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Fight stirs over southern aquifer
09-15-2002
By Mac Bentley
The Oklahoman
Just a few miles south of Ada, Kerr Labs hydrogeologist Randall Ross cups a hand to direct some of the cool, clear water of the Byrd's Mill Spring into his mouth.
He takes a drink from the untreated water on every visit, he says.
A couple of hours later and about 15 miles to the southeast, John Bruno bends down and scoops some water into his mouth from the Rutherford Springs on Jack Ferguson's ranch, and sighs. A little later and farther south and west, in the Blue River Hunting and Fishing Area, a buddy gets down on his hands and knees and repeats the act at Desperado Springs.
Finally, on Roy Oliver's ranch northwest of the Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery, a past-middle age man looks into the clear waters that begin Pennington Creek and says, "I wish I was a kid again."
People in south-central Oklahoma, those living on top of and to the south of the Arbuckle- Simpson Aquifer, are proud of their water. It comes rushing out of the ground in hundreds of places, mostly throughout Pontotoc, Johnston and Murray counties, from Ada to Tishomingo and points all around.
It comes out of the ground clear and chilled to about 54 to 57 degrees, year round.
A fight for the water is brewing, though. A group of Canadian County towns west of Oklahoma City have their eyes on the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer. Those towns are grouped into the Central Oklahoma Water Resource Authority, which is charged with finding a solution to the area's future water problems.
PESA LLC is a private company formed to sell a pipeline to the Canadian County water authority and broker the sale of water from land owners with access to the aquifer. So far, seven applications to sell water have been made to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. A prehearing conference on the first two applications has been scheduled for Sept. 30.
Opponents of the water sales have heard and are not ready to discount their belief that PESA and the water authority intend to draw from the aquifer 70,000 acre feet per year, which equals 62 million gallons per day. Gary Jackson, founder of PESA, said the total more likely will be about 12 million gallons a day.
The amount drawn is irrelevant now, opponents say, because no one knows how much water can be pumped out of the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer before the springs dry up.
Ada gets its water from Byrd's Mill Spring, which gushes 11,000 acre feet per year from the aquifer. Durant gets its water from the Blue River, which is fed 42,000 acre feet per year from the aquifer through springs and creeks. Tishomingo gets its water from Pennington Creek, which receives 15,000 acre feet per year from the aquifer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated the Arbuckle-Simpson a Sole Source Aquifer, which means it is the only water source for the towns and cities that draw from it.
"These springs have probably been flowing since the beginning of time," said Toby Wallace, a ranch manager who pipes water from a spring to the cattle. "We're one of the few places in the U.S. that has water running out of the ground like this.
"In (the droughts of) 1998 and 2000, we wouldn't have had water for our cattle. The ponds would go dry because the only water they get is from springs."
Although still impressive, the springs already have lost some of their energy, said Scotty McCarthick, who has a convenience store and cafe near the Blue River Hunting and Fishing Area.
"I've watched the Blue River for 49 years," he said after a visit to Desperado Springs just up the bank from the river. "I don't know where it's gone, but the level of the river is down from where it was 15-20 years ago. I'm afraid if they take more out ... If the river dries up, Johnston County is going to dry up, too.
"It's a poor county. Most of it depends on hunting and fishing and tourism; most of the tourism is on the water."
The Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery sits on Pennington Creek, not too far south of the creek's beginning.
"If it affects the Pennington Creek, it will affect us," hatchery manager Kerry Graves said of the possible mining of the Arbuckle-Simpson. "If we lose that (Pennington), we're sunk."
The hatchery raises several imperiled species, Graves said, including the paddlefish, alligator snapping turtle, Arkansas River shiner, "and we'll soon be involved with the Leopard Darter," Graves said.
Chiropractors Derek and Vicki Collins don't make their living off the water, but their home sits on the site that once was the town of Viola. Spring water flowing through their yard creates a narrow but spirited 20-foot waterfall into a creek bed.
It's a very impressive site, but not like it once was.
"Three or four years ago this whole thing was covered in water," Derek Collins said, motioning to an expansive calcium formation he was standing on. "It's very, very low right now, the result of eight or nine years of drought."
Their "Viola" home is not far from Bromide, which once was famous for springs and spas and drew three trainloads of people a day from Sherman, Texas, Collins said.
Among the parties expected to protest the sale, at least until a study on the aquifer is done, are the National Park Service, cities of Ardmore, Wynnewood and Ada, the Arbuckle Master Conservancy District, the Chickasaw Nation and a Johnston County citizen.