OKLAHOMA CITY – A water supply plan devised more than 40 years ago is being revived, this time with a concept to construct a pipeline from a lake near Texarkana, Arkansas, to Altus.
The project is a recent departure from a plan to build a 300-mile pipeline from Hugo Lake and tap into additional water resources along the path to boost supply across southeastern and southwestern Oklahoma. Following public pushback at Hugo City Council meetings, newly elected officials fired City Manager Leah Thomas in May and stopped the plan cold.
“They changed council and chose not to pursue that,” said Altus City Manager Gary Jones, who spearheaded the concept.
Hugo Mayor Tina Bunn told Hugo Daily News in April that to ensure the community had enough to attract new industry, she would oppose the sale of water.
Jones said the goal of the line is not to drain or burden any community’s supply of water, but to find numerous water sources to pool into a larger supply for mutual benefit.
This time, the plan would add water from out of state, he noted.
“For this to happen, it would take a lot of different partners that come together,” Jones said. “The federal government, tribes obviously have a say-so in part of it, the State of Oklahoma, funding to borrow for it and agreements from municipalities to purchase it at a certain price to pay for it.”
Jones said the project is in a preliminary discussion phase with Texarkana and Oklahoma officials. As previously reported by Southwest Ledger, a project of such scale would likely cost billions to construct. The plan revised The latest concept is to build the estimated 365-mile water line in phases from Texarkana to Durant; from Ardmore to Kingston; from Ada to southern Cleveland County to extend along Interstate 44 to Chickasha; from Fort Sill to Tom Steed Lake, which is Altus’ primary source of drinking water.
Excess water from Lake Millwood near Texarkana spills over its dams from the Little River to the Red River –water that could otherwise be harnessed, Jones said. If the plan materializes, stakeholders could purchase the water or choose to sell water for distribution, including Hugo.
“We think there’s a mutual benefit if this happens and that’s what we’re focusing on,” Jones said.
Jones said he also has spoken with the state’s congressional members and staff, but no agreements have been reached for support, he said.
Talks also have included some members of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, Jones said, including Matt Muller and Ron Justice.
Muller, whose term on the board recently lapsed, expressed some optimism for the plan.
“Just because it’s an engineering possibility, doesn’t mean it automatically should be done,” Muller said. “You’ve got to look at the cost and all that. But yes, it’s something worth exploring.”
For decades, western Oklahoma has struggled with drought. And falling rainwater levels have limited the recharge rate of aquifers, according to numerous weather and climate records.
Muller said western Oklahoma should “be thinking in terms of how they can secure their water future.”
Justice, an OWRB member in Chickasha who represents rural residential water interests on the board, did not respond to requests for comment.
Spokesperson for OWRB Robby Short said the board and its director, Julie Cunningham, is not familiar with the project and had no comment.
Lake Millwood Located in southwest Arkansas, 35 miles north of Texarkana, Lake Millwood is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Local officials said they are not hurting for water.
“We’re in a different water situation than southwest Oklahoma over here,” said J. D. Phillips, spokesperson for Southwest Arkansas Water District in Texarkana. “We’re not hurting for water.”
He also said the district sold its water rights to the Texarkana Water Utilities, “a joint department” of the cities Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas. TWU provides water to those cities and to the surrounding areas, using Lake Wright Patman, a reservoir in Bowie County, Texas, and Lake Millwood, its website states.
Gary Smith, TWU director, was unavailable for comment.
The Army Corps of Engineers built Millwood Lake and its dam as part of the federal Flood Control Act of 1946. It was completed in 1966 to manage floodwaters around the Red River, which cuts between the Texas and Oklahoma border and southeast to Louisiana. Several reservoirs have been constructed on tributaries of the river in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Historic plan, historic fight Former U.S. Sen. Rob-ert S. Kerr championed the cause of increasing water supply in rural Oklahoma in the 1960s. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board in 1980 adopted Kerr’s plan, which included a longrange water pipeline.
Reports across the state at the time also show that rural and urban water stakeholders and members of the state Legislature were often at odds with the idea of moving water from east to west. Eastern lawmakers experienced pushback from constituents to any plan to advance water westward.
As previously reported by the Ledger, southeastern Oklahoma also has water supply and quality challenges, though less consistently than the western part of the state.
The plan to take water from southeast Oklahoma and send it west has since faded into history.
Jones said the enormity of the project and term limits for state elected officials have stunted continuity to keep the concept moving forward. He said he hopes the concept can become a reality “one piece at a time.”