What is all the fuss over this water issue about? Is it the haves verses the have nots? Is it Oklahoma verses Texas? Maybe it’s the water consumers verses the water viewers? Is it east verses west?
As I talk to each of you around the state, I hear many different stories about what we should do with our water. That’s right, I said it. The surface water in the state belongs to all the people of Oklahoma. The reason it belongs to you and me, and not just a handful of people, is because we have each paid for it. A little known fact, or at least it seems that way, is that we all paid for the lakes and waterways of Oklahoma.
The federal and state governments years ago came together to build lakes for a number of different reasons: hydropower, flood control, irrigation and even recreation. The lakes were funded with taxpayer money and were built for the benefit of all. Over time some lakes and the water rights have been leased for different uses. You might be surprised to know the lake water you boat, swim, fish and enjoy is generally leased out to an entity for a different use. Let’s look at some facts on water in Oklahoma.
Last year we let 35 million acre-feet of water out of our state. This was 35 million acre-feet of extra water we simply just let flow east. This was not on one lake or location. To put this number into perspective, you and your household general use about three acre-feet of water per year. If you look at the OWRB statistics, we used 1.8 million acre-feet last year to make the plumbing run and to drink an adequate amount of water.
To look at it a different way, all this dreaded talk about out-of-state water sales amounts to about 450,000 acre-feet of water per year. That leaves us with more than 2.5 million acre-feet of extra water. Lest you think this is an article about selling water out of state, think again; this is an article about how much water we have and how we are misusing it. No lake in the state of Oklahoma ever needs to be dry again. We have so much extra water that if we moved water around every single lake would always be full to the brim. Understand that! Your lake would always be full. It is past time we all understand what is going on. We have an abundance of a natural resource we are wasting and causing billions of dollars worth of economic harm. This absolute obsession to waste or hold onto some theory that you own the water and therefore, it is your right to waste it is inexcusable.
We need to have leaders who begin to lead on this issue and who do not listen to the nonsense that we don’t have enough to go around. We have billions of gallons or millions of acre-feet of the people’s water that needs to be utilized. I urge you to call your legislators and government leaders and ask them to take action on this critical issue.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing. – Theodore Roosevelt
