water Board to adopt specific well spacing for each water basin for the purpose of establishing a maximum annual yield. The measure also eliminates the requirement that public hearings be held before establishing well spacing rules for basins.
With the signing of Senate Bill 1314, Oklahoma has taken a step to protect fresh groundwater sources by modernizing the Well Drillers Remedial Action Indemnity Fund that is used for the cleanup of abandoned, leaking, or improperly constructed groundwater wells, monitoring wells, observation wells, and wells utilized for heat exchange purposes, including but not limited to heat pump wells and geothermal wells.
SB 1314 increases the funding cap for the Indemnity Fund from $50,000 to $100,000, and raises the spending cap for each well, borehole, or pump from $10,000 to $25,000. The Indemnity Fund is fed from fees paid by individuals and companies licensed to drill or plug commercial water wells.
Additionally, a suite of new laws signed this session provides the OWRB with both the mandate and the funding to administer groundwater rights and enforcement activities, Cunningham said.
Those measures are long overdue. Newsweek recently reported that the largest underground water supply in the United States — the Ogallala Aquifer, responsible for sustaining a vast share of the nation’s farming — is steadily running dry. This raises concerns about future food production and price volatility as supplies come under strain.
The Ogallala lies beneath eight Great Plains states from South Dakota to Texas – including the entire Oklahoma Panhandle plus portions of seven northwest Oklahoma counties. The aquifer provides roughly 30% of the groundwater used for irrigation in the U.S. and supports around a fifth of the country’s agricultural output.
But water levels have been falling for decades, raising fresh concerns about how long one of the world’s most important foodproducing regions can continue to rely on it.
In some areas, groundwater levels have dropped by more than 200 feet since large-scale irrigation began, according to U.S. Geological Survey data — one of the clearest signs of longterm depletion.
Satellite analyses also have shown widespread declines across the aquifer, with maps revealing concentrated losses in heavily irrigated parts of Texas and Kansas.
In some regions, less than 40% of the original subterranean water remains.
Water wells in the Oklahoma Panhandle drilled to depths in excess of 300 and 400 feet are not uncommon, an OWRB map reflects. That map shows literally thousands of wells drilled for domestic use, for irrigation of crops, for nonirrigation agriculture, and for mining (oil and gas production).
Mike W. Ray is a fifth-generation, awardwinning journalist who has more than 55 years’ experience covering municipal, county, state and federal government in Oklahoma and Texas. He can be reached at mike. ray@swoknews.com.