by Asia Scudder

Every morning, most of us without much thought will  take a shower, make coffee, shave, brush teeth, water the yard – we have an unquestioned, plentiful supply of water available for our daily needs.   And clean water is essential for health and community development.

Yet even as we take it for granted, Norman’s water resources have been the center of several recent controversies. In August, the city council rejected a deal to sell water to Goldsby, OK. Citizens and councilpersons argued that Norman would be required to sell the water even if it faced its own shortages, and other areas within city limits currently do not have service.

How to handle storm water retention have been a common issue, as growth paves over land that would otherwise soak up water. Norman recently took out a $14 million loan offered under the federal stimulus bill to renovated and expand the city’s water treatment plant. Even so, it’s likely that Norman will have to continue purchasing water from Oklahoma City during the hottest days of summer. If Norman continues to grow, we may soon face difficult questions about the limits of this vital resource.

In this series of articles I will cover topics both globally and locally. I will examine how we are using water in central Oklahoma and explore how other communities have offset the pressure on water supplies.

It may seem strange that this is even an issue. Water is everywhere – it covers more than 70 percent of the Earth! However, a whopping ninety-seven percent of that water is in the oceans and unusable by humans without expensive desalination. The remaining three percent is fresh water, and three-quarters of that exists in ice sheets. The rest, around 1 percent,  is found in our underground aquifers,  rivers, streams, and fresh-water lakes – that is the water we use as our daily resource.

Today we are using more water than ever with the strain of increasing use and population growth.   But how real is the threat to our groundwater or aquifer supply? Or to our surface fresh-water supply?   Are we really in danger of running out?

If water is withdrawn from the ground at a faster rate than it is replenished, either by infiltration from the surface of from streams, then the water table can become low.   Depending on geologic and hydrologic conditions of the aquifer, the impact on the level of the water table can be short-lived or last for decades, and it can fall a small amount or many hundreds of feet. Excessive pumping can lower the water table so much that the wells no longer supply water—they can “go dry.”

The Ogallala Aquifer, which covers most of Nebraska and parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and five other states, is being drained 14 times faster than nature can replenish it.

Once depleted, water resources can take a very long time to recover. According to Robert Glennon in his book, Unquenchable:

Many uses of water inadvertently preclude its reuse for years, centuries, or even millennia.  Consider coastal areas around the country where municipalities pump groundwater, deliver it to residents, treat the resulting sewer water at regional waster water treatment plants, and finally dump it into the ocean.  This once potable water will not be available for reuse until it evaporates off the ocean, moves by wind currents over land, precipitates out, infiltrates the ground, and percolates into the aquifer, where it can be pumped from a well.

Norman water resources are currently stable. However, as recently as 2006 the city faced serious depletion that was offset only by a remarkable recharge through abundant rainfall.

About 8.4 million gallons of water per day are produced locally. That translates to about 85 gallons per person per day. At peak rates in August, the per person usage can jump to 242 gallons per day.

In 2008, Norman drew an average of 9.5 million gallons per day water from Lake Thunderbird, according to the city’s 2008 Consumer Confidence Report (pdf). That was more than Norman’s permitted allocation of 8.4 million gallons, but it was allowed because Midwest City and Del City used less than their allocations.  The rest – about 2.8 million gallons per day – came from wells drawing off the Garber-Wellington aquifer.

Garber-Wellington is the primary aquifer for Central Oklahoma. It covers roughly two thousand square miles and contains about 5 trillion gallons of water, according to a report by the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (pdf).  The aquifer is tapped by more than 400 public wells and 20,000 domestic wells.

Oklahoma has a history of drought, notably during the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s.  The Oklahoma Climatological Survey (pdf) has predicted the climate change will cause longer and more severe droughts across the state. But perhaps we too can have a plan for times of scarce water resources – one that reaches beyond staggered watering days during the summer months.

In future articles I will discuss sustainable strategies for water management, including reducing demand through conservation and efficiency; creating natural drainage systems to slow down the loss of water from urban areas and create natural boundaries for recreation and wildlife; reducing flood damage by protecting local wetlands; re-using water to recharge the water supply – even in a severe drought; and restoring damage done by toxic metals in polluted waterways.

For the next issue I will interview Utilities Director, Ken Komiske, and look more closely at the city of Norman’s water plan for the future of our community.

Asia Scudder is the owner of Zahori Landscapes.